Caroline Leavitt once again proves herself one of our most evocative storytellers in her new novel Days of Wonder.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
“Leavitt is clearly in her element here… [her] graceful prose… heralds the power of steady perseverance, sturdy faith and the raw restorative power of love.”
In her own words, here is Caroline Leavitt’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Days of Wonder:
I always have to have music as I write, but it has to be a particular kind of soundtrack, one that I love, that energizes or moves me, and one that I know my characters would love as well. Days of Wonder spans six years in the lives of two New York City teens, starting when they are 15 and wildly in love. Jude is the son of a wealthy Superior Court Judge, while Ella, is the daughter of a single mom who was booted out of her Hasidic home when she became pregnant as a teen. Both kids share an intense dislike for the boy’s abusive father who doesn’t want them to be together, but when the father is almost murdered, both kids are suspect, even though neither can remember the crime. Jude is set free, but Ella is given 25 years in prison, and when she’s early released after six, she’s determined to reinvent herself, find the child she was forced to give up for adoption in prison, and discover what really happened that night. Days of Wonder is about finding your family outside your biological unit, about what guilt and innocence really means. Most of all, it’s about the lengths we all go to for love.
So below are all the tracks—and one album—I had on repeat. And I know my characters did, too.
Hymn to Her by the Pretenders
Chrissie Hynde’s ode to her daughterpractically aches with love of the maternal kind, which is exactly what I needed for the mothers and daughters of Days of Wonder. Helen made her daughter Ella her whole world—even when Ella needed to break free into a world of her own, which was incredibly painful for both of them. Ella needed to find the daughter she gave away, even as she came to realize the relationship she thought she’d have was not the one she got. As I was writing this novel, my own mother died, and I was struggling to keep her alive and I found a way by giving Ella’s mother my own mother’s name: Helen. And by giving Helen my mother’s stories. And by giving Helen music I thought both Helens would love.
New York State of Mind by Billy Joel
I know, I know, it’s Billy Joel, but also, I know, I know, this is one of the greatest New York City songs around. The melody gets into your bones, and the lyrics are pure New York, which is one half of the story-world of Days of Wonder. Manhattan represents the Promised Land to Helen when she’s a young Hasidic girl living with her family, and later it offers a home and an identity. To Ella and Jude, New York is all about class struggle. Jude lives on the Upper East Side in a townhouse, and goes to a tony private school, while Ella is in Bay Ridge and public school, and her home, which Jude adores, is shabby. Still, every time any of the characters will muse about New York City, they’re going to be thinking of this song. Or at least, I hope they will.
The Passenger by Iggy Pop
I wanted to write a Valentine to Ann Arbor, so I set half of Days of Wonder in my old stomping grounds and looked to Iggy Pop, who got his start there, and his joyously thumping The Passenger. I went to school in Ann Arbor desperate for a new life, a new identity, and Ann Arbor gave that to me. I always felt that that city loved me as much as I loved it. When I needed a place that would also give Ella a new start, a place that she would feel excited by and also safe, the first location I thought of was Ann Arbor, small enough to feel that you belong, big enough to feel the possibilities every day. I knew Ella would feel love it. Plus, what better song that the ebullient rhythm of Iggy’s song, the kind of giddy joy of travel, which really, is just another way of thinking of moving on and if you are very lucky, getting somewhere wonderful.
The Fever by Bruce Springsteen
Edgy, slow, pulling at you with unrequited desire, this was the perfect song to mirror the tormented desire of Jude for Ella (and vice versa.) I found myself stopping when I was writing to shut my eyes and let it wash over me. What more is there to say about this, except that the Southside Johnny version is also really great.
Without You, the Harry Nilsson version
Without you has a kind of jazzy upbeat score but the words are heartbreakers. He’s getting up spending another day without the one he loves and coming unmoored because of it. It’s not written by Nilsson, (Badfinger member Pete Ham and Tom wrote it), but Nilsson’s version is the version I love the most. Maybe because Nilsson always carried dramatic baggage in his life and seemed tortured, which comes through this song, and which was always good for my writing days.
The One I Love by R.E.M.
A lot of people imagine this song to be a love song, but it’s actual a violent anti-love song, and like a lot of R.E.M. songs, the meaning is purposefully obscured. Yes, it’s called the one I Love, but Stipe is also calling the girl “a simple prop to occupy my time.” And he’s wailing out “Fire!” which can be interpreted as a nasty call to get her to come downstairs to him, or a warning that her home is about to be lit up with flames, or the fire of his anger. Even songwriter Michael Stipe said he recognized the brutality of the music here. What I love about this song, besides the fact that it is so much fun to sing, is the angry misconception—and there is certainly a lot of that in Days of Wonder.
Luka by Suzanne Vega
There’s violence in Days of Wonder, both emotional and physical violence. Jude’s father loves his son and beats him, blaming Jude for the death of his beloved wife. Helen, Ella’s mother, as a young girl shyly asks a strange man—something a Hasidic girl is told never to do—for directions, and ends up raped and pregnant, thrown out by her family. And Ella’s new best friend, Marianna, who doesn’t know her true identity, is emotionally brutalized by her jealous husband. Vega’s Luka, with its soaring melody and its reminder that when asking why sometimes does you no good at all, felt like a refrain of my novel to me.
Perfect by Ed Sheeran
Sheeran, like Jude and Ella, fell in love as a kid in high school. And like Jude and Ella, he reconnected with his girlfriend when they were adults, which would have been the dram of Jude and Ella. Sheeran wrote this romantic ballad for his wife-to-be, and what’s more romantic than that?
Kind of Blue, the album by Miles Davis
Of course, jazz is improvisational, and you could say so is Ella, recrafting her whole identity and burying her past, and while Ella doesn’t always succeed, the genius Miles Davis always does. Kind of Blue is moody, smart and original. Every part was a complete take, with no do-overs. The most interesting thing about it is that Miles Davis said at first that this album was a failed experiment, as it didn’t reach the dreams of how he imagined it might sound. For Ella, her failed experiment was giving herself so fully to another person that she built up scar tissue. Mostly, I put this album down because I could listen to it forever.
Comin’ Back to Me by Jefferson airplane
No matter what novel I write, I always listen to this song. First, I love the soulful singing of Marty Balin (My husband Jeff wrote a great, still selling book about the band, Got A Revolution, which is still selling after nearly two decades. I got to meet Marty and he sang Caroline to me!) But what this song is about is more of that kind of yearning—about a lost lover coming back to you. Fun fact: I loved this song so much, I named one of my novels, Comin’ Back To Me in homage to it.
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone
Yep, it’s a familiar song, but as sung by Miss Simone, it becomes something revelatory. The characters in Days of Wonder are always misunderstood for a variety of reasons. Plus, if you know anything about Nina Simone’s life, you hear the ache in every single note.
All Too Well by Taylor Swift
I’ve always loved confessional songs, maybe because I am so confessional in my own novels, and probably a little too much in my own life. I love stripping away veneers, seeing what is really there, and feeling and sharing the emotion someone else feels. To my mind, no one does this better than Joni Mitchell, but Taylor Swift has the same genius. The song is about her romance with Jake Gyllenhaal, how they fell in love, how he fell out of love, and how she stayed in it. It’s full of the kind of details novelists will kill for, like the scarf she left behind. The refrain always breaks me, “It was rare, I was there.” It proves what I believe, that love, real love, never ends. It always stays with us.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Caroline Leavitt’s playlist for her novel With or Without You
Caroline Leavitt’s playlist for her novel Cruel Beautiful World
Caroline Leavitt’s playlist for her novel Pictures of You
Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Days of Wonder, With or Without You, Cruel Beautiful World, Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, Girls In Trouble, Coming Back To Me, Living Other Lives, Into Thin Air, Family, Jealousies, Lifelines, Meeting Rozzy Halfway. Many of her titles were optioned for film, translated into different languages, and condensed in magazines. Many of her titles were Best Books of the Year and Indie Next Picks. A New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow, she was also shortlisted for the Maine Readers Prize, and was a Goldenberg Fiction Prize winner. She recently won an award from the MidAtlantic Arts for portions of her next novel, The Inseparables.