The love of Music and love of a Women

books:


	• More Than You Know Rosalyn Story Agate, 2004 - 382 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The love of Music and love of a Women

From Kansas City to New York L.J. Tillman take's us on a personl journey from the streets to the best clubs in Manhattan, Ms. Story love for each charcter come to life on each page, her knowledge of jazz makes you want to go to a night club every night to see L.J. Tillman play.

Waiting for the movie

I was so pleasantly surprised when I read More Than You Know. I know Roz as an excellent writer however I really had no idea she could write fiction. My thought in reading this was that the story would make a great film. So I'm waiting. I hope her cousin Tim Story who most recently directed Fantastic Four (2005)and Barber Shop (2002) has taken the time to read his cousins book. This could really be a family affair if he directed it.
steven meeks - dallas

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All Families Have Secrets

More Than You Know is about how keeping secrets can destroy the family. Rosalyn Story writes this tale using a series of flashbacks that conduct a wonderful symphony of music in the detail of her words. As the secrets begin to unravel, the supporting characters in the book shed light on their involvement in the continuation of the betrayal.

During one of the worst storms of the decade, a nine-year-old boy, L.J. Tillman, drops off a note and a baby, Olivia, to Big Mama's front door. Big Mama, Glodean, Country, Uncle Joon, and Clo T. share in the parenting of Olivia. Big Mama believes God delivered Olivia to them as an answer to years of prayer. Nearly 20 years later, that nine-year-old boy, L.J. Tillman is reintroduced to Olivia. They fall in love and get married. L.J. lives the ideal musicians life until he reveals a deep, dark family secret to Olivia.

She banishes him from the house forever not knowing that her wish may come true. Grief-stricken by his wife's outburst and dismissal from his dream job, L.J. turns to the bottle. Drinking and wallowing in despair, he plunges off an embankment landing in the river. He escapes the car and the city that doesn't want him by jumping a train to New York City.

New York City has little to offer a poor black man with a saxophone. He travels from corner to corner and park bench to homeless shelter playing his horn while living on the streets. One-day Covington, a jazz singer, turns him onto an open club spot. L.J. slowly starts piecing his life back together as this gig allows him to save a few dollars.

As the story unfolds, you learn that keeping secrets can tear a relationship apart and deepen your resolve to stay true to yourself. As Olivia learns bits and pieces of the truth, her heart opens and she realizes her purpose in life. But will her purpose and L.J.'s dream meet again?

Every family has at least one dark secret, but it is how you live with that knowledge which makes the difference. The development of characters, along with the use of flashbacks, will keep you turning the pages of this novel. The outcome was unexpected, yet heartwarming. Story has a gift for writing that is refreshing. It reminds me of the writings of Maya Angelou and Sonia Sanchez. Finally a saga about family that is not street or gang-related but focuses on down home folks. I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for her next book.

Reviewed by Monique for Loose Leaves Book Review

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Story and Song

This novel is one of exquisite beauty. The lyrically crafted narrative, which weaves vivid detail into a fluid and artful story, lends the novel an almost cinematic quality. It is at once haunting and hopeful, true to life, yet dream-like, at times. Once I picked the book up, I found myself unable to stop reading it until i had reached the end. The mysterious opening drew me in, and the symphonic blend of language, motifs and characters enveloped and held me. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to let themselves be transported, if only for a brief time, into its world of jazz and song; of memories and hope.

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Secret with Love

More Than You Know is a story about a family's secrets and love with suprising twists. The story will carry you between the past and the present. Very good read.

reviews: page 1, 2

This debut novel opens with a 9-year-old boy carefully bearing a tiny infant through a furious thunderstorm. Sworn to hide the baby's origins, he delivers the nameless child safely to the doorstep of an unaware family. Decades later, the boy, L.J. Tillman, has matured into a brilliant young jazz saxophonist and is happily married to Olivia, a promising singer who works as a beautician. When the secret L.J. has kept so faithfully is finally revealed, it tears apart his relationship with Olivia and starts a downward spiral that ends with him homeless and playing for pocket change on the streets of New York. For her part, the tormented Olivia, abandoned by L.J., sinks into depression.

More Than You Know is the elegantly crafted story of how this shattered couple rescues their marriage: shaken to the core, they discover that truth conforms to its own rules and that love can endure even the most profound injuries.

Rosalyn Story, herself a successful musician and writer about music, has created an emotionally consuming page-turner that delves deeply into the mysteries of family and marriage in rich, lyrical prose.

Rosalyn Story is a violinist with the Fort Worth Symphony and author of And So I Sing (Amistad, 1990), a nonfiction work about African American opera singers. More Than You Know is her first novel.

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