“During the act of writing, I never listen to music. External music is a distraction for me. My ears need to concentrate on an inner music: the music of language, of vowels and consonants which I struggle to fit together in my search for verbal harmonies and creative dissonance.”
“Some of these songs were around while I was writing it. Some feel like the Midwest I know. Some remind me of people I haven’t seen in years. Some just sound like something bad is about to happen.”
“Scott Platt, the narrator of Fail Sons, is an unemployed forty-year-old Brooklynite who spent fifteen years editing the culture section at a glossy magazine before the decline of print journalism ended his career. In other words, he’s a man with opinions about music.”
“Although I didn’t listen to Billie Holiday while writing the novel, her music haunted my imagination throughout the process.”
“Although I made a vibes playlist for the book early in my drafting process, I’m one of those people who can’t write to most songs because I’ll end up choreographing a music video before a single word lands on the page.”
“Given the dialogic nature of our book it seems only right to have this playlist move back and forth between us, to volley between the music of Ursula’s world and the music of mine, as we make a third music together, one that invites you now to join in with us.”
“I had to set a chapter in hell, of course, and there’s an echo of country music in my mind at least to a few of the chapters in the book.”
“Creating playlist is among my top favorite activities. It’s basically my love language. What a fun and stimulating thing to build one around my novel Asbestos, where music plays such an enveloping role.”
“Indeed, because the novel is part detective story and part doomed romance, George Benson’s This Masquerade—whose bluesy melancholy is the perfect accompaniment to a noir tale—is the right soundtrack for Theo’s investigation.”
“The Tumor in The Clay was drawn over several years of Covid Isolation, spent sketching panel after panel of surgical utensils, flowers blowing in the wind, buzzing cicada wings, with the pages of the book illuminating the late nights with a cool blue light, all while line after line was soundtracked to endless endless music.”