Ledia Xhoga’s novel Misinterpretation offers a profound exploration of trauma and identity.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Thrilling. . . . This debut novel explores the ways traumas of the past can impact how we experience the present.”
In her own words, here is Ledia Xhoga’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Misinterpretation:
My interest in music is just as intermittent and unpredictable as my interest in TV shows, social media, or exercise. Sometimes doing chores or even falling asleep without some kind of background song song seems inconceivable, but then months will go by when writing, podcasts, and films occupy all my free time. While I was writing Misinterpretation I barely listened to music, but an eclectic range of tunes somehow snuck into the story. Most of the songs and instrumentals in the list make an appearance in the novel. The rest belong to an imaginary score that may enhance a scene in terms of location or ambiance.
1)Washington Square, The Village Stompers
I’ve always been fond of Washington Square Park, so it’s no surprise that it features in the opening scene of Misinterpretation. Washington Square by The Village Stompers, a college phenomenon band from the early 60s, perfectly captures the park’s frivolous spirit. The unflappable banjo, twangy, sharp, delivers a catchy tune conveying that sense of adventure that New York promises to the world but also a hint of laissez-faire defiance. In a black and white photo online, The Village Stompers are posing in front of the Washington Square Arch. They were likely drawing a crowd; Washington Square was # 2 in the top 40s chart at the time. The success of the Village Stompers was unfortunately short-lived. A few months later the tsunami of Beatlemania collapsed their burgeoning career and they never recovered.
2) Pink Champagne, Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Friedhofer composed Pink Champagne for “An Affair to Remember,” a 1957 film starring Deborah Carr and Cary Grant. In an early scene in the movie Nickie, a dashing playboy, orders pink champagne aboard a transatlantic ocean liner. When he steps out momentarily, Terry, a night club singer and his love interest, approaches the bar and orders pink champagne. She’s puzzled when the bartender places two glasses in front of her and pours champagne into both. Then Nickie returns. They realize they’ve ordered the same drink. The jazzy instrumental adds glamor, sophistication, and a note of whimsy to the scene, leaving behind a taste just as tingling and lasting as pink champagne. The main character in Misinterpretation is an Albanian interpreter who is married to an NYU film professor. Scenes from “An Affair to Remember” and its black and white predecessor “Love Affair” from 1939 are mentioned in the novel. The Empire State building where Nickie and Terry promise to meet makes several appearances in the novel as well, since it can be glimpsed from the interpreter’s apartment window.
3) Guarda che Luna, Walter Malgoni
Whenever there’s a lovely moon, Guarda che Luna starts playing in my mind. Translated roughly look at that moon or look, what a moon the song became popular in Italy in the late fifties. It was first performed by Fred Buscaglione whose public persona was that of a comedian pretending to be a mobster. Countless remakes followed as the song gained worldwide popularity. Guarda che Luna is a romantic ballad. Someone is admiring the moon and the sea, but alone and while reminiscing about an old love. As if to illustrate the uncomplicated past, Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata serves as a prelude. In Misinterpretation, Guarda che Luna is mentioned during an interpreting session, when the interpreter, instead of focusing on the words of Alfred, a Kosovar torture survivor, retreats into her own memories. I, also, once saw a woman singing Guarda che Luna by the Adriatic. I chose a version of the song performed by Milva, an Italian singer and actor, whose voice resembles most closely the woman from my memories.
Ora son solo a ricordare
E vorrei poterti dire
Guarda che luna
Guarda che mare
I’m alone now, remembering,
And would like to tell you
Look at that moon
Look at that sea
4) (I’ve had) The Time of my Life, Franke Previte, John DeNicola, and Donald Markowitz
At some point in the novel the interpreter tells her husband that The Time of my Life used to be wildly popular in Albania, which is true. The Time of my Life became a theme song in a televised dance competition only a few years after the fall of communism. The lyrics always sounded charged, like a vow the youth were making to leave the past behind and start living in freedom. The movie Dirty Dancing is also mentioned in the novel. After sampling some magic cookies at a party in the West Village, the interpreter sees two versions of Dirty Dancing playing on the walls, the American movie and the Indian one. Years ago, I also saw both versions of Dirty Dancing at a restaurant in Williamsburg playing just as synchronously as described in the novel although in different circumstances.
5) America, Terrence Dixon Minimal Detroit Mix
Here I was on the lookout for music that would heighten the illusion that the interpreter is about to enter a new experience of sensory perceptions. Feeling dejected and needing a distraction, she has joined an informal rave in Washington Square Park. There’s an actual piano near the crowd and a man in his nineties playing it, she realizes. But then the music segues to techno which puzzles her. America is not mentioned in the novel but with its repetitive beats and loops it complemented that transition in my mind.
6) Who Colt the Game Bob Marley and the Wailers
According to online sources, who colt the game means to disturb the natural order of things in Jamaican patois. The song shows up in the novel as the interpreter is doing exactly that. Wanting to help one of her friends, she has befriended Rakan, the dreaded antagonist. Choosing what music Rakan would play was admittedly a random choice; I happen to have a Bob Marley CD in my car. But it was the right choice since Bob Marley’s songs are a fusion of chill atmosphere, earth wisdom, and remonstration against injustice, which matches the character of the scene.
7) Hape Derën, Elina Duni
Elina Duni’s voice is burning votives casting a glow on velvet walls, a mosaic of cross-cultural gems, style, sophistication, old world nostalgia. And that’s only when it isn’t restoring classic Albanian folk songs from monochrome to gorgeous technicolor. Hape Derën (Open the Door) is a track from Duni’s most recent album A Time to Remember, in which she sings in French, English, and Albanian. The refrain is an ode to returning home, to crossing once again the threshold of childhood, to kissing one’s mother, so it suits the interpreter’s visit in Tirana.
8) Symphony no. 45 Farewell, Haydn
If you happen to see Haydn’s symphony the Farewell live or on YouTube, you’ll notice how every musician, at various times, will stop playing their instrument and leave the stage. Even the conductor eventually absconds with his baton, leaving behind two lone violinists. I’ve seen some musicians go all out, making a dramatic exit, by standing abruptly or furiously gathering up their things. The story has it that back in the 18 century Haydn and his musicians had been asked to stay for longer than expected at a prince’s mansion. They get homesick. Instead of making a direct appeal, Haydn asked each musician to leave in turn while playing in front of the prince. Did the prince get the message at once? I’ve got doubts.
In the novel, upon hearing about her friend’s accident, the interpreter remembers seeing Anna leave the stage after playing violin in Haydn’s Farewell.
9) Valse Triste by Franz Von Vescey
Valse Triste is not the pebble you threw in but the circles that won’t stop coming, that time you arrived too late in someone’s story, a Richard Yates’ kind of sadness, the sinking realization. Valse Triste is not mentioned in the novel, but it is what I picture Anna playing when the interpreter goes to spend the night in her apartment. It’s a time of uncertainty for the interpreter as her husband has left her once again, but the music transports her to a happier time and place.
10) The Andrews Sisters, Don’t Sit Under the Apple tree.
I discovered this song while googling what music would I play at a party with a 40s theme. The Andrews Sisters were my inspiration for the fictional Bronxville sisters, who, in the novel, are attempting to imitate the real Andrews Sisters. The 40s party is one of the last scenes in the novel. I wanted to have an event where most of the characters would gather, a check-in of sorts before the final scenes. Here’s a paragraph from the novel that describes this:
Their wholesome type of flirting was irresistible. With eye flutters, gentle swaying, and choreographed steps, they threw themselves into the refrain, making the most of the lyrics, which cautioned a former flame not to sit under an apple tree with another woman.
11) Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, the Pentatonix version
All I really learned from love is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.
This line from Cohen’s Hallelujah comes to the interpreter’s mind while she’s talking to her husband’s friend but it’s also pertinent to more significant relationships in the novel. A big part of the edits after the novel was acquired was the relationship between the interpreter and her husband. It was important to make Billy more likable than he initially came across. This line served as a compass during revisions. There are always distractions that make it impossible to properly see and take in someone’s love. And sometimes the distractions are self-styled mirages.
Ledia Xhoga is the author of the debut novel Misinterpretation (Tin House).