Kimberly King Parsons’s novel We Were the Universe is a surreal and transcendent examination of grief, sex, motherhood, and sisterhood, and one of the year’s best books.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
“Singular… The ride could not be more rewarding; Parsons’s transgressive boldness allows us to feel the soul in places that moderation simply cannot reach… And though the book’s end brings a curtain-drop twist that is the plot-based equivalent of sudden mescaline clarity and awe, equally moving are the moments of joy found in the imagined interiority of Kit’s own fantasies… Parsons has gifted us with a profound, gutsy tale of grief’s dismantling power. The love between Kit and Julie continues to grow despite Julie’s death. They were a universe; by the novel’s end, they feel like a multiverse.”
In her own words, here is Kimberly King Parsons’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel We Were the Universe:
Music is critical to Kit, the protagonist of my debut novel, We Were the Universe. In high school she played bass in a psychedelic pop band with her sister, Julie, who died at 19. Kit is now a stay-at-home mom living in a Dallas suburb, all musical aspirations far in her rearview mirror. Still, she listens to music constantly, and her choices have become freighted with longing and nostalgia. While Kit’s tastes skew toward the glittery and synth-heavy, she’s also got a soft spot for folk singers and crooners like Roy Orbison (who hails from Wink, Texas, the same tiny town where she was born).
I was born in Lubbock, Texas (birthplace of Buddy Holly) and I grew up with similarly eclectic tastes—from Western swing to shoegaze to Avant-pop. I’ve made half a dozen playlists for this book, for all sorts of different vibes and reasons. This one is made up strictly of songs mentioned or referenced in the novel, in order of appearance.
Epigraph, of Montreal “The Past is a Grotesque Animal”
“No matter where we are
We’re always touching by underground wires”
Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer? is precisely emblematic of the music Julie and Kit love. For as long as I’ve imagined We Were the Universe, I knew this would be the book’s epigraph.
Page 10, of Montreal “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse”
Kit now spends her days tending to her young daughter, Gilda, but Julie (and their shared musical past) is never far from her mind.
“[The children’s] screams are joyous, like the chorus of Julie’s favorite psychedelic pop song. An infectious, happy track about being sad, begging the feel-good chemicals to flood your depressed brain. She used to play it over and over.”
Page 87, Big Thief “Masterpiece”
In a little flash of magic or delusion, Kit believes she hears Julie’s voice while on the phone with her mother.
“I could harmonize with [Julie], my one true offering to the band. Our voices worked together, offshoots of the same voice—Mom’s. I’d fumble through the ladder of notes, different fills until I found her register. Together, we made a third voice. When things hit just right, we’d turn our heads and almost expect to see some new, blended girl in the room with us. She’s here, on the line now. Singing.”
Page 95, Peaches “Fuck the Pain Away”
Kit recalls the time a song came on at a playdate hosted by Bad Dad, a man all the moms in Kit’s neighborhood are obsessed with.
“There was a lull in the music, then came a dirty beat. The song was something I had danced to so much before Gilda, a pulse so indelible and filthy it stays with you forever. Even nastier than the beat was the first line, which was coming fast. The musician is a woman who is not exactly subtle. She squats at the intersection of sexy and scary. The first line of this song is unfathomably vulgar, even for me. The other moms looked oblivious, but I saw Bad Dad draw a quick breath. He calmly, coolly stood up. All the while I was calculating the time he had to make it to his phone, which controlled the music. Three bars left. Two. Oh my god, these women are going to lose their goddamn minds if they hear this. One bar left, but he refused to alter his gait. It was a countdown to this singer extolling the virtue of her titties, her limitless desire. Bad Dad made it with a single beat to spare, serene and collected.”
Page 148, Cat Power “Naked if I Want To”
Ever since Julie died, Kit has looked for Julie’s spirit to “come through” various people she encounters.
“Our corner drunk, Bea—or is it B or Bee, I’ve never seen it written— a mystery in her many layered ski masks. I once heard her sing the chorus of a song Julie covered, a cover of a cover by the time it got to us, a song about a girl who wants to walk naked down the street. Was this a message? Had Julie somehow slid inside this odd woman who was always in full winter gear, no matter the heat?”
Page 149, Bob Dylan, “You’re a Big Girl Now”
Kit hasn’t really processed her grief at all, but certain seemingly unrelated songs bring her to tears. This is one of them.
“The brokenhearted folk singer—he knows where to find his lost love. She’s in somebody else’s room, she’s moved on. He goes to her and breaks down—he can change, he swears. The desperation in his voice belies the facts. The listener knows, the singer knows, the woman he’s singing to—we all know the same thing: he can’t change. Won’t. No matter the catch in his voice.”
Page 163, Miley Cyrus, “Party in the USA”
No shade to Miley Cyrus, who I’ve really come around on in recent years. Kit’s not much of a fan, but even she can’t argue with the slick magic of this undeniably catchy song.
“A song I usually hate comes on. The lyrics are as juvenile as the performer—singer is too generous a word—but this is a carefully manufactured hit, meant to infect. I sing along and it’s the perfect soundtrack for this night, the smell of old beer all around.”
Page 169, Songs: Ohia with Lawrence Peters, “Old Black Hen”
In Montana, Kit gets drunk with her friend Pete, and this is what she hears from the bathroom stall where she sits, wasted.
“The female half of a country song floats in from the jukebox, her male counterpart lost to my rushing piss. The woman sounds so much louder than her partner, but I know it’s all perception.”
Page 169, Smog, “Say Valley Maker”
She’s still drunk in the bathroom, now calling her husband, Jad, on the phone, when one of her favorite songs comes on.
“It’s a singer Julie and I loved, a guy whose voice keeps getting deeper and deeper as he ages, as we aged, Julie and I, until she stopped and the singer and I kept going. There isn’t love without obstacle, he sings, and I think, I’m on the toilet and my husband’s in Texas, and this could be, should be, a new verse to this song.”
Page 205, Ruth, “Polaroid / Roman / Photo”
Kit recalls the time she and Julie played a DJ set at Kit’s university in Dallas.
“We played tracks we liked—dark wave, minimal electro.”
Page 205, Aphex Twin, “Cliffs” (aka Selected Ambient Works #1)
The DJ set starts to go awry (IMHO this song slaps but it’s not exactly easy to dance to).
“Julie swayed where she stood, head drifting. She swerved, started grabbing records so ambient they sounded like nothing, like maybe she forgot to queue up the next track. Nobody was dancing because it wasn’t music to dance to. These songs were the sound of shoes tumbling in the dryer—the sound of your upstairs neighbor living their life.”
Page 213, Brian Eno, “Discreet Music”
Kit listens to Julie’s favorite music to feel close to her sister, this time without the (imagined or real?) haunting connection Kit has sensed earlier in the book.
“At home, the table lamps don’t twinkle or fritz when I turn them on. We listen to Julie’s favorite ambient record and there’s no interrupting static or buzz. It’s soothing, peaceful, fit for a hair salon or hospice. It’s one long track that shifts keys slowly, imperceptibly—a wash of faded colors sliding over and over themselves, intensifying, canceling each other out.”
Page 226, David Bowie, “Ashes to Ashes”
Kit remembers what it felt like to come down from LSD.
“You crawl into bed and close your eyes to watch a vivid, involuntary movie. The duration and speed will not be of your choosing. The subject matter will range from odd to disturbing. You will see a girl feeding lemons to reindeer. You will see a man carefully, slowly unhooking his ears. This is just dreaming, you think, this is being asleep. It is like that, but you’re awake. This is terror: images coming unbidden. Bed is bad—it’s the worst. But you have to go deeper in. You have to confront things, stay awake, carry on. No choice. ‘I wanna come down right now,’ sings my favorite glitter rock singer in my favorite glitter rock song. Well, you can’t.”
Page 255, Cat Power, “Colors and the Kids”
Page 255, Smog, “Rock Bottom Riser”
Page 255, The Flaming Lips, “What is the Light”
Kit has come to a place a peace with Julie’s death—she is now more able to experience the present moment with Gilda. This is a turning point and also a little tendril reaching back to Julie.
“Gilda sings while we walk, swinging my hand. How have I never noticed this before? That she’s a little jukebox, that she can sing—really sing—on key and on cue, any song she hears. When Julie and I were young, we thought everybody could sing, same as learning to walk or tie your shoes. It wasn’t until we went to school and got around other kids that we realized what we had. “Gilda, do ‘Colors and Kids,’ or ‘Rock Bottom Riser,’” I say. “Do ‘What is the Light.’” And she does, she does.”
Kimberly King Parsons is the author of Black Light, a collection of stories that was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. In 2020, she received the National Magazine Award for fiction. Born in Lubbock, Texas, she lives in Portland, Oregon, with her partner and children. We Were the Universe is her first novel.