Katya Apekina’s novel Mother Doll is a multi-generational drama both mesmerizing and inventively told.
Library Journal wrote of the book:
“Imagining the afterlife has resulted in unforgettable recent novels like George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo. Apekina’s hallucinatory use of occult communications transforms historical facts and emotional trauma into a phantasmagorical fable of Zhenia’s and Irina’s spiritual journeys. Balancing raucous hilarity with embedded pain, it may be the year’s weirdest one-of-a-kind read.”
In her own words, here is Katya Apekina’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Mother Doll:
In my new novel, Mother Doll, Zhenia drops out of NYU soon after 9/11 and comes to Los Angeles with her best friend and her boyfriend to make it as an actress. Audition after audition goes nowhere, and instead she lands as a medical translator. She and her boyfriend get married and her life stagnates… until, she accidentally gets pregnant and then gets a call from a stranger, a medium named Paul, who is channeling her great-grandmother, a Russian Revolutionary. Listening to her great-grandmother’s story, allows Zhenia to process her family’s trauma and puts her in touch with her own desires.
Here are some songs that capture the vibes of the book. I don’t listen to music when I’m writing, but I listen when I’m marinating.
Boney M “Rasputin”
There is a scene with Rasputin, when Zhenia’s great-grandmother meets him at a fancy luncheon, and he frees all the hostess’ parakeets from their cages.
The Internationale – Russian Version
The French Revolutionary song that was adopted as the official anthem of the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Vysotsky “Song about a Friend”
Vysotsky was sort of the Soviet Bob Dylan. This particular song is about friendship and betrayal—something that I think came up a lot in the Soviet Union, where people were incentivized to rat each other out. The song comes from the soundtrack of a movie Vysotsky was in about mountain climbers.
Gogol Bordello “Start Wearing Purple”
They would have been around NY in the same places as Zhenia when she was at NYU.
Radiohead “Everything In It’s Right Place”
I listened to Kid A nonstop in high school, around the time that Zhenia was living in New York.
Debauche “I Just Can’t Get Enough”
This New Orleans-Ukrainian punk band does my favorite cover of this Depeche Mode song. The obsession in it I think really speaks to many of the characters, including Paul.
Charles Aznavour “I Drink”
I first heard this song on Bob Dylan’s theme time radio hour many years ago. This ’30s french crooner sings about his out of control drinking—and it’s the same energy that Paul, the medium, is in when he starts drinking again.
Richard and Linda Thompson “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”
This is my favorite FOMO anthem. It reminds me a lot of Zhenia in the second half of the book.
Billy Bragg “California Stars”
This feels like a good sort of early 2000’s Zhenia living in California and building a new life for herself song.
Tom Waits “I Want You”
From his Early Years two volume set. It makes me think of Zhenia at the end.
Cate Le Bon “Are You With Me Now?”
I listened to this song on repeat while writing many sections of this book.
Silver Jews “How Can I Love You (If You Won’t Lie Down)
I listen to the Silver Jews and Purple Mountains a lot when I’m writing. This song is from around the time of the book’s end—when Zhenia, Chloe and Anton are hanging out in a not very traditional arrangement.
Katya Apekina is a novelist, screenwriter, and translator. Her debut novel, The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish, was named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Lithub, and others, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, German, and Italian. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George grant, an Olin Fellowship, the Alena Wilson prize, and a Third Year Fiction Fellowship from Washignton University in St. Louis, where she did her MFA. She has done residences at VCCA, Playa, Ucross, Art Omi: Writing, and Fondation Jan Michalski in Switzerland. Born in Moscow, she moved to the US when she was three years old and currently lives in Los Angeles. Mother Doll is her second novel.