Broken Music: A Memoir (U)

Having been a songwriter most of my life, condensing my ideas and emotions into short rhyming couplets and setting them to music, I had never really considered writing a book. But upon arriving at the reflective age of fifty, I found myself drawn, for the first time, to write long passages that were as stimulating and intriguing to me as any songwriting I had ever done.And so Broken Music began to take shape. It is a book about the early part of my life, from childhood through adolescence, right up to the eve of my success with the Police. It is a story very few people know.I had no interest in writing a traditional autobiographical recitation of everything that s ever happened to me. Instead I found myself drawn to exploring specific moments, certain people and relationships, and particular events which still resonate powerfully for me as I try to understand the child I was, and the man I became. The Washington Post Broken Music isn't smarmy or pompous. Sting is a likable narrator, neither falsely modest nor proud beyond merit, and he writes with a self-deprecation that works. Sasha Frere-Jones