Rebecca’s Pick: Impossible Music by Sean Williams

Simon Rain is a musician. A budding rock star, if you will.
He’s got the guitar. He’s got the clothes. He’s got the long hair.

But one thing he doesn’t have: the ability to hear music. Not anymore.

Simon woke up one morning and he couldn’t hear anything. He had suffered a stroke in his sleep that left him permanently deaf.

He struggles to cope with his sudden deafness and we follow him as he experiences all of the stages of grief.

More than anything, though, Simon wants his life to continue as it was before. He had a plan – a purpose – with music, and if he loses that he knows he would lose himself.

Before the stroke Simon was going to college to study music. But how can someone who’s deaf play music they’ll never be able to hear? That’s where “Impossible Music” comes in. Simon believes he can still study music composition and proposes to the admissions professor the idea of creating music that no one can hear – the great equalizer.

“Impossible Music” becomes Simon’s obsession to hold on to the last vestiges of the person he was before his stroke.

Impossible Music (speaking now of the book, not the musical composition) was not a lighthearted story, but it was one that had a lot of compassion and caring. Simon’s plight was made easier with help from his family, who was struggling to learn right alongside him, and his friends – those that knew him before he became deaf and those he made at Deaf School. All of them played integral parts in his journey.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was a unique coming of age story that had sufficient character development in a few pages without feeling rushed and it was told through a lens that we don’t often see.