Sara Gran‘s collection Little Mysteries is filled with smart and imaginative stories.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Gran is both blowing up the mystery genre and tying herself to its mast-what an incredible light show.”
In her own words, here is Sara Gran‘s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Little Mysteries:
What does a mystery sound like? I think it sounds like things you want to understand, but don’t. These songs are what a mystery sounds like to me.
I’ve done a few playlists for the extended Claire DeWitt universe; my new book of short stories, Little Mysteries, mostly takes place in this universe. I don’t remember, and will not be investigating, previous lists, both because I’m lazy and because I created an ongoing series character for exactly this reason; my character changes as I change. My characters aren’t me, but since I created them, it must be true that, in some way, I entirely contain them within me. They can listen to music I don’t listen to, but they can’t listen to music I’ve never heard of. I can write a character who’s smarter than me, because I can take a year to figure out what takes them a day, but they can’t know things I don’t know. I think my characters would have more interesting and original taste in music than me, but I can’t give this to them, so this is a list of songs I, their creator, listens to when writing mysteries. To write a book is to concretely come up against the limits of being one’s self.
The Midnight Special, Leadbelly: The interwoven strains of Leadbelly’s version of this folk song—life in prison, the death of the narrator’s wife, a train arriving—speak to everything interesting and mysterious about writing; taking a traditional theme and making it one’s own, the unknowability of another person’s intellectual associations, memory, and inner life, and the pain of loss, which is not lessened, but somehow refined, when shared.
Dance This Mess Around, the B-52s: The organ in this song sounds exactly like a detective solving a mystery to me. What does that mean? I have no idea. What makes a sound feel like you’re in love, or starting a revolution? No one seems to know. But let’s try: I think there’s something about the restrained, methodical progression of the keyboard that sounds like acquiring knowledge feels. Is acquiring knowledge a sound? I don’t know. This is all very confusing. But I can say with certainty; I listened to this song on repeat while I was writing the first Claire DeWitt book.
Inoculated City, The Clash: No one mentions the neighboring war. No one knows what the fighting’s for. For any kind of writer, it’s an enormous challenge to reference world affairs without losing the mystery, potency, and intimate emotion of one’s work. The Clash were able to take a clear political stance without sacrificing the personal, impressionistic quality that gives writing depth and meaning; world affairs hover in the air like a mystery you can’t quite solve but can’t quite forget.
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Paul Simon: Boy, those are some sneaky moves. You could just talk to her, you know. Maybe you can work things out. But if people just said what they were thinking, what would we write books, or songs, about?
Who’s Been Sleeping Here?, The Rolling Stones: One way of listening to this song is to hear a man interrogating his partner about who’s been in her home. Another, more interesting way, would be to hear it as a man looking at his own life, and interrogating himself: Who will tell me? Who’ll investigate? The answer is no one; only you can solve the mystery of who you are.
Nothing In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ ’Bout That Girl, The Kinks: Let’s end the suspense: he was right to worry, she was cheating. But knowing the truth does not bring our narrator happiness, only more pain, because even as can’t he stop worrying about her, he also can’t stop loving her. Solving a mystery can break your heart. Maybe Paul Simon can help him get out of this situation.
Black Mountain Blues, Bessie Smith: Black Mountain is a probably-mythical city where babies cry for liquor and the birds sing bass—and the narrator is heading there with a razor and a gun, set on revenge. So much of the history of our brilliant American music is lost to time. There is a real place called Black Mountain, but does the song have anything to do with it? Was Black Mountain a metaphor? A spiritual condition? An actual mountain? All of those things? Maybe there’s an advantage, sometimes, to not knowing the literal truth. The profound, poetic, truth will have to do instead.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Sara Gran’s playlist for her novel The Book of the Most Precious Substance
Sara Gran is the author of The Book of The Most Precious Substance. Previous work includes Saturn’s Return to New York, Come Closer, Dope, Marigold, and the Claire DeWitt series. She is the founder of small press Dreamland Books and writes for television and film.