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ericfheiman 's review for:

4.0

On the surface, Unfaithful Music is just what you'd expect in a memoir by Elvis Costello—wordy (on occasion, excessively so), caustic, peripatetic, and passionate and knowledgeable about music.

More surprising, though, is how the book emerges as a touching ode to familial relationships, in all their forms and guises. Sure, music hums through everything Elvis writes about here, but the core of the book is really the relationship with his father who was also a musician and bandleader. The passages about Ross McManus's last days are some of the rawest, realest, and most touching words on death, dying and grief I've read in a long time.