My Life… My Life…: On Nabil Ayers’ “My Life in the Sunshine”

Nabil Ayers | My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family | Viking | 2022 | 320 Pages

There, my mother bluntly told Roy she really wanted to get pregnant with him. He agreed, but he also made it clear that if she did get pregnant, she’d be on her own. Roy had always been up front with my mother – his career was on the rise, and he had no interest in a serious relationship.

In his beautifully written memoir, My Life in the Sunshine, writer and record executive Nabil Ayers reveals a childhood framed by a “deal” his mother made with his father, famed vibraphonist and composer Roy Ayers, before his birth. What followed was the creation of a life, a loving eternal bond between mother and son, the formative influence of a present uncle, and a lifelong search to know the origin of self. With a lyrical sensibility, Ayers gives snapshots of an upbringing that was idyllic in many ways, though he would always be longing for a father—not so much as person but as story. Ayers needed to know the ingredients that made him. 

On its face, the story of a young man searching for his absent father is nothing new, but there is something a bit more graceful in Ayers’ treatment. It dances where one might expect a punch, and scat sings a love letter not only to his mother but to his uncle Alan Braufman, a noted jazz saxophonist and his primary father figure. The power of the book lies in the duality Ayers creates between two seemingly competing axes—he describes his mother’s choice as “unquestionably selfish,” but also as an attempt to fully realize her life, her body, and reimagine definitions of family that have been adopted and passed down for generations. This is no tale of woe, but a testament to Ayers’ solid place at the center of his mother’s love and attention. 

Ayers’ mother, Louise, was raised in a two-parent suburban Jewish household that was anything but perfect, creating her vision for a life of companionship and connection not predicated on romance.

 .  .  . while she was young, she wanted a friend to love who would love her back, someone she could shower with attention and who would never feel as lonely or upset as she did growing up, someone to balance out the trauma of her own childhood.

Ayers lays out the experiences that led to his mother’s choice to be a single parent. What is most striking in this presentation is not the choice itself, as so many women have chosen to build a family sans partner. Rather it is the rarity of this subject as memoir, especially as written from the perspective of the child.

Nabil’s mother and uncle Alan grew up in Wantagh, Long Island, in the home their parents bought for $9,000 in 1951. Although his mother’s childhood isn’t discussed in great detail, Ayers’ prose gives one the impression of it. You can feel between the sentences what may have led to her decision to start a family. You can feel his mother’s deep longing for a companion beyond the conventions of a romantic partner. But more than that, you can feel that she wanted to instill her “her” in Nabil, her resolve, the tenements of a BaHa'i faith in which she found peace, and her curiosity.

Thanks to my mother’s constant presence, I never thought of myself as lacking a father. During the rare times I fought with her, I never said anything that began with “If you hadn’t decided to raise me without a father .  .  .” And she never considered a blow like “If there was a man in the house  .  .  .” We heard other mothers complain about missing fathers, but that sentiment never occurred to us because my father wasn’t missing. My mother’s steadfast determination to take on all responsibility without placing blame on my father rubbed off on me and it stayed with me.

It was in Amherst as a young boy that Ayers began to understand the multitude of his own identity. In just a few paragraphs he highlights this by not only relating the first instance he heard a racist statement but by locating this moment within the particular cultural context of Dukes Of Hazzard and Alex Haley’s Roots miniseries. 

At the time of my birth, mixed  race marriages had been legal in the United States for only five years. But  in Amherst, many of my friends were also of mixed  race. Cultural differences existed — no two homes smelled of the same spices — but the fact that we were all different somehow made us all the same. We were sheltered from the rest of America.

It is Ayers’ ability to locate such cultural points along historical intersections with his own timeline that makes this memoir such a beautiful read. An unveiling happens in the racialized aspects of this and Ayers achieves a tenor that few memoirs do, fully embracing and speaking to the old adage “the personal is political.” Ayers does this repeatedly throughout the book, offering glimpses into the late 70s New York loft scene, specifically at 501 Canal Street where a young Nabil would spend a few months every year living among musicians and artists with his uncle, as well as pivotal moments in Seattle in the 90s where seismic shifts in popular music through the Grunge era were happening mere blocks from him.  

Within these passages, and in tandem with his story of self, Ayers gives the reader a reflection of the times, frequently acting as a historian and ethnomusicologist. While captivating in their detail, these moments explode expectations of memoir as a genre and eloquently weave a personal story through space and time.

My Life in the Sunshine also acts as a love letter in many respects to Ayers’ uncle Alan. Alan’s presence and influence are a constant undercurrent, and it’s with intense grace that Ayers shares his uncle’s particular qualities and the ways they shaped him. Of his uncle, Ayers writes: 

If you heard Alan play then, you’d assume he had a beast of a personality. But if you met him on the street, you’d never guess someone so mellow could harness such fierceness. To this day, Alan remains a calm and unassuming powerhouse.

Alan and Nabil’s father, Roy Ayers, shared an intense love of music. The fact that uncle Alan was there upon the first meetings his mother had with Roy, and that he knew of her intentions to start a family sans partner and supported her in this choice, gives the feeling that you, the reader, are being trusted with the most precious of connections.

The times that young Nabil sees his father during his childhood are so few that each moment is documented with a photographic intensity. Roy Ayers’ musical legacy created an ever-present specter in Nabil’s life. Ayers explores his musical inheritance early on in the book: Alan gives him a shiny Ludwig drum kit and his obsession and future life path is forged.

As an adult, Ayers finally has to deal with the fact that he will never have a meaningful relationship with his father. We are given a revealing look into what really makes Nabil such an extraordinary person in his own right. 

While Ayers mentions genetic inheritance at various points, the lasting impression made by this memoir has not so much to do with what was passed down but with what was obscured; a large looming absence that was never missed, and the realization that searching for someone who really isn't missing can lead to the discovery of a self that is everlasting.