“Music, like literature, is a form of translation – it takes the roiling surge of feeling in the human breast and converts it into sound.”
“In the canon of art by immigrant daughters trying their best to be worthy of love, Mitski’s ‘Best American Girl’ is a crown jewel…”
“Mud on the Moon spans nearly a century and two continents, from my father’s Philippines to his adopted Alaska to the America I grew up in and keep becoming. This playlist is the music behind that arc, some of it in the book, all of it in my bones…”
“In Precious Ugly I needed to build a music bubble around my character, Clementine—thirteen, pregnant and living in a conversion van on a campsite with her mother and father, an abusive alcoholic who fancies himself a miracle worker, a cult leader.”
“…sometimes, when I can’t find the right words to give to a character, I play a little song instead. And that reminds me that sometimes, there aren’t any words. There is just music.”
“Music plays a big role in the book, and it was a big part of my journey when writing the book.”
“Some songs were indispensable at the start, when I had only the seed of an idea; I’d listen to them on repeat walking around the Sacramento grid to sink into the right mood for a productive insomnia.”
“I keep a playlist going every time I’m working on a book.”
“There is no liberation without music, pure and simple.”
“As someone who writes mostly nonfiction, the skeleton of the playlist I construct for each book project are songs from particular times of my life, its muscles and sinew evoke mood. Eventually, the songs become background noise.”