Heidi Bell masterfully blends everyday life with fable in her story collection Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse
Booklist wrote of the book:
“With her mix of light and dark, lovable and unlikable characters,
and hope and regret, Bell’s collection is part Neil Gaiman and part
Donald Barthelme, with a touch of Joyce Carol Oates.”
In her own words, here is Heidi Bell’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse:
The twenty-one short stories in Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse feature a variety of beleaguered characters at critical junctures in their lives. They’re wondering about their origins or their purpose or about nothing at all, really. For this playlist, I’ve strung together some favorite songs that reflect the subject matter and themes of the stories and that serve as fuel for my creative process.
“Waiting on an Angel” by Ben Harper
This is the sweet Ben Harper you want to play for your children at bedtime and not the badass Ben Harper singing about racism, social justice, and getting down and dirty. This song creates the sense of longing I hope to evoke in stories like “Angels,” “Fire,” and “Juliet.” It also suggests a mythic world that coexists with ours, an element that runs through this collection.
“The Wild” by Kris Delmhorst
I’m enchanted by the natural world, and I struggle to understand the ways we humans have tried to separate ourselves from it, at our own peril. Imagine some of these stories asking you, in Kris Delmhorst’s breathy voice, “Remember how you used to live there too / In the wild?”
“Slow Walk” by Hurray for the Riff Raff
I’m delighted to no end by the loose drums and cymbal clashes that move this song along. Yet the subject matter is serious: poverty, depression, drug addiction, relationship woes. “Oh never mind that,” Alynda Segarra sings, “I’m gonna go downtown / I’ve got a two-dollar bill / And a girl who hangs around.” These lines might have come from Annie, the protagonist of “The Sidetrack.” As in the song, Annie’s progress (and the progress of some of the protagonists in other stories) is marked by setbacks—caused by both societal ills and more personal weaknesses. And sometimes we reach the limit, where we just can’t think about our problems anymore. Somehow this song is both fraught and fun, and I try to strike a similar balance.
“Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen
This just sounds like an apocalypse song. Listen as Leonard Cohen describes, in his deepest, darkest voice, how everything has gone to hell, from the systemic to the personal: “Everybody knows the fight was fixed / The poor stay poor, the rich get rich / That’s how it goes.” One odd characteristic of humans is that our imagined personal apocalypses often eclipse the ones that might literally kill us all.
“Not Strong Enough” by boygenius
Some of these stories explore the beliefs, wounds, and self-sabotage that make it difficult for men to participate fully in intimate relationships. The members of boygenius have identified this song as their response to Sheryl Crow’s question “Are you strong enough to be my man?” Sometimes, this song says, the answer is no. (Thankfully, sometimes the answer is yes.)
“Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths
This song—like many Smiths’ songs—makes me laugh. Morrissey’s persona feels so sorry for himself and is certain that nothing ever goes his way, and yet we suspect he is exaggerating his case, as are the protagonists in “This Is Your Life,” “Catalog,” and “Peg’s Cat.”
“The Body Electric” by Hurray for the Riff Raff
Another song by one of my favorite groups. There is violence against women in some of my stories—overt and systemic, casual and subtle. I don’t know a more powerful song about male violence against women than this one, which contains a line that should chill all our blood: “Tell me what’s a man with a rifle in his hand / Gonna do for a world that’s just dying slow? / Tell me what’s a man with a rifle in his hand / Gonna do for his daughter when it’s her turn to go?”
“Make Me a Pallet” by The Journeymen
At the tensest moment in “Obscure Magic,” the character Mr. Lilts sings lines from this song—“Come all you good time friends of mine . . . / When I had a dollar, you treated me so fine / Where’d you go when I only had a dime?”—and thereby reveals the secret heart of the story. The down-and-out circumstances of this song also echo in the lives of the protagonists in “This Is Your Life” and “Stopping By.” This is a favorite song from my childhood, when my parents had a large and eclectic record collection.
“Salty Dog” by Carolina Chocolate Drops
The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ cover of Papa Charlie Jackson’s song is apparently much less racy—or maybe just more coded—than the original, but the sentiment is the same: let’s indulge our animal nature by being “salty dogs” together. There are some similarly earthy characters in several of these stories who are looking, with similar enthusiasm, for their own salty dogs.
“Young Blood” by Rickie Lee Jones
This song creates a world you can live inside while you’re listening to it, where you might remember how it feels to be young blood yourself: “They say this city will make you dirty / But you look all right / You feel real pretty when he’s holding you tight / City will make you mean / But that’s the makeup on your face / Love will wash you clean in the night’s disgrace.” And if you look around while you’re there, you might see some of the characters from the stories “The Sidetrack,” “Romance,” or “Stopping By.”
“Howdy Howdy” by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
The melody is melancholy, but the content is magical, featuring a talking blackbird, sentient moonlight, and devoted partners who will always be “howdy howdy” and together will “walk that lonesome valley.” The couples in the stories “The Pearl of Him” and “Fire” experience the joys and inevitable heartbreak of a long lifetime together.
“The Way Young Lovers Do” by Van Morrison
The power in this song is the power of consuming, irrational love that obliterates, albeit temporarily, the terror of looming apocalypses, both real and imagined. I’m convinced the insistent love in this song and in some of these stories can leaven the painful experience of being human.
“This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” by Talking Heads
The lyrics to this sweet, strange song might apply to every story in this collection, and maybe to everything I will ever write: “I’m just an animal, looking for a home.”
Heidi Bell is an award-winning writer and editor. Her short fiction has appeared in many literary publications, including New England Review, The Good Men Project, Chicago Reader, Southeast Review, and The Seattle Review. She is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships. In October 2024, Cornerstone Press releases Heidi Bell’s debut story collection, Signs of the Imminent Apocalypse. She resides with her husband in Aurora, IL. Visit www.heidibellbooks.com