Community Singing

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce is a book club book.  It's a cute story and the characters are darlings.  The main character is Frank, who loves music, vinyl records, his mother and his independence.  He had a bohemian mother and always longed to be "normal."  Whatever that is.  But he idealized the perfect family and never achieved his ideal.  But he comes as close as anyone.  Then there's Ilse Brauchmann, who drives the readers and the story characters crazy with her mysterious identity.  When we do learn her story everything makes sense.  But that's when we lose her.  She goes home.

That was a terrible day.  The world ended for Frank.  His store, his life, his home, his business were all destroyed in a fire on the very day Ilse left.  Later we learn that Frank sank into the nether world.

In the background was a developer who constantly harassed the few businesses on Unity Street.  Father Anthony's religious goods store had little business.  Maud the tattoo artist barely made a living.  The Williams brothers owned a funeral home where no one was dying to get into. Kit worked for Frank and didn't seem fit for any other job. It was a sad street except for one important, redeeming feature.  These business owners loved what they were doing and loved and took care of each other.  They vowed never to move.

Then Ilse left.  The fire happened.  The stores on Unity Street sold to the developer.  And nothing was the same.

Ilse went home to her parents in Germany.  She makes a comfortable life and when her parents die, she reminisces.  She remembers Frank.  She wonders how everyone was doing.  Ilse takes a vacation to go back and look up her old friends. 

Evidently, Ilse never read Thomas Wolfe.  You can't go home again.  But Unity Street wasn't exactly home.  She wanted it to be, but that dream was burnt up.  When Ilse went to look up her old friends, they had all moved and she couldn't find them.  Then she coincidentally recognized a disc jockey's voice and found Kit.  Kit located Maud and Father Anthony.  They pieced together what they knew of Frank's whereabouts. 

It was sad.  Frank was working in a cheese and cracker factory.  This was entirely out of character for a man like Frank.  He had no home and once in a while could be found hanging around his old neighborhood and sleeping on the floor of his former store.  His old friends decided to help him.
Frank always ate lunch at the same place.  He loved music. So Frank's old neighbors plotted a Flash Mob.  People spontaneously would start singing Bach's "Alleluia".  That would get his attention!

Not only did it get his attention.  It got Ilse and Frank back together.  The neighborhood friends were happily reunited, very happily reunited.

The story ends with Frank and Ilse owning a music store together as man and wife.  And everyone lives happily ever after.

What's not to like with a story like that?