Sounds Like Titanic A Memoir

Hailed as "outrageously funny" (O, The Oprah Magazine) and "deeply moving" (Los Angeles Review of Books), Sounds Like Titanic tells the story of how Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman became a fake violinist. Raised in rural Appalachia and struggling to pay college tuition in the big city, Hindman joins her first a professional ensemble. But the job is a sham: when the group "performs," the microphones are off while music blares from a hidden CD. On tour with this unique ensemble and its mysterious composer, Hindman "plays" for audiences genuinely moved by the performance but unable to distinguish real from fake. At once a coming-of-age memoir and an incisive articulation of modern anxieties of gender, class, and ambition, Sounds Like Titanic is "angry, merciless, empathetic . . . and] hugely entertaining" (Tom Bissell).

"A memoir of millennial economic ennui, a clever illustration of navigating impostor syndrome and the gig economy." -- @nytimesbooks

Sounds Like Titanic tells the unforgettable story of how Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman became a fake violinist. Struggling to pay her college tuition, Hindman accepts a dream position in an award-winning ensemble that brings ready money. But the ensemble is a sham. When the group performs, the microphones are off while the music--which sounds suspiciously like the soundtrack to the movie Titanic--blares from a hidden CD player. Hindman, who toured with the ensemble and its peculiar Composer for four years, writes with unflinching candor and humor about her surreal and quietly devastating odyssey. Sounds Like Titanic is at once a singular coming-of-age memoir about the lengths to which one woman goes to make ends meet and an incisive articulation of modern anxieties about gender, class, and ambition.