Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling true story that inspired the major motion picture—an “unforgettable tale of hope, heart and humanity”(People). Journalist Steve Lopez discovered of Nathaniel Ayers, a former classical bass student at Julliard, playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles’s Skid Row. Deeply affected by the beauty of Ayers’s music, Lopez took it upon himself to change the prodigy's life—only to find that their relationship would have a profound change on his own. “An intimate portrait of mental illness, of atrocious social neglect, and the struggle to resurrect a fallen prodigy.”—Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down