6A — Monday, January 26, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Sherm’s intricate
‘Unbecoming’

University alumnus

releases debut
mystery novel

By CAROLYN DARR

Daily Arts Writer

“The first lie Grace had told

Hanna was her name. ‘Bonjour,
je m’appelle Julie,’ Grace had
said. She’d been in Paris for
only a month and her French
was still new and stiff. She’d
chosen the name Julie because
it was sweet and easy on the
French tongue — much more so
than Grace was. The best lies
were the simplest and made the
most sense, in the mind and in
the mouth. These lies were the
easiest to swallow.”

Thus
begins
Rebecca

Scherm’s debut novel “Unbe-
coming,” and from there the
reader
must
follow
Grace

through all the lies as her past
is slowly revealed.

We are first introduced to

Grace, or Julie, in Paris, as a
young
American
expatriate

scraping out a living restoring
antiques at Zanzu et Filles. The
only time she allows herself to
think about her past is for a few
minutes each night when she
anxiously checks the Albemar-
le Record, the only newspaper
in her small home town of Gar-
land, Tennesse. Through the
lens of an a former classmate’s
reporting, she has followed the
arrest and subsequent incar-
ceration of Riley and Alls, the
love of her life and his best
friend.

Throughout
the
novel

Scherm takes her readers back
and forth between Grace’s

impoverished present in Paris
and her idyllic past in Garland,
where she met and fell in love
with Riley Graham in sixth
grade. She quickly became part
of the Graham family, with a
room made up especially for
her in the attic and Mrs. Gra-
ham becoming a beautiful and
elegant surrogate mother. The
Grahams
were
everything

Grace’s family wasn’t and she
quickly became accustomed
to the love she found in their
inner fold. Now, Riley and his
friend Alls are getting out of
prison and the truth is that the
fault for their convication lies
with Grace. Now she can never
come home or have any contact
with anyone from her past, liv-
ing with the constant fear that
her history will catch up with
her.

Scherm intricately arrang-

es her story, sanding off each
layer to reveal a different com-
plication underneath, much as

Grace painstakingly restores
the antique James Mont box
she finds in a Paris flea mar-
ket. As both a classic romance
and a scintillating mystery,
“Unbecoming” keeps readers
engrossed through a multi-
tude of twists and surprises.
Grace herself is an extremely
multilayered character, a self-
proclaimed liar that the reader
knows is untrustworthy from
the beginning. Yet, even as
more of her is revealed and her
good-girl veneer disintegrates,
Grace manages to hold your
interest, if only to find out if
she gets what is coming to her.

Scherm received her MFA

from the University and par-
ticipated in the Zell Fellows
Program as a post-graduate.
The author will be at Literati
Bookstore on Tuesday at 7
p.m. to celebrate the launch of
her novel and the beginning
of many readers’ journey into
Grace’s life and lies.

Sam Smith’s soulful
songs at Masonic

By GIBSON JOHNS

Daily Arts Writer

There was one point during

his Thursday show in Detroit
during
which
Sam
Smith

seemed like he might actually
still be lonely. After all, he had
announced his recent break-up
at a show in Toronto just two
days earlier. He was singing the
tender album cut “Good Thing”
and had everyone in the audi-
ence wondering if the song’s
lyrics (“Too much of a good
thing, won’t be good for long /
Although you made my heart
sing, to stay with you would be
wrong”) had almost become too
real, considering his presum-
ably still-open wounds.

But, as the song came to

a close and the audience’s
screaming reached new heights,
Smith couldn’t help but flash
his signature 100-watt smile.
It’s impossible to be lonely with
that much enthusiastic, unre-
lenting support.

Smith’s rise to the top ech-

elons of pop music has been
meteoric. After he performed
on “Saturday Night Live” last
March, he has had a string of
hits of his own (“Stay With
Me,” “I’m Not The Only One”)
that capitalized on the success
of a couple of high-profile fea-
tures
(Disclosure’s
“Latch,”

Naughty Boy’s “La La La”). He
played to a sold-out crowd at
Madison Square Garden earlier
this month, which is unheard
of for an artist that was virtu-
ally unknown less than a year
ago. In February, he’s up for
six Grammy awards, including
Best New Artist, which he’ll
almost surely win.

Last May, I saw Sam Smith

perform in Amsterdam, Neth-
erlands to a packed house in

a venue about a third of the
size of the Detroit Masonic
Temple. Though the splendor
and natural range of his voice
was shocking in a way that
hadn’t been apparent through
my iPod’s earbuds, there was
something missing from his
physical presence. For all the
ways that his voice filled the
room — it was truly something
I had never experienced before
in my entire life — his demean-
or was remarkably lacking and
timid. He didn’t move around
much on stage, and he avoided
interaction with the audience.

On Thursday, things could

not have been more different.
In just over half a year, Smith
had turned what had been a
major flaw in his potential into
a quality that has been instru-
mental to his success. Between
songs
he
was
endearingly

bashful.
His
high-pitched,

self-assured
speaking
voice

had everyone in the audience
— doe-eyed little girls, tipsy
mothers, adoring college stu-
dents, stoic elderly couples —
reeled-in and swooning over
his every word.

Throughout his 16-song set,

Smith was at the top of his game.
Dressed in black and white, he
effortlessly went from the low-
est of lows (the desperate plead-
ing of “Leave Your Lover” and
the heartbreaking accusations
of “I’m Not The Only One”) to
the highest of highs (the unwav-
ering confidence of “Money On
My Mind” and the revengeful
scorn of “Like I Can”) with-
out ever showing any signs of
burnout after his busy last 12
months. He danced in sync with
his backup singers, encouraged
crowd engagement and willing-
ly narrated the stories behind
his songs.

The
emotional
high-point

of the night came during his
three-song encore. “I refused to
end my album on a sad note,” he
said. “I wanted this next song
to be a love letter to my future
boyfriend, whoever he may be.”

He then started “Make It To

Me” a capella, sitting side-by-
side with his backup singers.
The moment was memorable
in its brutal, no-fuss honesty
that paired brilliantly with the
song’s hopeful lyrics. It proved
that Smith is an open book
when it comes to his music. He
may not share the most inti-
mate details of his life when he
speaks, but it’s OK. His silence
is made irrelevant by his lyrics.

Sam Smith is, admittedly, not

lonely anymore. He’s content
with where he is in life because,
even though he may not have
found someone to fall in love
with yet, if the line of adoring
fans that lined up around the
block three hours before his
show proved anything, there
are millions of people around
the world that have fallen in
love with him.

And that’s company enough

for one of the world’s biggest
pop stars.

REBECCA SHERM

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