Composer Adams, winner of the Pulitzer Prize...has crafted a joyous paean to friendship and Alaska in this radiant memoir ... Witty and boisterous, yet also profoundly heartfelt and poignant, Adams’ memoir is a record of great creativity and determined work that is bolstered by deep love of the wilderness. A singular title that should inspire and enchant in equal measure.
How can people best use their gifts, and what are their larger responsibilities in doing so? The memoir charts Adams’s decades living in Alaska... his youth as a full-time environmental activist, and the lifelong development of his music, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014. ...the memoir is ambiguous as to whether there’s such a thing as true autonomy, for art or individuals. Adams is laconic about his unhappy family ... it seems he might prefer to have sprung straight from the landscape...
“Silences So Deep” chronicles a humble and unusual but musically ambitious life. It is a generous work, full of wisdom about artistic vision and its association to place. Ironically, the most affecting aspect of a memoir ostensibly about a life lived apart is its portrayal of Mr. Adams’s enduring bonds with two dear friends. The fragile thread between connection and remove runs through the book’s pages.
