The true confessions of a working opera composer: an exhilarating story of “a life that comes out of chaos.”

At eight years old, Ricky Ian Gordon pulledThe Victor Book of Operaoff his piano teachers bookshelf, and his world shifted on its axis. Though scandal, sadness, and confusion would shake that world over the next few decades, its polestar remained constant. Music has been the guiding force of Gordons life; through it, he has been able not only to survive great sorrow but also to capture the depths of his emotion in song. It is this strength, this technical and visceral genius, that has made him one of our generations greatest composers.

InSeeing Through, Gordon writes with humor, insight, and incredible candor about his life and work: a tumultuous youth on Long Island, his artistic collaborations and obsessions, the creation of his compositions (includingThe Grapes of Wrath,27,Orpheus and Euridice,Intimate Apparel,Ellen West, and more), his addictions and the abuses he endured, and the loss of his partner to AIDS and the devastation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As Gordon writes of that period: We were, thousands of us, Lazarus. We had to rise from the ashes. We didnt have to rebuild our lives, we had to build new ones.

Gordon has succeeded in building a remarkable life, as well as a body of work that bears witness to all he survived in the processone that will endure as a pivotal chapter in America’s songbook.