Lopez's The Soloist Not An Exploitation

For those of you who haven't read Steve Lopez's book The Soloist, I suggest you do so. Above is the trailer for the movie based on this extraordinary book about mental illness, friendship, music, and undying hope. Mr. Lopez is a journalist for The Los Angeles Times. He's looking for a story and just hasn't stumbled upon the right one yet.

Then he hears the music.

It's coming from a tunnel and it's being played by a messily-dressed, middle-aged homeless man. Mr. Lopez introduces himself to Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a once-promising student at Juilliard who dropped out after he was diagnosed with a crippling and incurable mental illness: paranoid schizophrenia. Lopez becomes fascinated by Nathaniel's story and decides he's found the subject of his next column. But it's not long before Lopez realizes that he feels more deeply for Nathaniel than a journalist should for his subject. He wants to help Nathaniel, get him off the streets and into treatment. They become friends, but their relationship is tumultuous. Nathaniel's mental illness rears its ugly head more than once, testing Lopez's ability to invest his emotions in someone so volatile.

After a while, Lopez starts to wonder about the effect Nathaniel's columns are having. He asks himself, "Everything I've written about Nathaniel is extremely personal, and yet I've shared it with thousands of readers. Have I exploited him? Is it possible for me to keep writing about him without doing so?" Someone on the outside could wonder this as well. Los Angeles' "Skid Row," the place where over 60,000 homeless spend their days, is not news. Its existence is widely known and, given the lack of political action, seemingly accepted.

But Lopez's columns are not exploitation. He does not see Nathaniel as a paycheck, as a means to writing great stories that put himself in the spotlight. He cares deeply for Nathaniel as a human, as a person. They become friends, and he goes above and beyond to give Nathaniel access to all the help he needs. I believe that exploitation is selfish, and nothing about Lopez's relationship with Ayers is such. In fact, Lopez ruminates, "I don't know whether, in the end, I'll have had as big an impact on Nathaniel's life as he will have had on mine." That seems to be the underlying vibe throughout the story. While it seems initially that Lopez sets out to make Nathaniel's life better, the roles are reversed by the end. Nathaniel unconsciously gives Lopez an introspection on his own life he never had before.

Theirs is a true story of friendship. There was no exploitation, and I hope The Soloist isn't criticized for the uplifting tale it tells.