HIGH HOPES

Abel offers a memoir about how her decision to follow Bruce Springsteen on tour in Australia led to a transformative journey of healing and hope.

Having struggled with depression since she was a teenager, 59-year-old Abel had tried dozens of antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy, psychiatric hospital stays, and even transcranial magnetic stimulation—all with very limited success. However, when she reluctantly attended her first-ever concert in 2012, in her hometown of Philadelphia, the music of Springsteen helped her feel better than she ever had before. One year later, she quit her teaching position at a community college and flew to Australia to attend eight Springsteen concerts in an attempt to keep her depression from relapsing. On her trip, Abel experienced travel difficulties, found unexpected friendships, and made connections between music and everyday life, as when she compares skillful, steady drumming to a functional family: “A good family offers steady, reliable support to its members so that they can go off and try things, take risks, figure things out.” The things that she learned while abroad have an enormous impact on her life back home, prompting her to reevaluate certain relationships and challenge herself in new ways, as when she co-hosted a radio show as a guest. Over the course of this remembrance, Abel’s narrative voice is unadorned, but it’s always warm and honest—a reflection of the keen insights about life that she discovers through her journey. Some concert details (“Jake Clemons had a solo. Tom Morello had a solo”) are likely to interest only Springsteen fanatics. However, Abel largely grounds her story in her emotional discoveries, which gives the narrative a feeling of undeniable energy. She ultimately delivers an inspiring memoir for anyone questioning whether they have what it takes to move forward.

An earnest and straightforward personal account that serves as a reminder that it’s never too late to heal.