PIANO GIRL: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian

Goldsby regales readers with stories from her 30 years as a cocktail lounge pianist in this vivacious memoir. Starting out in dreary roadhouse bars and motels during the 1970s, Goldsby eventually worked her way up to tonier venues: the Marriott Marquis and the Grand Hyatt in New York City, a posh resort in Haiti, castles in Europe. Along the way there were false starts—an audition for the circus, a few months singing in an ill-fated all-girl nightclub act, a stint as a piano-playing stripper. It's all the stuff of comedy for Goldsby, who has a wicked sense of humor and a keen eye for the absurd. Playing in a bar is great, she figures, because she can watch the never-ending show on the other side of the piano: the celebrities, nobodies, drunks, tipsy matrons, stalkers, music lovers and music haters, and a rogues' gallery of colorful misfits. She even finds humor in her replacement at the New York Marriott—a mannequin seated at a player-piano. She also has a touching affection for her assorted co-workers, who include a waiter who charms everyone with his "tragic optimism" after having been diagnosed with AIDS, a restroom attendant who sells designer dresses out of a toilet stall for the handicapped and a waitress whom Goldsby inspires to start her own career as a pianist. This is a bighearted, funny, truly eye-opening memoir. (May)