“Every mix tape tells a story,” Sheffield writes, which may not be a universal truth, but is certainly true in Rob Sheffield’s deft memoir, “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time.”
In this touching and frequently hilarious book, Sheffield structures each of the 15 chapters around a different mix tape. The chapter begins with song titles from the couple’s innumerable mixes — “Tapes for making out, tapes for dancing, tapes for falling asleep” — and uses them to describe the love story of “a real cool hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl” meeting in graduate school a “hermit wolfboy, scared of life, hiding in (his) room with (his) records.” They were in love with all kinds of music and, quickly, with each other.
They got married in 1991, at the University of Virginia chapel. The reception was at the Best Western down the street. Their wedding dance was Big Star’s “Thirteen.”
As they date, marry, and begin their life together, their story is joyful and lighthearted. Then you turn the page, Renee gets up from the sewing machine, and she dies of a pulmonary embolism. This tragedy doesn’t happen at the end of the story but in the middle, mimicking how it struck Sheffield in life — suddenly and devastatingly. Sheffield’s world collapsed. You won’t be surprised to learn that music helped pull him back together. The author’s grief and recovery are just as important to the story as the couple’s first date.
Sheffield also throws in a heartfelt eulogy for the unsung ’90s, “an open, free time of possibilities, changes we thought were permanent,” before radio lost its last vestige of non-homogenization, and Pavement was the greatest band of all time.”
Any reader who loves music and appreciates the silent ways that music can bring people together will respond warmly to this gentle reflection on love won and love irrevocably lost.
“They’re definitely connected to a specific time and a specific place,” Sheffield says. “A mix tape is something you spend a few hours (making), and there’s no way to fake that. ... It’s a fundamental human thing to share music with people.”