HELP IS ON THE WAY

In this memoir/self-help book, a songwriter seeks to console and inspire readers.

In 1990, Friedman wrote a song called “Help Is on the Way,” performed by Nancy LaMott, about remaining hopeful even in times of difficulty. It would eventually become one of the anthems of the AIDS crisis. With this book, the author hopes to replicate that feat, offering a mix of stories, affirmations, and inspirational quotes to buoy those in need of a lift. Some of the wide-ranging tales come from Friedman’s personal life: his family history, his childhood, and his long career on Broadway and as a fixture of New York City’s cabaret scene. There was the time his father borrowed money from relatives to buy his own paint factory. “Talk about Help Is on the Way,” the author jokes, “almost everyone he asked contributed. Even his mother-in-law, who was living on a small, fixed income, reached into her ‘secret stash’ and gave him $10,000.” Or the time Friedman realized his attempts to force his singing voice to be a certain way was keeping him from discovering his voice’s natural tendencies. Only in being himself was he finally able to effectively sing. The author’s prose is conversational and unhurried, and his stories have an appealing, homilylike didacticism to them (attributable, perhaps, to his partner’s career as a nondenominational minister). Here, Friedman provides an explanation of humility: “What this means is that when you have a problem, you hand it over to someone or something that knows better than you how to resolve it. For example, when I have a broken toilet, I humbly call the plumber, because I know that the plumber knows how to fix it.” While many of the tales and quotes are pleasantly uplifting, the volume leans so hard into the eponymous song that it starts to become a distraction. The author mentions it frequently; the full lyrics appear twice in the work; and each chapter takes its title from a line in the song. Friedman also includes lyrics from some of his other songs in several of the chapter-ending quotation sections. There’s a recycled quality to all of this that suggests a lack of original thought. Encouraging anecdotes aside, it’s difficult to imagine the book finding a wide audience.

A sincere but uneven work for those weathering a crisis.