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 Our columnists wish they could look this good. BOOK REVIEW CONCERT COVER CAPITOL RECORDS Stop manspreading 2k15.