"Shuttling between 1967 and 2023, 'Earlier' is a record of relationships forming and sensibilities coming to life. Frere-Jones's prose floats between clinically precise fragments and a wide orbit of revelations, pleasures, and accidents. As music critic Alex Ross observes, "It is weird to write a book about yourself, as this book is well aware. Sasha Frere-Jones, a writer of nonchalant, rope-a-dope power, drops the illusion of self-knowledge and instead offers up a kaleidoscope of memory shards, faithful to the chaos of inner and outer worlds." 'Earlier' is fundamentally a musical book, rooted in the interaction of rhythm, line, and voice. The main characters are one place and three decades: New York City, as seen in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Begun in 2010, 'Earlier' was completed at the request of Deborah Homes, the mother of Frere-Jones's two sons. Holmes died in January 2021."--
