Rabbit Hole is a literary thriller about a young woman who uncovers a Reddit conspiracy around her missing sister in the immediate aftermath of her father’s suicide. It’s not a plot-driven murder mystery so much as a novel about grief, memory, and girlhood that plays with genre tropes. To that end, the songs I’ve chosen here speak to those themes of loss and to the character of Teddy, for whom I have deep fondness, despite (or because of) all her messiness and bad decisions. She comes from the darkest parts of me, and these are the songs that resonate in those places.
I don’t listen to music while I’m in the act of writing—I’m a bad multitasker—but when I am listening to music (in the car, at home, or on a walk), I’m often thinking through problems in the current draft of whatever book I’m working on. Sometimes the songs help me find a way in. Sometimes, a way out.
“A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley
This song is for those days that you’re barely keeping it together. Teddy has a lot of them. The break that occurs around the one-minute mark (And sometimes when you’re on, you’re really fucking on) happens to be one of the most satisfying lines you can scream when you’re alone in the car and you’ve had a real DAY.
“Ode to My Family” by The Cranberries
My parents had No Need to Argue in regular rotation in our disc changer growing up. I remember sitting on the lawn, trying to decode O’Riordan’s gorgeous, weird voice as it came through the outside speakers: My mother, she’d hold me… my father, he liked me. It was childlike and sad and the wailing at the end still haunts me: Does anyone care? Does anyone ca-a-re?
“Carin at the Liquor Store” by The National
I love that this song begins, “I was a worm.” What an opener. The amount of self-loathing (I wasn’t a catch, I wasn’t a keeper) combined with the deeply weird references to Cheever… I just love The National. They obviously read a lot and are pretty depressed. Relatable!
“Debaser” by Pixies
Sometimes when I’m writing for a long time, I start to feel a little too still, so I’ll put on my Doolittle record and just dance like a freak. “Debaser” is all noise and energy and nonsense. You just shake your limbs out until you’re back in your body. Which is important if you like writing about bodies.
“Save Me” by Aimee Mann
This song is THE cry for help. Come on and saveeee me/from the ranks of the freaks/that suspect they could never love anyone. What a terrifying thought, to suspect you could never love anyone. This could be Teddy’s anthem.
“All Apologies” by Nirvana
This is hardly a deep cut, but I love it, and I listened to it a lot in the years I was working on this book. I am partial to the MTV Unplugged version. I find myself singing “aqua sea foam shame” around the house all the time, I think because it’s a great example of what music can do that writing can’t. That line makes you feel so much, even though written out, it’s utter nonsense.
“Nightswimming” by R.E.M.
Is there a more perfect song about nostalgia? I listen to this song an embarrassing amount, really. It takes me back to my adolescence, to riding around in cars with boys and crashing random pools. Saltwater on the air. I know that those days were not my favorite while I was living through them, but it hardly matters. The sweet side of bittersweet.
“Ceremony” by New Order
I was fifteen when Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette came out. I saw it in theaters, but all I remember about the experience was that the soundtrack was a revelation. It was the first time I heard The Strokes, The Cure, and, of course, New Order. “Ceremony” sounded like nothing I had heard before. If my life had a soundtrack, this song would be on it.
“Keep Me In Your Heart” by Warren Zevon
Rabbit Hole is a dark book, and I found it difficult to write at times. Mostly, it made me miss my dad and worry that my memories of him were fading. This is the song I listen to when I want to hear him talking to me (through Warren Zevon, who was dying when he recorded it): Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house/Maybe you’ll think of me and smile.
“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen
This is one of the few songs that makes an appearance in the book, although I was forced to cut any lyrics in editing (goddamn copyright laws). It appears during a happy family memory. It’s a nod to my husband and the poet laureate of the Jersey Shore, where I’m from.
“Most of the Time” by Bob Dylan
I think of this song as “One Art” in song form. As in Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, where the pain comes from the negation and the repetition, so it is here. Most of the time, I can keep both feet on the ground. When you find yourself saying stuff like that, you’re in trouble. Also, this song appears over a great sex scene in High Fidelity (the movie), so extra points.