Sung J. Woo’s novel Lines is a fascinating meditation on love and art.
Stewart O’Nan wrote of the book:
“With its star-crossed lovers and fickle downtown art scene, Lines is a sweet, sharp-eyed New York fairytale bound to appeal to fans of smart romantic comedies. While Sung J. Woo’s deft use of his fugue structure will remind readers of Sliding Doors, his feel for Josh and Abby as they navigate their many missed connections recalls the pure, exalted yearning of Haruki Murakami.”
In his own words, here is Sung J. Woo’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Lines:
Lines is my fifth novel, and it is the most formally challenging work I’ve written. The trick with this book is that at the end of the prologue, the two main characters, Josh and Abby, run into each other…and miss each other. At the same time. I label the two subsequent threads, or “lines” (yes, the title!), as “Apart” (where they miss each other) or “Together” (where they run into each other). The irony here is that Apart, they long for each other but are otherwise quite happy with their lives with their respective significant others, while Together, misery reigns. The two lines dovetail into each other as much as possible as the plot moves forward in linear fashion.
If this sounds somewhat familiar, like a movie you caught back in 1998, you wouldn’t be wrong. That film, Sliding Doors, starring Gwyneth Paltrow as blonde or brown haired depending on her “line,” was an inspiration for this book, which is why my first song on the playlist is “On My Own,” by Peach Union on the soundtrack.
So is that why the book is titled Lines? No — there’s actually a song entitled “Lines,” by Katie Herzig on her album Walk Through Walls. I listened to this song many times while writing the book, and a chunk of its lines (there it is, again) appears in the epigraph of the novel, including this key tidbit: “Even though we draw our lines with very different ends.”
Of course, when I think of a song about lines, I immediately recall Sara Bareilles’s “Between the Lines,” on her major-album debut Little Voice. It’s such a heartfelt piece about unrequited love, which fits quite nicely with the tenor of this book.
Now let me split the rest of my picks into, ahem, lines — Apart and Together, just like the book. The same cast of characters appears in each — in Apart, Josh and Marlene are married and Abby and Ted are about to be; in Together, Joshua and Abby are married while Marlene is Joshua’s co-worker and Ted and Abby share an office.
Apart
- Josh – “New York Is a Woman,” by Suzanne Vega on Beauty & Crime. In Apart, Josh is a member of the BNT — the Bridge and Tunnel Crowd. He and Marlene live in New Jersey, so when he comes to New York City to see Abby at her gallery show, he’s very much like the wide-eyed visitor of Vega’s song.
- Abby – “At the Frick Museum,” by Aimee Mann on Queens of the Summer Hotel. Abby is a painter of very small works (inspired by the works of Dina Brodsky (https://www.dinabrodsky.com/ – her paintings appear in the book itself), and I can easily see her as the speaker of this playful song.
- Marlene – “Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World,” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole on Ka ‘Ano’i. Hawaii means a great deal to Marlene in the book; you’ll know why if you read it!
- Ted – “Money,” by Pink Floyd on Dark Side of the Moon. Ted Wingfield is a financial planner, so the safekeeping and generation of money is his livelihood. “Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie” is a lyric that would very much speak to him.
Together
- Joshua – “Creep,” by Radiohead on Pablo Honey. Joshua, as he is identified as in the Together line, is not a happy guy. And he might quite possibly be a creep. The chorus of the song, “But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo / What the hell am I doin’ here? / I don’t belong here,” could very well be his mantra.
- Abby – “She Used to Be Mine,” by Sara Bareilles on Waitress soundtrack. This is such a beautiful, sad song. The lyrics “She’s messy, but she’s kind / She is lonely most of the time” describe the emotional state of Abby to a T.
- Marlene – “Black,” by Pearl Jam on Ten. Even though “Black” is sung by Eddie Vedder and the words refer to a woman, I can’t think of a more painful evocation of heartbreak, regardless of gender. This is Marlene’s music of melancholy.
- Ted – “Guilty Partner,” by New Order on Technique. It’s probably obvious by now that the Together line of this book is dark. “Can’t explain my hopeless devotion / Or change what had to be” is an apt summation of Ted’s unfortunate situation.
And for my last pick, I think we can all agree that it has to go to Johnny Cash and his “I Walk the Line,” from his debut album Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! If for no other reason that it’s a relatively happy song, about Johnny’s proclamation of devotion to his wife. Whom he’d divorce twelve years later, but let’s not go there. Instead, let’s remember this positive pair of couplets: “You give me cause for love that I can’t hide / For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide / Because you’re mine, I walk the line.”
also at Largehearted Boy:
Sung J. Woo’s playlist for his novel Deep Roots
Sung J. Woo’s playlist for his novel Skin Deep
Sung J. Woo’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, PEN/Guernica, and Vox. He has written five novels, Lines (2024), Deep Roots (2023), Skin Deep (2020), Love Love (2015), and Everything Asian (2009), which won the 2010 Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Award. In 2022, his Modern Love essay from The New York Times was adapted by Amazon Studios for episodic television. A graduate of Cornell University with an MFA from New York University, he lives in Washington, New Jersey.