In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Paula Saunders’s novel Starting from Here is a striking and empathetically told coming-of-age tale.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“In this artful follow-up to The Distance Home, Saunders illustrates the obstacles young women face as they grow up and search for fulfillment. . . . This tender coming-of-age tale is worth a look.”
In her own words, here is Paula Saunders’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Starting from Here:
In Starting From Here, I’m following the life of a young girl, Rene, who leaves her home in South Dakota to pursue becoming a classical ballet dancer. My work is fairly autobiographical, and I, too, left home at 15 to study dance. My first book, The Distance Home, looked at Rene’s entire family in an attempt to understand how Rene might have been motivated to leave home so early. She definitely had more than one goal in mind; besides being something she loved doing, dance was her avenue for escaping her difficult family. And in Starting From Here, she’s doing just that.
I think that by working autobiographically, I’m able to look more closely and honestly at things that were difficult at the time. From my vantage point now, I have greater understanding and compassion for this young girl. Being an adolescent girl in this culture is difficult, even under the best of circumstances. But, by positioning Rene far away from her home and family, far away from any guidance, possible consolation, or support, her experiences become more exposed, sharper. We see, with a kind of shock, what so many young girls have to struggle with—what it takes to strike out on your own, to pursue your dreams, to survive the move from girlhood to young womanhood, and to finally, one hopes, find your right path.
You Are So Beautiful, Joe Cocker
I love Joe Cocker. I always have, since I was a kid. And this song in particular moves me. Maybe because there’s that section of the title line that both qualifies and expands the sentiment: “You are so beautiful, to me.” I love that: how beauty is found in how we see each other. It has nothing to do with our limited, conventional ideas of external “beauty.” Of course it’s all about love. And in Starting From Here, what the young protagonist, Rene, wants most of all is to be seen and known and loved – by others and, ultimately, by herself. This song also makes me think of how Rene is now still a teenager, hoping to live up to the expectations that have been placed on her, struggling to find her inner strength and beauty, struggling to understand what beauty might mean for her in her life, all the while dreaming of the beauty of her future self, the dancer she’s endeavoring to become.
I’ve Got to Use My Imagination, Gladys Knight and the Pips
So many times throughout her endeavors, Rene has to rely on herself to come up with reasons to “keep on keepin’ on.” It’s no joke. In Phoenix, in Denver, in New York, she’s always “got to make the best of a bad situation.” It’s a skill she has to develop just to keep from turning back and giving up. She has to pretend things are okay because there are so many difficult things she needs to accomplish. And if she loses faith, she loses everything. I think this is actually a part of growing up. We often have to pretend to ourselves so that we can keep trying to reach goals that seem unattainable. We have to pretend to be what we aspire to be. Plus, I adore Gladys Knight and the Pips –everything they do is magic.
Swan Lake, Act II, Op. 20, Tchaikovsky
This is a portion of the score for the Swan Lake performance, which occurs in the Phoenix section of Starting From Here. Rene has left home—as I did—at 15, leaving behind everything she’s ever known, and worked hard to be chosen for Arizona Ballet Theater’s corps de ballet. The very night of the Swan Lake performance, Rene encounters her own mother once again, for the first time in many months. Which, yes, was actually my experience – moving to Phoenix, dancing with Arizona Ballet Theater, seeing my mother for the first time in many months just before performing in Swan Lake. So, for me, this music is about love and yearning and great loss, which are the main emotional forces Rene has to reckon with, especially throughout this first section of the book.
IKYK, Ogi
This song reminds me so much of the relationship between Rene and her big brother, Leon. She wants to be there for him from the beginning, though, being children, they are at the mercy of their difficult parents. So, for Rene and Leon, it’s actually the opposite of what’s happening in IKYK: “I know you know that I’ll be there/Whenever you need me, oh…” That’s the aspiration. That’s the longing. But in reality, for Rene and Leon, there is no one there, really, for either of them. This song is a happy reminder of how it might be. If only.
Oceans (Where Feet May Fail), Hillsong UNITED, TAYA
This song is so quiet and strong and beautiful. So expansive. And I feel Rene is that way, too. She’s quiet and strong, always reaching out for transcendence. I was raised in the Christian tradition, and though that tradition isn’t my main source of sustenance today, I still feel incredibly drawn to the best parts of Christian ideology. In Starting From Here, Rene is constantly faced with the fear of her own failure. She’s immersed in “the great unknown” and terrified that her “feet may fail.” But at the same time, she’s drawing on her own inner strength and finding a way to go on. As in the song, she has the firm belief that “in oceans deep, my faith will stand.” And it’s that belief, that faith in herself and the world around her, as unfounded as it might seem at times, that gets her through to the other side.
The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky, K15, Part 1: II. The Augurs of Spring
This is a startlingly gorgeous piece of music. To her great disappointment, Rene is assigned to dance once again in the corps de ballet—no solo for her—in the performance of Sacre du Printemps at the end of her school year in Denver. And after the year she’s been through in Denver, this music seems the perfect choice. It’s haunting and threatening and frightening, yet woven through with notes of hope and promise. It speaks to the completely elemental situation Rene is in as an adolescent girl on her own. You’ll have to read the Denver section to see the connection, but for me, it’s a strong one.
I Walk the Night, Bruce Connole
I love Bruce Connole’s voice. It’s so pure yet gritty. And I love the country vibe of this dark, haunting song. It puts me in mind of Rene’s move to New York City. She first arrives to find herself in concrete canyons, only a sliver of sky still visible. She and Eve are surrounded by a sea of people, like nothing either one has ever experienced. The air around them is choking. There’s dog shit on the sidewalks. Their luggage is nearly stolen. Basically, “the air is poison, there’s no birds up in the sky.” Exactly. That first night in the city, Rene is too afraid to leave her cramped dormitory-like residence room. She watches, holding her breath, as Eve goes out into the night in search of groceries.
You and I, Wilco
To my mind, Jeff Tweedy is one of our most singular lyricists. I could point to a number of his songs that basically tear me in two. But when I hear him singing You and I, I think of Rene’s relationship with her mother: However close we get sometimes/ It’s like we never met/ But you and I, I think we can take it/ All the good with the bad/ make something that no one else has/ but you and I. So perfect. Rene has a long trajectory with her mother in this book – in her mother’s encouragement and rejection and deliberate blindness, then finally coming around to offer her support and love, if only temporarily. Maybe like all of us with our mothers, it’s a wild ride, full of miscommunication and misunderstanding and impatience and everything else. But, as Jeff tells us, “I think we can take it.” And we do, hoping to come out on the end of other side, with the deepest, most complex love and affection, regardless.
Quietly Yours, Birdy
I see this piece as something that relates to the end of the book, when Rene finally begins to realize that the love she’s been longing for has been available to her all along, that whatever she was searching for has always been right there for her, even when it seemed to be far away. It reminds me of that wonderful line in Willa Cather’s Lucy Gayheart, “What if—what if Life itself were the sweetheart?” I feel that’s what Rene is finally experiencing at the end of the book. She could be singing this one to herself as she starts out in New York City, once again at her very beginning. She’s Starting From Here, in fact, which is what the title’s all about and which is the only place we can ever really begin.
Paula Saunders grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University creative writing program and was awarded a postgraduate Albert Schweitzer Fellowship at the State University of New York at Albany, under then-Schweitzer chair Toni Morrison. Her first book, The Distance Home, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and named one of the best books of the year by Real Simple. She lives in California with her husband. They have two grown daughters.