Denk, at the age of fifty-one, has written a book that shows what it’s like to be a pianist, but also what it’s like to be Jeremy Denk. As if that were not enough, it is also about the elements of music, and beyond that an account of the ways in which music and life mirror each other. It is a book like none other.

Every Good Boy Does Fine, has its share of private sorrow and family conflict. But for the most part this lucid and bittersweet coming-of-age story takes place inside the humdrum world of the studio.

This charming book explores how Denk became a master poet of music. At its heart, the memoir is about not the growth of the pianist but growth of the person.

A unique memoir. It is partly about his own life—a coming-of-age story refracted through the power of music—but it is also about his many years of lessons, and his teachers. Most popular narratives about music center on the finished product—the triumphant concert, the celebrated album—but Denk focuses instead on the far-less-glamorous process of becoming.

Every Good Boy Does Fine, is far more than an autobiography. In fact, it is the finest volume of its ambitious type that I’ve ever encountered.

Such writing, alert and alive, is characteristic of Denk.

Initially a short piece of the same title in the New Yorker, this expanded memoir plunges fully into the personal and professional delights and despairs of a life centered on learning and teaching music. In between Denk’s recounting of his personal history are chapters analyzing and ruminating on selected pieces of music...as illustrations of how melody, harmony, and rhythm build music that moves listeners emotionally.

Raucous.

With remarkable detail, the author recalls the countless hours of music lessons, as well as the demands of his parents and teachers, that helped shape him into a MacArthur-winning musician and frequent performer at Carnegie Hall.