The stories in Marguerite Sheffer’s collection The Man in the Banana Trees magnificently surprises with every story in the best of ways.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“Sheffer’s inventive debut collection fuses reality and fantasy. . . . Sheffer keeps things interesting by making a point to zig when one might expect a story to zag.”
In her own words, here is Marguerite Sheffer’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection The Man in the Banana Trees:
When I was writing the stories that came together to be The Man in the Banana Trees, I tried to see what I could get away with. I wrote these stories as totally unlinked; only some of the central characters are human beings, others are ghosts, aliens, or in one case, a famous tapestry. I approached each story as a playful experiment: trying on different genres and structures like costumes.
I only saw the common threads between these stories when early readers reflected my own obsessions back to me. They told me this was a collection about technology and art, grief and haunting, and what grown-ups owe to children.
I wrote most of these stories with my pink poofy headphones on, using music to hijack my mind back into story-mode when I had 30 minutes at 5 am, or 15 minutes on my lunch break. I make playlists for specific stories, or characters, or scenes, and when I’m really in it, I will loop the same song. This really fucks up my Spotify Wrapped. “Creepy,” the algorithm called me, in 2021.
I’m always on the lookout for songs that include a gear-change moment in them: so useful for figuring out those climactic moments in a short story where a turn happens. In no particular order, here are the 12 songs behind the 18 stories in The Man in the Banana Trees.
“Gooey” by Glass Animals
This song transports me to another world so quickly: a skill I try to emulate when writing a story set in the afterlife (“The Disgrace of the Commodore”) or on another planet (“How We Became Forest Creatures”). The elastic beat and drippy sound effects just feel like somewhere else. I feel like I’m instantly surrounded by lush jungle, but not one I’ve ever seen in reality.
“My Body is a Cage” by the Arcade Fire (and also covered by Peter Gabriel)
This song is strongly related to a specific story in the collection, “En Plein Air,” which concerns the ghost of an artist haunting the small island that had once been her beloved artist colony, now turned into a corporate retreat space. Anne-Marie is trapped, full of longing and angst, and this song catapulted me into her headspace. She’s trapped in jealousy and rage and angst and can’t let go. There’s also this gradual buildup into a swelling of different instruments, as things reach a fever pitch as the line “set my spirit free” repeats: that crescendo was something I was trying to do with the structure of this story too (which literally starts with a line about fever).
“My Ego Dies in the End” by Jensen McRae
Right there in the title: ego-death is something I keep circling back to in my stories. I’ve realized, through writing, that one of my obsessions is surrender. “I lost the girl I was over a winter / … I tried to die for it / I could not die for it.” What are we left with when the ego gives up? When we are really vulnerable and undefended? I listened to this song while writing the story “The Observer’s Cage,” whose narrator is a retired astronomer, looking back on a period of discovery, love, heartbreak, and loss. He talks about a broken, tumultuous relationship, and also his brush with something really magnificent: his colleague’s discovery of pulsars. His voice was a refreshing one to write from, because time has stripped away much of his ego and the hurt that he felt, leaving behind a lot of love and wonder.
“This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies
I love the elasticity of time in this song. From a tender little precipice the singer is talking about the past and the future: “this will be our year / took a long time to come.” How do they know? Do we believe them? Are they right? Will they escape their old patterns, whatever was holding them back? I’m rooting for them. This song always makes me cry. I want them to be right in their hopes for the future. Short stories can be really hard to end, but I think the snapshot nature of this song is really instructive. We don’t know how things will turn out for them, but we know which way they are facing. It’s deceptively simple, like a good flash piece.
“Jupiter 4” by Sharon Van Etten
The vibes of this song! Eerie and warm. Like a nighttime walk in a city alone. It’s (ostensibly) a love song but sounds ripped from a horror movie soundtrack. There’s an electric hum from the –synthesizers? Not sure. It feels like the singer has realized a secret and they haven’t told anyone yet: great potential energy. The lyrics read happy: “Baby, baby, baby / I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting my whole life / For someone like you / It’s true that everyone would like to have met / A love so real” but there’s a darkness to the music that undercuts those lyrics. Maybe the singer wants to devour their loved one. That’s one thing I talk with my writing group a lot: how to have a character say one thing, but make clear to the reader that they are not expressing the whole picture, that there’s something behind the words: I think Van Etten does that musically here. For a story that feels a little like this song, see “The Wedding Table.”
“Which Witch” by Florence and the Machine
This is my favorite Florence and the Machine song, which is saying a lot: I could have included most of their discography in this essay, but that would have made for a pretty boring playlist. And this song is a bonus track, listed as a “demo!” The trumpets on this song really propel it to something monumental. I write a lot of genre fiction, including some horror and science fiction stories peppered throughout The Man in the Banana Trees, and find that Florence and the Machine songs help me tap into an epic sensibility and an otherworldliness that fuels unreality. Especially this track. “I’ve had enough / it’s obvious / I’m getting tired of crawling all the way”
“Not” by Big Thief
The conceit of this brutal song is that it lists a bunch of things “it” is not: “not the crowd / not winning / not the planet / not spinning…” The music says yes and the voice says no. There’s a real poetry to the lyrics, as “it” is carved from the negative space of what it is “not.” How to put into language something essential and invisible? The singer’s voice breaks as she tries to tackle that. There’s a long instrumental interlude in the 6+ minutes. I think it’s a magic trick: how to say something unsayable. So many of the stories in The Man in the Banana Trees are trying to pull that off; I suspect most fiction writers are!
“Younger & Dumber” by Indigo De Souza
Such a beautiful, yearning song. Like many others on this list, the music starts simple, then crescendos to a breaking point–I find myself collecting songs that have that escalation, that mimic the familiar “plot” diagram. It sounds like a realization that can’t be put off any longer. This song is one I find myself returning to over and over again in the messy drafting process, when I just need to be mesmerized and follow my brain where it wants to take me.
“Within You (Moon and Stars) – Acoustic” by Valerie June
This song speaks to my hippie sensibilities: moons, stars, acoustic guitars, swaying, interconnectedness. The stories in The Man in the Banana Trees have mostly-gooey centers underneath their flashy exteriors. Most of my characters are idealistic curious daydreamers, even when they wish they could toughen up and fit in. Spoiler: they can’t, at least not fully.
“For a Little While” by Langhorne Slim
One of the stories in The Man in the Banana Trees, “Yellow Ball Python” is about a couple who wants to stay in love, wants to freeze time so the world doesn’t erode that feeling. This song was key to cracking that feeling. “Oh don’t do it / I’m begging you, believe me / for a little while.” I think one of the most romantic feelings is that desire to just push the world away and stay in the moment (see Rihanna’s “Stay”). There’s a great breakdown around the 3 minute mark, that feels confessional and lush, so earnest. “Tell me why nothing good / ever seems to last / come to me.”
“6 Foot 7 Foot” by Lil Wayne & Cory Gunz
This is my go-to revision song. It’s a reminder of the fun and swagger I want to achieve in a short story. When Lil Wayne laughs—”ha!”—between two verses I’m locked in. I write about a lot of sad stuff, and totally get Lil Wayne’s wild pleasure at wordplay and rhythm and form. When I’m writing I feel invincible and petty: if anyone tells me I can’t or shouldn’t do something, that’s instantly what I want to try. I will not be told what to do—not in art. I might fail (I often do) but writing is the one place I never have to compromise. That’s exhilarating and that’s what this song reminds me of. As Lil Wayne says, “I’m going back in…” This song was a direct inspiration for the title story, “The Man in the Banana Trees,” where the line “mind so sharp I fuck around and cut my head off” becomes a touchstone for a character grieving.
“Hospital Beds” by Cold War Kids
If The Man in the Banana Trees has a theme song, this is it. While writing these stories, I listened to not just the original version, but live versions and covers by Florence and the Machine and Dustin Kensrue—all excellent. The song goes:
“Tell me the story of how you ended up here…
I got one friend laying across from me
I did not choose him, he did not choose me
We’ve got no chance of recovery
Sharing hospital joy and misery
The joy and misery“
Though the stories in this collection aren’t linked, I love the idea of each one singing out from a hospital bed, making a chorus, together in the mess. That being broken and stuck, alongside other broken and stuck people, can be the thing that gets you unstuck and reconnected.