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Losing Music
“I was in the car the first time music seemed strange: the instruments less distinct, the vocals less crisp.”
John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertigo that rendered him unable to walk, work, sleep, or even communicate. At a stage of life when he expected to be emerging fully into adulthood, teaching and writing books, he found himself “crippled and dependent,” and in search of care.
When he is first told that his debilitating condition is likely Ménière’s Disease, but that there is “no reliable test, no reliable treatment, and no consensus on its cause,” Cotter quits teaching, stops writing, and commences upon a series of visits to doctors and treatment centers. What begins as an expedition across the country navigating and battling the limits of the American healthcare system, quickly becomes something else entirely: a journey through hopelessness and adaptation to disability. Along the way, hearing aids become inseparable from his sense of self, as does a growing understanding that the possibilities in his life are narrowing rather than expanding. And with this understanding of his own travails comes reflection on age-old questions around fate, coincidence, and making meaning of inexplicable misfortune. A devastating memoir that sheds urgent, bracingly honest light on both the taboos surrounding disability and the limits of medical science, Losing Music is refreshingly vulnerable and singularly illuminating—a story that will make readers see their own lives anew.
John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertigo that rendered him unable to walk, work, sleep, or even communicate. At a stage of life when he expected to be emerging fully into adulthood, teaching and writing books, he found himself “crippled and dependent,” and in search of care.
When he is first told that his debilitating condition is likely Ménière’s Disease, but that there is “no reliable test, no reliable treatment, and no consensus on its cause,” Cotter quits teaching, stops writing, and commences upon a series of visits to doctors and treatment centers. What begins as an expedition across the country navigating and battling the limits of the American healthcare system, quickly becomes something else entirely: a journey through hopelessness and adaptation to disability. Along the way, hearing aids become inseparable from his sense of self, as does a growing understanding that the possibilities in his life are narrowing rather than expanding. And with this understanding of his own travails comes reflection on age-old questions around fate, coincidence, and making meaning of inexplicable misfortune. A devastating memoir that sheds urgent, bracingly honest light on both the taboos surrounding disability and the limits of medical science, Losing Music is refreshingly vulnerable and singularly illuminating—a story that will make readers see their own lives anew.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published April 11, 2023
About the author
John Cotter
10 books15 followersJohn Cotter’s first novel Under the Small Lights appeared in 2010 from Miami University Press. Previously, his short fiction and poetry have appeared in Volt, The Lifted Brow, Lost, and New Genre.
Poetry Editor for the review site Open Letters Monthly, Cotter has published critical work on contemporary novelists, poets, and translators.
Poetry Editor for the review site Open Letters Monthly, Cotter has published critical work on contemporary novelists, poets, and translators.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
May 27, 2023
I think of all the senses we have imagined losing in our worst nightmares, hearing comes up last. What would it be like? How would the world change for us? John Cotter is giving us a first-hand heartbreaking insight. After being diagnosed with Ménière's Disease - or rather after all the other possible diagnoses being excluded and being left with this vagueness, that a Ménière's is - he walks us through how the world contracts when the sense of hearing is (partially) lost.
It shows us how we lose intimacy, spatial perception, dignity, a job, and a future - how we become something else. A futureless being constantly feeling fear. Until we accept and the world becomes habitable again. In a new, albeit incomplete way.
This book touched me on a deeper level perhaps, than it would an ordinary reader, as I grew up in a family where one of its members had impaired hearing. It pained me to read how not hearing makes one feel excluded, how it cuts away the whispers, being part of the jolly company and keeping up with the banter and how making a phone call is always a dangerous road that could lead to frustration. An important book. A good memoir.
It shows us how we lose intimacy, spatial perception, dignity, a job, and a future - how we become something else. A futureless being constantly feeling fear. Until we accept and the world becomes habitable again. In a new, albeit incomplete way.
This book touched me on a deeper level perhaps, than it would an ordinary reader, as I grew up in a family where one of its members had impaired hearing. It pained me to read how not hearing makes one feel excluded, how it cuts away the whispers, being part of the jolly company and keeping up with the banter and how making a phone call is always a dangerous road that could lead to frustration. An important book. A good memoir.
August 10, 2023
I’m lucky this book showed up in my life when it did. (And in a strange twist, this was one of several books I purchased a few weeks ago at Elliott Bay Book Co. in Seattle — another being an essay collection by Elisa Gabbert. It was only later that I realized she’s married to Cotter.)
I have lived with hearing loss since at least age 4. Mine, like Cotter’s (and like most hearing loss) is mysterious and I’ve yet to meet a doctor who can tell me why I have it. Unlike Cotter, though, I don’t experience vertigo and dizziness in addition to my hearing loss. So in many ways I cannot fathom what he’s been through, not really, but I’m still so grateful to have read his words on the subject. Cotter writes sincerely and beautifully about coping with a new medical condition - a new disability - and the myriad ways our bodies can surprise (and sometimes terrify) us. It’s a lovely book.
And it was such a fitting read for a moment when I learned I have a tumor in my lung, one that’s likely been there for decades. It’s strange and miraculous how my hearing loss is such a refuge right now: a known unknown. Strange how grateful I am for it, how vividly I can see the ways it helps me. Cotter’s book only bolstered this sense, and was a faithful companion in a time of hospital waiting rooms and medical tests and endless appointments. Cotter reminded me: We get through things, of course we do. We are so very lucky to be here.
I have lived with hearing loss since at least age 4. Mine, like Cotter’s (and like most hearing loss) is mysterious and I’ve yet to meet a doctor who can tell me why I have it. Unlike Cotter, though, I don’t experience vertigo and dizziness in addition to my hearing loss. So in many ways I cannot fathom what he’s been through, not really, but I’m still so grateful to have read his words on the subject. Cotter writes sincerely and beautifully about coping with a new medical condition - a new disability - and the myriad ways our bodies can surprise (and sometimes terrify) us. It’s a lovely book.
And it was such a fitting read for a moment when I learned I have a tumor in my lung, one that’s likely been there for decades. It’s strange and miraculous how my hearing loss is such a refuge right now: a known unknown. Strange how grateful I am for it, how vividly I can see the ways it helps me. Cotter’s book only bolstered this sense, and was a faithful companion in a time of hospital waiting rooms and medical tests and endless appointments. Cotter reminded me: We get through things, of course we do. We are so very lucky to be here.
January 16, 2023
After reading this heart-wrenching memoir, there is little chance of one taking the simple privilege of everyday hearing for granted. When the mysterious symptoms that turn out to be Meniere’s disease encroach upon up-and-coming college professor and writer John Cotter’s soul-satisfying work and domestic life, its degrading effects on his hearing and sense of balance slam down an unwanted wall between his aspirations and feelings and strengths on the inside and the world beyond of friends, neighbors, and strangers that he has always grabbed such joy and facility in communing with. An ill-understood condition, Meniere’s drives the dispirited Mr. Cotter to pursue any number of clinics and clinicians across the country for helps in dealing with this isolating “new normal” of greatly diminished hearing and unpredictable bouts of vertigo. While a beneficial exercise for him in terms of self-education in coping skills and in forging relationships, his trek reveals that too many of the professionals lack empathy or answers, and the memoirist, with the aid and abetting of wife and soulmate Elisa, rolls with the punches. Mr. Cotter is a grounded and reflective narrator of these struggles, and he envelops the reader in grieving for the losses, little and big, as well as rejoicing in his numerous hard-won but successful adaptations, and concurrent optimism for what is to come. An added bonus: his historical anecdotes about changing attitudes and outlooks towards Meniere’s can be as entertaining as they are, at other times, flummoxing. Losing Music is the outstanding work of a straightforward memoirist with a wry sense of humor who feels very much like a good friend.
August 29, 2023
This is a beautiful and at times heart-wrenching book about Cotter's journey so far through Ménière's disease, the condition that has gradually taken/is gradually taking his hearing and periodically sends him into waves of nauseating vertigo. It is meticulously written and constructed, from poignant reflections on what he has lost, through gripping notes on what he fears (and the weight he fears he places on his cherished wife), and into diversions such as a deep-dive on Jonathan Swift, who possibly or likely also experienced Ménière's disease; Cotter introduces the genre of "Ménière's criticism" (my term, not his) with his critique of Gulliver's Travels through this lens. His essays touch on shame and disability, anger and fear, through his own travels from Denver to Boston to a writing residency in coastal Maine and another in a Southern Colorado fort-turned-homeless-shelter—the latter an apt metaphor for his sense of displacement in the world he used to take for granted. As Cotter passes from his thirties into his forties and tries to imagine the gulf beyond, it also serves as a meditation on aging that anyone (of a certain age, anyhow) can relate to, and a meditation on disability in general for anyone touched by it.
Cotter's writing is deliberate and dramatic, poetic and what modern readers may view as pretentious. He clings tenaciously to an old-fashioned syntax and vocabulary, although it is authentic to him and his capacious, old-fashioned mind (I've worked with him and that's just how he IS). He selects words for their mellifluence and layers of meaning, not modern usage; thus it is "macadam" and not "asphalt" or "pavement" beneath his tires on the way to Albuquerque, although I would posit that not many Coloradans or New Mexicans born after 1910 would even consider referring to it that way. You might choose an ebook to be able to easily look up unfamiliar words, but don't tell Cotter; he would likely prefer a vintage dictionary on a stand, although sadly, he would only have to imagine the sound of the pages turning.
That said, it isn't tough to read -- I found myself only stopping reading when I was starting to doze off from the late hour and finished it quickly in three sittings.
"Most of the time I could keep all this [former life] in my head without mourning it, but that accomplished, I couldn't make it mean anything. I was between narratives. I didn't have a story for myself. Everything came apart when I fell ill; now I was a little better, for no understandable reason, and could fall ill again at any time, for no understandable reason. Biology wanted me to dwell on this, to constantly review it: the amygdala is surrounded by the hippocampus—our flight-or-fight-or-freeze responses surrounded by the part of the brain that controls narrative memory. Who was this self of mine—what was his story?" (p. 180)
"Insinuation, sex. The old man who sat down beside me on a bench with a drink on the Santa Monica pier. Like my barista, he barely moved his lips when he spoke ("You're old enough to drive Oscar Wilde"). Action items I murmured into the throats of girls at clubs. Instructions in the dark. It wasn't that long ago. Stubbornly, it feels like I was someone else. I'm someone else now." (p. 194)
"In the months that followed, the nightmare of spinning, I caught my brain rolling back—loose as my eyes in their sockets—to moments I wished I might have lived over. My childhood .... The pages I should have filled. The raw wasted time. I consoled myself that at least I'd learn all that could be learned about the disease—or collection of diseases catalogued uneasily under the name of one nineteenth century Parisian.... Following my visit to Fort Lyon, learning firsthand the way bad luck can alter the chemistry of the brain, I came to understand how this condition, the force of it, had denatured me. I accepted that the lost time was now lost, that the possibilities remaining in my life were narrower. (All of this took time; all of this was attrition.) What I took to be triage ... was in fact the scaffolding of my new life. ... I had to choose the way I'd be in the world with [it]." (p. 267-9)
Cotter's writing is deliberate and dramatic, poetic and what modern readers may view as pretentious. He clings tenaciously to an old-fashioned syntax and vocabulary, although it is authentic to him and his capacious, old-fashioned mind (I've worked with him and that's just how he IS). He selects words for their mellifluence and layers of meaning, not modern usage; thus it is "macadam" and not "asphalt" or "pavement" beneath his tires on the way to Albuquerque, although I would posit that not many Coloradans or New Mexicans born after 1910 would even consider referring to it that way. You might choose an ebook to be able to easily look up unfamiliar words, but don't tell Cotter; he would likely prefer a vintage dictionary on a stand, although sadly, he would only have to imagine the sound of the pages turning.
That said, it isn't tough to read -- I found myself only stopping reading when I was starting to doze off from the late hour and finished it quickly in three sittings.
"Most of the time I could keep all this [former life] in my head without mourning it, but that accomplished, I couldn't make it mean anything. I was between narratives. I didn't have a story for myself. Everything came apart when I fell ill; now I was a little better, for no understandable reason, and could fall ill again at any time, for no understandable reason. Biology wanted me to dwell on this, to constantly review it: the amygdala is surrounded by the hippocampus—our flight-or-fight-or-freeze responses surrounded by the part of the brain that controls narrative memory. Who was this self of mine—what was his story?" (p. 180)
"Insinuation, sex. The old man who sat down beside me on a bench with a drink on the Santa Monica pier. Like my barista, he barely moved his lips when he spoke ("You're old enough to drive Oscar Wilde"). Action items I murmured into the throats of girls at clubs. Instructions in the dark. It wasn't that long ago. Stubbornly, it feels like I was someone else. I'm someone else now." (p. 194)
"In the months that followed, the nightmare of spinning, I caught my brain rolling back—loose as my eyes in their sockets—to moments I wished I might have lived over. My childhood .... The pages I should have filled. The raw wasted time. I consoled myself that at least I'd learn all that could be learned about the disease—or collection of diseases catalogued uneasily under the name of one nineteenth century Parisian.... Following my visit to Fort Lyon, learning firsthand the way bad luck can alter the chemistry of the brain, I came to understand how this condition, the force of it, had denatured me. I accepted that the lost time was now lost, that the possibilities remaining in my life were narrower. (All of this took time; all of this was attrition.) What I took to be triage ... was in fact the scaffolding of my new life. ... I had to choose the way I'd be in the world with [it]." (p. 267-9)
March 18, 2026
tl;dr the existential despair of a chronic illness's worsening is laid bare in Cotter's affecting account of hopelessness, the shortcomings of medicine, and what acceptance might look like
The symptoms of Ménière's Disease don't quite fit what Cotter was experiencing in his late thirties; the tinnitus, yes; the hearing loss, yes; the vertigo, yes; but the hearing loss was variable; no, it was not subjective, because the tests indicate as much; if no answer is given, well, onto the next specialist who won't accept tests from other facilities, or the next overworked GP who works to eliminate other possibilities rather than finding the answer, or just the next person who will listen and acknowledge what Cotter is going through.
John Cotter's frustration extends beyond just the American medical system (which is certainly imperfect); it seems that medicine itself is unable to find a clean diagnosis, an answer to his problems, which may also beget a cure, or even consistent treatment of symptoms. It's something that chronic illness sufferers must endure (raises hand); being told to go from test to test to specialist to specialist in some process of extensive ruling out that only ends up raising more questions is, in the weakest terms possible, incredibly frustrating. The wonders of the medical system, the seemingly ceaseless march of progress, has resulted in this 21st century hodgepodge humiliation ritual.
Cotter leaves no experience unturned. One incredible episode uncovers a medical-system possibility that I hadn't even begun to consider: he sees an audiologist at the much-revered Mayo Clinic (which he cites that a majority of Americans would visit if money weren't an option), and is diagnosed with a condition, sent to a physical therapist, and undergoes a strange sort of treatment that may or may not work, because the PT says of course that audiologist diagnosed him with that condition, he invented it.
The change in his condition leads to a new, somber awareness of our own construction of intimacy; one enlightening observation is the relationship of intimacy to the lowering of speech volume. A woman tries to divulge information about her kid, but Cotter's deafness makes this form of intimacy impossible. A barista tries to gossip about their work; friends at dinner tell each other secrets; all of this is lost to Cotter.
The hopelessness comes with loneliness, which portions of the book are devoted to him trying to assuage. He finds a kindred spirit in Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, establishing a connection across history, feeling less alone, less misunderstood. He also does a stint in an unincorporated community in Colorado, where he learns to deal with pain alongside others. When his condition allows, he teaches storytelling to a class of immigrants, listening to stories of loss, that universal piece of humanity.
John Cotter doesn't choose to explain what a path to acceptance might look like. I think that his messy account of a messy human experience doesn't warrant a tidy conclusion. His version of going forward feels just as uncertain as his diagnosis allows him to be. That's real as hell; humans aren't owed tomorrow; in many ways we're barely allowed today. How to forge a "path" of acceptance if we aren't afforded a future to begin with? Best we can do is be open to the possibility of the future, while living each day, hour, minute, as it comes, the very best alongside the people in our lives who matter most.
“Do you know about the sympathetic nervous system? Do this—next time your heart is racing, do this.” She makes a temple of her fingers above her chest, both hands, lets them rise and fall against her chest like she’s miming the beat of her own heart. “Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Just like that, lub-dub. One beat per second. That’s resting heart rate. If both your arms are as high as your chest—both elbows up, like this—your heart will slow down.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s all connected. It’s sympathetic.”
“I mean why me?”
The symptoms of Ménière's Disease don't quite fit what Cotter was experiencing in his late thirties; the tinnitus, yes; the hearing loss, yes; the vertigo, yes; but the hearing loss was variable; no, it was not subjective, because the tests indicate as much; if no answer is given, well, onto the next specialist who won't accept tests from other facilities, or the next overworked GP who works to eliminate other possibilities rather than finding the answer, or just the next person who will listen and acknowledge what Cotter is going through.
John Cotter's frustration extends beyond just the American medical system (which is certainly imperfect); it seems that medicine itself is unable to find a clean diagnosis, an answer to his problems, which may also beget a cure, or even consistent treatment of symptoms. It's something that chronic illness sufferers must endure (raises hand); being told to go from test to test to specialist to specialist in some process of extensive ruling out that only ends up raising more questions is, in the weakest terms possible, incredibly frustrating. The wonders of the medical system, the seemingly ceaseless march of progress, has resulted in this 21st century hodgepodge humiliation ritual.
Cotter leaves no experience unturned. One incredible episode uncovers a medical-system possibility that I hadn't even begun to consider: he sees an audiologist at the much-revered Mayo Clinic (which he cites that a majority of Americans would visit if money weren't an option), and is diagnosed with a condition, sent to a physical therapist, and undergoes a strange sort of treatment that may or may not work, because the PT says of course that audiologist diagnosed him with that condition, he invented it.
The change in his condition leads to a new, somber awareness of our own construction of intimacy; one enlightening observation is the relationship of intimacy to the lowering of speech volume. A woman tries to divulge information about her kid, but Cotter's deafness makes this form of intimacy impossible. A barista tries to gossip about their work; friends at dinner tell each other secrets; all of this is lost to Cotter.
The hopelessness comes with loneliness, which portions of the book are devoted to him trying to assuage. He finds a kindred spirit in Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, establishing a connection across history, feeling less alone, less misunderstood. He also does a stint in an unincorporated community in Colorado, where he learns to deal with pain alongside others. When his condition allows, he teaches storytelling to a class of immigrants, listening to stories of loss, that universal piece of humanity.
John Cotter doesn't choose to explain what a path to acceptance might look like. I think that his messy account of a messy human experience doesn't warrant a tidy conclusion. His version of going forward feels just as uncertain as his diagnosis allows him to be. That's real as hell; humans aren't owed tomorrow; in many ways we're barely allowed today. How to forge a "path" of acceptance if we aren't afforded a future to begin with? Best we can do is be open to the possibility of the future, while living each day, hour, minute, as it comes, the very best alongside the people in our lives who matter most.
April 22, 2023
Simultaneously raw and thoughtful, straightforward and contemplative, Losing Music is a beautiful, poetic portrait of navigating the (in one chapter literally) frozen hellscape of diagnosis and cure-hunting. The narrative is frank and intense, and as the music of the surrounding world ebbs away I noticed the music of the prose — a dab of assonance here, a prickly, surprising image there — growing louder.
July 12, 2023
Almost worth five stars. Learned a lot about hearing loss. Always thought it was something that got quieter and quieter over time, but not I understand better what my dad has been going through, why he was always so angry at us begging him to use his hearing aids, and why he was so desperate for a cochlear implant. With this new awareness, it’ll be easier to be more compassionate toward the Deaf and hearing impaired.
March 23, 2025
Music is a giant part of my life, so the way John Cotter describes his loss of hearing would destroy me. I thank him for writing his experiences and for showing the world that no matter how highly educated some scientists and doctors are, there is always something new to research. It also portrays just how fucked up the healthcare system is. Always advocate for yourself. And I believe that John Cotter does and always will.
I really did want to love this book, and in a sense I think I do! However, there is a lot of reference to literature, science, and historical background that made this book take a turn, and it just didn’t do it for me. I definitely have more respect and appreciation for things that seem so normal but can get taken for granted easily.
I really did want to love this book, and in a sense I think I do! However, there is a lot of reference to literature, science, and historical background that made this book take a turn, and it just didn’t do it for me. I definitely have more respect and appreciation for things that seem so normal but can get taken for granted easily.
June 18, 2023
Disclaimer up front: I know John from when he ran Open Letters Monthly, but that has no bearing on how affecting I found this book. This is his story about going deaf owing to a not-quite-diagnosable disease that's a lot like Ménière's but not quite, and how it affected his life, work, relationships. Insightful and beautifully written, one of my best of the year so far. Highly recommended.
August 7, 2025
Great, somewhat heartbreaking read. The story of an invisible illness, the search for an explanation, desperation for relief, some denial and a ride on the roller coaster between hope and hopelessness. It’s a story of experiences that are hard to imagine and somehow familiar.
July 27, 2025
incredibly touching! heard john cotter give a reading of one of his new books earlier this month and i was immediately hooked on his prose—this definitely lived up to that. a story that doesn’t give you a list of reasons why *not* to give up, but rather all the reasons you might want to, and why they cower in comparison to the beautiful things still available in this life.
October 23, 2026
While I think it is important to understand the experience of hearing loss, this book was a little too depressing for me overall and at times more graphic than I could handle.
November 8, 2022
"Following my visit to Fort Lyon, learning firsthand the way bad luck can alter the chemistry of the brain, I came to understand how this condition, the force of it, had denatured me. I accepted that the lost time was now lost, that the possibilities remaining in my life were narrower. (All of this took time; all of this was attrition.) What I took to be triage--hearing aids, a pocketful of valium, time each day to rest--was in fact the scaffolding of my new life. And if the body is the self, if the body is the mind, then the hearing aids behind my ears and the lassitude that fell on me and the sounds in my head were my new bones and skin. I had to choose the way I'd be in the world with them" (269).
November 14, 2025
John Cotter used to be a high school teacher (me too). John Cotter is intensely existential (me too). John Cotter tells beautiful stories about what happened to him as he was losing one of his senses and how it undoes so much of what he thought he knew about health and treatment and care and questions (me too). John Cotter is also a phenomenal writer (I am trying).
What messed me up in such the right way in this one was Cotter's meditation on dependence and what it means to have to give something up so that others can help. Maybe I am reading myself into his memoir, but the difficulty of admitting weakness and the struggle to accept help is a perennial story I may never tire of because I won't let myself be helped. It is some strange kind of comfort to find other people in the world who not only have a similar experience but can also turn around and tell the story. The carnality alone deserves awards; Mary Karr must have been praying while dancing spells for this guy as he was writing.
The chapter on the Mayo Clinic with his mother had me in tears throughout, making reading difficult but necessary to continue. It perfectly captured his free fall into learning to depend on others in a way I think many men—even us too-sensitive men who are pedagogues and academic weirdos and too intense for most people—are just now noticing and naming we've been taught not to do but that we must do in order to survive ourselves. And we are lucky as sin that John Cotter wrote it all down. This is like having breadcrumbs to follow through our own experiences of loss, lament, and living despite our unresolvable un/brokenness.
What messed me up in such the right way in this one was Cotter's meditation on dependence and what it means to have to give something up so that others can help. Maybe I am reading myself into his memoir, but the difficulty of admitting weakness and the struggle to accept help is a perennial story I may never tire of because I won't let myself be helped. It is some strange kind of comfort to find other people in the world who not only have a similar experience but can also turn around and tell the story. The carnality alone deserves awards; Mary Karr must have been praying while dancing spells for this guy as he was writing.
The chapter on the Mayo Clinic with his mother had me in tears throughout, making reading difficult but necessary to continue. It perfectly captured his free fall into learning to depend on others in a way I think many men—even us too-sensitive men who are pedagogues and academic weirdos and too intense for most people—are just now noticing and naming we've been taught not to do but that we must do in order to survive ourselves. And we are lucky as sin that John Cotter wrote it all down. This is like having breadcrumbs to follow through our own experiences of loss, lament, and living despite our unresolvable un/brokenness.
October 18, 2023
dnf’d about halfway.
as you know if you read the book, it takes years to get a meniere’s diagnosis.
I’m 26, and within the last couple of years, I’ve experienced, to a fairly strong degree, all of the same symptoms as Cotter, and, it seems, more hearing loss.
I took 13 years of piano lessons, and piano used to be so core to my identity. you can imagine my elation at finding a book to relate to in this way.
I empathize with Cotter, I do. but all that I read here felt so whiny and self-piteous, I just couldn’t do it.
this reads like the story of someone who has never faced adversity once in his entire life suddenly encountering a challenge and handling it rather gracelessly. Cotter does point out his own privilege in this regard, so at least he recognizes it.
I guess I’m glad this book exists, and for anyone feeling like Cotter, I’m sure there is hope and connection to be found in this book.
as for me, though, I couldn’t handle the whole woe-is-me tone that characterizes this book.
as you know if you read the book, it takes years to get a meniere’s diagnosis.
I’m 26, and within the last couple of years, I’ve experienced, to a fairly strong degree, all of the same symptoms as Cotter, and, it seems, more hearing loss.
I took 13 years of piano lessons, and piano used to be so core to my identity. you can imagine my elation at finding a book to relate to in this way.
I empathize with Cotter, I do. but all that I read here felt so whiny and self-piteous, I just couldn’t do it.
this reads like the story of someone who has never faced adversity once in his entire life suddenly encountering a challenge and handling it rather gracelessly. Cotter does point out his own privilege in this regard, so at least he recognizes it.
I guess I’m glad this book exists, and for anyone feeling like Cotter, I’m sure there is hope and connection to be found in this book.
as for me, though, I couldn’t handle the whole woe-is-me tone that characterizes this book.
September 7, 2026
”What I feared losing—the catastrophe that the roaring shadowed forth—wasn't just a series of structured sounds, but the world those sounds created, a world you could live inside: Bach on a snowy afternoon, hard blues on a long night's drive, the background mood in a restaurant or at a party (or, increasingly, any public space not yet colonized by ESPN on flatscreen TVs). Music is color. When you're young you're the hero of a movie, and the Heifetz you play in your car or the Velvet Underground you first try out sex to isn't just background, it's location and weather. You feel it on your skin.”
The worst part of this book is its title. Yes, it gets at a decent chunk of what John Cotter is writing about in this memoir - mainly his experience with the rare inner ear disorder known as Meniere's disease (which causes vertigo and sometimes hearing loss). But also the book is much much wider than its title implies - it’s about how isolating it can be become to develop a chronic condition, how disability impacts your identity, a mini history of the 19th century French doctor Prosper Menière, and another mini history of Jonathan Swift who potentially has the same disorder as Cotter.
So much of this book is just not captured in its title which sucks because it makes you think at first that it will be more or less a run of the mill sickness memoir. Cotter even points out how conditioned we are on these types of stories:
”We're primed to expect one family of sickness story: descent and reemergence. This story may have two species, but both share traits. In one, the sufferer succumbs. If they were ready to go, that's a blessing; if they struggled, they fought bravely.
The other species of story is told by the sufferer. Here, the victim suffers, seeks healers, learns the way to health, and emerges with lessons, self-knowledge, advice. This is the afternoon talk-show strain, the Louise Hay.”
I think if the presentation of this book (especially the title) was tweaked a little, it would entice so many more readers than it currently has. The wide net Cotter casts (alongside his great prose) is my favorite part of this book, but sometimes it does go too far. There are some sections where Cotter spends times interviewing homeless individuals and then teaches a class on refugees. He does tries to weave these stories back to his journey with hearing loss, but the connections he makes are a reallll stretch. These bits honestly would have worked so much better as part of an essay collection or something like that.
My nitpicks aside this is still a really well-crafted and researched memoir that sheds light on a disease that deserves so much more recognition than it currently gets. Check it out!
May 4, 2023
I expected to like this book but thought it would be so wrenching as to make it a slow read. I expected to read some, say to myself, “God, I can’t process this, too much” and then return here and there. It is wrenching, but I blew through it, returning with anticipation. You feel little is held back and the writing is artfully balanced between the colloquial and the poetic (with some striking turn of phrase worth underlying every few pages); there’s a vibe of his unending frustration—with his insubordinate body and the bothered personalities reacting to it—provoking him to frankness that’s in combat with the boy who memorizes and mentally recites Shakespeare as a salve. Mirroring the balance in the language, the narrative smoothly shifts between interesting departures into topics such as the ethics of School of Mining engineers and the fragile dynamics of directing one’s spouse in a play. It functions as a traditional memoir as well a meditation on disability.
Cotter references Richard III comparing his prison cell to the world, an analogy which might encapsulate the entire book. The book’s acutely emotional experience turns on him putting you in his shoes in a way that should not be taken for granted—not just the symptoms and losses, but the grief attendant to the losses. I frequently represent clients in disability cases and now re-evaluate whether I really understood what they go through in the way I thought. The book explores the functioning and persona of physicians is an insightful way, and I hope as many physicians as possible find their way to reading it.
Cotter’s father, who was afflicted with alcoholism, looms on every page without being mentioned that often. There’s a book-length analogy (intended or not, but I think intended) between the disease and life with a (demanding, overbearing) alcoholic—the capriciousness, the cruel randomness, things fading in an out, not knowing what’s coming, not being able to really pin down what’s even happening. Bill O’Reilly talks loud and clear, and so does this subtext.
The book may be solicitous of sympathy (& why shouldn’t it be?) but it decidedly does not seek to flatter the author or cast him as a hero—but I think the reader, unprompted, will cast him as a hero, and I hope that’s a nice surprise for Mr. Cotter.
Cotter references Richard III comparing his prison cell to the world, an analogy which might encapsulate the entire book. The book’s acutely emotional experience turns on him putting you in his shoes in a way that should not be taken for granted—not just the symptoms and losses, but the grief attendant to the losses. I frequently represent clients in disability cases and now re-evaluate whether I really understood what they go through in the way I thought. The book explores the functioning and persona of physicians is an insightful way, and I hope as many physicians as possible find their way to reading it.
Cotter’s father, who was afflicted with alcoholism, looms on every page without being mentioned that often. There’s a book-length analogy (intended or not, but I think intended) between the disease and life with a (demanding, overbearing) alcoholic—the capriciousness, the cruel randomness, things fading in an out, not knowing what’s coming, not being able to really pin down what’s even happening. Bill O’Reilly talks loud and clear, and so does this subtext.
The book may be solicitous of sympathy (& why shouldn’t it be?) but it decidedly does not seek to flatter the author or cast him as a hero—but I think the reader, unprompted, will cast him as a hero, and I hope that’s a nice surprise for Mr. Cotter.
February 5, 2024
Facing a mysterious acoustic / audio concern of my own for more than a year now (and a genetic history of Meniere's), I approached John Cotter's "Losing Music" with considerable trepidation (even though mine does not nearly approximate the severity of Cotter's). At the same time, how often does an opportunity present itself — outside of the WebMD spiral, doom-scrolling forums on Tinnitus Talk or other research-journal wish-casting / detective work — to read about someone's experience in this way? Something philosophical rather than medical, contemplative rather than curative? I am forever grateful for Cotter's work and moving past my misgivings about reading it. On one hand, I've never seen a more sobering, accurate depiction of the abject misery of audiological healthcare — perhaps the corner of the healthcare industry propped up most by answers that perpetuate the racing mind of wonder and mystery while doing little to ameliorate physical misery. On the other, Cotter's own contemplation of the medical dead-end so many face sparked within me a consideration of the grace afforded to the future life of which I yet have no knowledge. One of the book's many beauties is that you (or someone you know) need not have a similar experience, as it speaks to a universality of loss and how you define it but also — and this is crucial — the discovery it can inspire. This isn't treacly self-help empowerment. It is practical, everyday perspective, with a sense of humor as wicked as its strategies are wise.
April 3, 2026
At age thirty, Cotter began to suffer from debilitating tinnitus, vertigo, and hearing loss. This is his account of the years he spent seeking medical help, questioning his identity, and struggling with depression. He spent years trying to figure out what he had done to deserve hearing loss, a common theme that has been considered received wisdom for centuries.
but unless there is a clear cause-and-effect relationship, such as when someone plays with a firecracker and blows off their hand, the "why" of a disability ol illness is as random and indifferent as anything else that occurs in nature.
The book chronicles his uneasy acceptance of life with a disability. Refreshingly honest, Cotter doesn't try to present his story as a feel-good source of inspiration. He shares his story so that other people dealing with similar confusing symptoms might have more realistic information than he had.
Cotter writes insightfully about how society tries to fix disabled people, giving them devices that make them stand out, warehousing them in separate schools or spaces, and failing to build accessibility into the environment.
In a world that too often settles for melodrama and happy endings when it comes to stories of people who became disabled rather than being born that way, this book highlights the ambivalence and ambiguity that accompany such changes.
but unless there is a clear cause-and-effect relationship, such as when someone plays with a firecracker and blows off their hand, the "why" of a disability ol illness is as random and indifferent as anything else that occurs in nature.
The book chronicles his uneasy acceptance of life with a disability. Refreshingly honest, Cotter doesn't try to present his story as a feel-good source of inspiration. He shares his story so that other people dealing with similar confusing symptoms might have more realistic information than he had.
Cotter writes insightfully about how society tries to fix disabled people, giving them devices that make them stand out, warehousing them in separate schools or spaces, and failing to build accessibility into the environment.
In a world that too often settles for melodrama and happy endings when it comes to stories of people who became disabled rather than being born that way, this book highlights the ambivalence and ambiguity that accompany such changes.
April 19, 2023
This is an incredible memoir about a little-known and poorly understood disease. It’s not the standard there-and-back-again sickness story, and it’s not made for the afternoon talk-shows and inspirational posters, dripping with self-knowledge and advice like so many illness narratives. Losing Music is about losing some things and finding, or, rather, creating other things. It describes the long and winding coping process of acquiring a disability (Ménière’s disease, in this case) in the prime of life and all that entails. And, boy, it is a lot. Our hearing is bound up with so much, after all—relationships, self-worth, our memories, our sense of the world. So of course there’s grief, confusion, fear and exile as the author’s body betrays him (the vertigo bouts are particularly harrowing) and he searches far and wide through the often ridiculous US medical landscape for answers. If there is such a thing as medically Kafkaesque, Mr. Cotter’s frustrating hunt for answers might be it.
But his story’s about much more than that. It’s one person’s search for how he’s going to be in a world that’s in some ways narrowing for him, while in other ways is pointing him to what (and who) is truly worthwhile. It’s in those moments that the prose moves beautifully toward compassion, levity, slow transformation, the forging of a new version of himself. The lessons aren’t tidy, but they’re real and they’re hard-earned, and I’ll take that any day.
But his story’s about much more than that. It’s one person’s search for how he’s going to be in a world that’s in some ways narrowing for him, while in other ways is pointing him to what (and who) is truly worthwhile. It’s in those moments that the prose moves beautifully toward compassion, levity, slow transformation, the forging of a new version of himself. The lessons aren’t tidy, but they’re real and they’re hard-earned, and I’ll take that any day.
September 16, 2026
I don't know why I looked at the title of this and immediately decided that Cotter must be a musician, but I did and he isn't. That being said, if I were going deaf, music might be the thing I'd miss most too. Yes, there's a lot of other sounds that I'd miss but there are texts and emails and subtitles to compensate, and if they're bare substitutions sometimes then there's still the ability to communicate meaning through them, and I don't know if there's anything that can act as a substitute for music. A very bass rhythm, perhaps, but it's not the same thing.
Cotter's deteriorating hearing, and his efforts to find a reason and a cure - essentially fruitless on both counts - is sympathetic and well-written. He does spend a lot of time going on about Jonathan Swift, but my personal early dislike of Gulliver's Travels makes me less interested in that (despite Swift's own experience of deafness and vertigo) than in Cotter's relationships and his career in the aftermath of disability. The link between disability and homelessness is particularly effective and quietly horrifying, being well-illustrated by his experience of teaching in a homeless shelter, for instance.
Cotter's deteriorating hearing, and his efforts to find a reason and a cure - essentially fruitless on both counts - is sympathetic and well-written. He does spend a lot of time going on about Jonathan Swift, but my personal early dislike of Gulliver's Travels makes me less interested in that (despite Swift's own experience of deafness and vertigo) than in Cotter's relationships and his career in the aftermath of disability. The link between disability and homelessness is particularly effective and quietly horrifying, being well-illustrated by his experience of teaching in a homeless shelter, for instance.
June 16, 2025
I met the author at a poetry reading here, and although I am not "an audio book person" was interested to read the book he had given an excerpt of. Because I had heard his voice and knew that he was the reader of the audiobook, I decided this would be a great book to try out non-eyeball reading with.
I knew from the poetry reading that the book was about grappling with hearing loss that was more complex than I usually thought of hearing loss as being; the section he had read got across (maybe selected for a dual purpose of putting people at ease for the social hour that followed) that things had gotten really bad but were better now but not resolved. Music itself figured less in the book than I expected, and that's ok. The descriptions of winter and balancing difficult social time with also-difficult quiet time were quite excruciating in spots, which, while recalling now for this review, gives me a false sense that I actually read these words on a page. I know I didn't and I don't know why my brain wants to think that a tough story I read must have been with my eyes.
I knew from the poetry reading that the book was about grappling with hearing loss that was more complex than I usually thought of hearing loss as being; the section he had read got across (maybe selected for a dual purpose of putting people at ease for the social hour that followed) that things had gotten really bad but were better now but not resolved. Music itself figured less in the book than I expected, and that's ok. The descriptions of winter and balancing difficult social time with also-difficult quiet time were quite excruciating in spots, which, while recalling now for this review, gives me a false sense that I actually read these words on a page. I know I didn't and I don't know why my brain wants to think that a tough story I read must have been with my eyes.
August 3, 2023
I learned a lot from reading LOSING MUSIC, and I appreciated John Cotter’s insight. He did a lovely job of keeping readers engaged as he walked us through his (probable) Meniere’s Disease. We watch as he tries to find audiologists, doctors, and specialists who might be able to help him. We witness his persistence, his despair, his frustration, his adjustments, and his efforts toward acceptance.
Showing us how a diagnosis (hearing loss and vertigo) impacts relationships with others, he writes about friendship and about his significant other with respect and gratitude without sacrificing honesty about his own short-tempered (human!) moments and understandable pockets of self-pity. He also helps us understand how a chronic and progressive disease impacts one’s relationship to oneself, one’s career, how it affects normal daily tasks, but also how it changes a person’s hope, optimism, and life perspective.
I admired this book start to finish.
Showing us how a diagnosis (hearing loss and vertigo) impacts relationships with others, he writes about friendship and about his significant other with respect and gratitude without sacrificing honesty about his own short-tempered (human!) moments and understandable pockets of self-pity. He also helps us understand how a chronic and progressive disease impacts one’s relationship to oneself, one’s career, how it affects normal daily tasks, but also how it changes a person’s hope, optimism, and life perspective.
I admired this book start to finish.
August 12, 2023
I was very interested in this book - I was briefly acquainted with the author during the years he lived in Denver. At the time he was beginning the search for medical assistance that he describes so well in the book.
I was naturally curious to read about the medical search, but the book is so much more than a itemization of doctor visits.
Seeking to clarify what a diagnosis of Meniere's disease means for him (and to him) Cotter explores the effect of his condition on his wife; his relationship with her; his friends; his working life as a teacher; and how he contemplates his future.
I found reading about his time spent in a rural Colorado residential center for homeless found on the streets of Denver to be the most poignant part of the book.
Perhaps not the kind of book I can say I "enjoyed" but I was deeply engrossed as I read and finished the book in one day. That sort of absorption doesn't happen often!
I was naturally curious to read about the medical search, but the book is so much more than a itemization of doctor visits.
Seeking to clarify what a diagnosis of Meniere's disease means for him (and to him) Cotter explores the effect of his condition on his wife; his relationship with her; his friends; his working life as a teacher; and how he contemplates his future.
I found reading about his time spent in a rural Colorado residential center for homeless found on the streets of Denver to be the most poignant part of the book.
Perhaps not the kind of book I can say I "enjoyed" but I was deeply engrossed as I read and finished the book in one day. That sort of absorption doesn't happen often!
November 21, 2024
This is a painfully heartbreaking memoir written by a genius of a man who slowly lost his hearing over several long years. I've taken several writing classes over the years with John Cotter in Denver, and he is a brilliant writer, teacher, speaker and actor. I knew he was deaf, but this memoir about the intricacies of how he slowly lost his hearing, and all the tests and surgeries and medical interventions he endured to try to find a diagnosis for what ultimately turned out to be Meniere's disease - were terrifying to hear about. The years of dizzy spells, vertigo, nausea, hearing that comes and goes and disappears altogether and reappears - I felt the awfulness of these years in my heart and soul. This memoir, narrated by the author, had me reeling in agony over all that he endured. I am especially awed because John is SUCH a great writing teacher, and very upbeat - and I would never have guessed he's endured these decades of agony. His memoir - narrated by John himself - is painful to listen to but worth the time to learn of how he overcame the worst of his hearing struggles.
September 4, 2025
2.5 (Audiobook) This is a low rating for me but this wasn’t a bad book by any means. There are elements to this book and themes discussed that I really loved! I just really did not like how the book was structured. I think telling his story more linear would’ve been more effective and easier to follow, having a greater impact on the reader. The journey of him grieving his past self was very interesting. I also really enjoyed the historical/literary tangents on Ménière’s disease and vertigo. I just found it could be hard to follow his journey due to his personal life experiences jumping rapidly from past to present. The immersive audiobook elements of conversations were really great to put yourself in his shoes in the context of trying to hold conversations in different situations/severity of hearing loss.
January 16, 2024
Cotter gradually starts losing his hearing, along with vertigo, roaring noises in his ears, headaches, inability to focus, in his mid-thirties. This book is part history, (Jonathan Swift had similar disease), part medical science, part losing oneself and perhaps reimagining that self, a compelling, thoughtful, heartbreaking story of how life changes, without our control, and of our ability to cope with and change, too. Milkweed: “A devastating memoir that sheds urgent, bracingly honest light on both the taboos surrounding disability and the limits of medical science, Losing Music is refreshingly vulnerable and singularly illuminating—a story that will make readers see their own lives anew.”
October 28, 2024
Just like Meniere's Disease, this memoir doesn't have a satisfying resolution, but it won't kill you or anything. I picked this one up because I have MD, and we in the fake-sounding vestibular disorder community need the representation. If you're hearing (or partially hearing, like me!), the audiobook is well worth a listen, as the author does a perfect impression of the inside of a Meniere's attack. A more apt title might be "Losing Balance Fucking Again," and Cotter nails that experience, too. A thoughtful book from someone who knows things could be worse, and another weird entry from Milkweed.
November 3, 2023
I often have a heavy dose of skepticism when it comes to books about Deafness, but Cotter managed to win me over.
The day to day of living with hearing aids. Discussions about restaurants, bars, conversations with more than 3 people. Cotter gets the little things right.
I did somewhat lose the plot a bit around the beginning of part 2, and Cotter treats the memoir as an exploration more of illness than that of disability. His prose, however, reflects a great love for sound. Worth a read, and it's quick.
The day to day of living with hearing aids. Discussions about restaurants, bars, conversations with more than 3 people. Cotter gets the little things right.
I did somewhat lose the plot a bit around the beginning of part 2, and Cotter treats the memoir as an exploration more of illness than that of disability. His prose, however, reflects a great love for sound. Worth a read, and it's quick.
September 30, 2024
Good, but a little uneven
Cotter writes this book as he is suffering from Ménière’s disease. (Or something like it, with vertigo, hearing loss, tinnitus as symptoms). The first part of the book was very good, and very readable. The 2nd half was more uneven, where he talks less about himself specifically, and more about others (Jonathan Swift), and more medical things. I feel like it would have been better to intersperse those things with his story. He eventually comes back to his story, for a stronger finish. 3 1/2 stars.
Cotter writes this book as he is suffering from Ménière’s disease. (Or something like it, with vertigo, hearing loss, tinnitus as symptoms). The first part of the book was very good, and very readable. The 2nd half was more uneven, where he talks less about himself specifically, and more about others (Jonathan Swift), and more medical things. I feel like it would have been better to intersperse those things with his story. He eventually comes back to his story, for a stronger finish. 3 1/2 stars.
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