Lee Upton’s novel Tabitha, Get Up is funny, smart, and heartrending.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“A delightfully meta novel about a woman writing her way out of calamity.”
In her own words, here is Lee Upton’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Tabitha, Get Up:
“Back to Black”—written and sung by Amy Winehouse
There’s so much throaty pain in Winehouse’s voice and so much familiarity with recurring despair: “I died a hundred times.” Tabitha, Get Up is a comic novel, but it’s about vulnerability and loneliness and joblessness and the character’s attempts to pull herself out of forms of sadness that threaten repeatedly to overwhelm her. Winehouse’s lyrics—“And life is like a pipe / And I’m a tiny penny rollin’ up the walls inside”—that feeling is one Tabitha knows about.
“One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”—written by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer
It’s quarter to three in the morning and the bartender, Joe, is “gettin’ anxious to close” and the singer is “bendin” his ear and wants another nickel in the juke box—it’s enough to make you keep on worrying about Joe. A bartender, Leon, is the person my primary character often worries about. Much of Tabitha, Get Up, takes place in Leon’s bar, which is really the world’s absolutely best bar. As soon as you enter you feel like you’re floating in a glass of whiskey. You don’t even need to drink, it’s that great of a bar. And there’s a piano that an actress is immediately tempted to writhe upon…But back to this song. I listen to Sinatra’s version and it moves me so much I feel like someone just pulled out my heart and threw it on the floor. There’s no defense against this song. Or this: here’s Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing to the song, choreographed by Twyla Tharp:
Vertigo soundtrack—composed by Bernard Herrmann for Hitchcock’s movie
My favorite portion occurs when Madeline first appears and the Jimmy Stewart character follows her. This is such a lush, alluring, romantic score with spiky notes of anxiety that keep interrupting that lushness. My novel’s plot contains elements reminiscent of Vertigo, and the movie is mentioned several times. The score, mysterious and pluckingly nervy, echoes portions of Tabitha, Get Up that allude to impossible love and to a secondary plot in which Tabitha must determine the true identity of another woman, a very slippery character.
“I Could Write a Book”—Ella Fitzgerald’s cover from the Rodgers and Hart Song Book
I first heard this song as a child when I snuck downstairs after midnight and turned on the television and heard Frank Sinatra singing in the musical Pal Joey. In the Sinatra version it’s a seduction song. In Ella Fitzgerald’s, my favorite, the song is not about seduction; it’s a tender ballad, all yearning. Often singers omit the first prelude about the alphabet—and I can see why—but it works for Fitzerald because when she breaks into the words “If they asked me I could write a book,” you’re suddenly transported into another register of feeling, and you’re glad you waited. Throughout my novel, Tabitha is trying to write a book—and for a while two books—and this song expresses her wistful hopes, not only for the book but for the person she begins to desire.
“The Look of Love”—written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
Dusty Springfield’s distinctive voice made the song famous. Plus, there’s that saxophone solo. But how can I not mention Diane Krall’s breathy, sensually charged cover? The song is about “the look of love,” and I guess my novel is too, especially in terms of perceiving human beauty. Beauty may compel us and derail us and cause such wonder and awe we refuse to look deeply enough at what’s in front of our faces. We’re just too stunned. That’s how my principal character feels when she sees a beautiful man. She can’t help herself.
“Hang on, Sloopy” —composed by Bert Berns and West Farrell, popularized by the McCoys in about 1964
Sloopy lives in a town where everybody “tries to put my Sloopy down / Sloopy I don’t care what your daddy do.” That song lets you be on the side of the person least likely to succeed. The refrain “Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on” is an anthem of resilience. You can’t help but be concerned for Sloopy, with her funny but poignant name, the way I think you might be concerned about out-of-luck Tabitha in my novel. Maybe Tabitha’s secret name or never-mentioned middle name is Sloopy.
“Despacito”— by Luis Fonsi, Erika Ender, and Daddy Yankee from the album Vida (2019)
Just try to convince your friends you didn’t dance to this. In my novel Tabitha likes to dance alone in her apartment—and fantasizes she is being watched with admiration, but then she imagines her dancing looks embarrassing. So she has an alternate fantasy in which she dances with a little boy with flashy moves and she’s not embarrassing because she is being kind to a child.
“One on One”—Daryl Hall on lead vocals, harmonizing backing by John Oates, and saxophone by Charles DeChant
This song came out in 1983 and it should be more fully and continually loved. This is a soaring song—with those great, almost comical, conversation-stopping lines: “That’s all you need to know now.” The song is about wanting to stop playing the field, but it’s pretty clear that the one singing has his pick of the field. In my novel this could be the actor Brent Vintner’s song—he’s famous and charismatic and his face is on the side of buses and yet (you have to suspend disbelief) he must be tired of dating all those astonishing super model/activists and is perpetually, like Tabitha, out of his element.
“Don’t Know Why”—vocals and piano by Norah Jones, written by Jesse Harris
Probably like a lot of people I first heard “Don’t Know Why” in a coffee shop and couldn’t move until the song was over. It’s a song about regret, lost chances, and being a mystery to one’s self. I think of each character within plenty of novels as being “a mystery inside a mystery.” As in my novel, characters do not know why they’re doing what they’re doing, not really, and the mystery of their own unexamined motivations propels them forward. My novel is certainly about characters who need to learn who they are and what they need. One of Tabitha’s fears: she’ll aways remember what she may be about to lose.
“More than You Know”—music by Vincent Youmans, lyrics by Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu (1929) and sung by Billie Holiday with Teddy Wilson and his orchestra
Holiday’s version is unforgettable, entirely perfect. The lines, “Lately I find you’re on my mind / More than you know” might be the refrain for multiple characters in Tabitha, Get Up. As in this achingly gorgeous song, feelings tend to be disguised and suppressed even though they remain close to the surface. It’s also very much worth hearing Michelle Pfeiffer’s version in The Fabulous Baker Boys.
“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”—The Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1965
For years I thought this song was about a wood in Norway and not about a particular kind of wall paneling, and so I can’t shake the sense that the song’s about a place where we ruin our chances. It seems like the theme song for Midlothian, Tabitha’s town. The haunting sitar—that’s what I love most about this little miracle of a song.
Romeo and Juliet, Suite No. 2, “Montagues and Capulets”—Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet
If I could be in charge of a sound track for Tabitha, Get Up, this portion of the ballet would play every time Tabitha’s mother speaks. The music conveys the ominous tension the character creates. There’s something about Tabitha’s mother, horrible as she is, that summons love and forgiveness for her majestic, comically enjoyable pomposity and her outrageous self-regard. It was such a joy to create this character. She’s so insulting—the way you can’t be in actual life without sustaining a whole lot of injuries.
Lee Upton is the author of books of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism. Her forthcoming comic novel, TABITHA, GET UP, will be out in May 2024. Her seventh collection of poetry, THE DAY EVERY DAY IS, received the 2021 Saturnalia Prize and appeared in spring 2023. Her second short story collection, Visitations, was a recipient of the Kirkus star and was listed in “Best of the Indies 2017” and “Best Indie Books for December” by Kirkus. The collection was also a finalist in the short story collections category of the American Book Fest Best Book Awards