In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Emanuela Anechoum’s novel Tangerinn is an insightful and moving debut that deftly explores themes of identity and home.
Asymptote wrote of the book:
“Like Latronico’s Perfection, Tangerinn is a sort of millennial coming-of-age novel—a story of blooming beyond the social images and pressures that can get confused with a meaningful life.”
In her own words, here is Emanuela Anechoum’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Tangerinn:
I wrote Tangerinn with the TV on – no music in the background, but political talk shows and The Office re-runs. I was living in a small apartment in Rome at the time; I did not have a desk or a room of my own: I wrote the novel on the couch, with my partner (now ex) sitting next to me and a cup of cocoa at the ready.
The editing process, however, was another story: I was alone for that, sitting at the table, with the music on. Soundtrack or not, some of the songs below were on my mind in the making of certain characters, in writing specific scenes, lines of dialogue, little images. The songs refer to three different landscapes, as the novel is set between the South of Italy, London and Morocco, and are often intertwined with specific memories of my own.
Aïcha by Cheb Khaled
I know an author should not have a favourite character, as a mother loves all her children, but I can’t help it, I love Aisha the most. She is the heart of the novel and her relationship with Mina is the light that saves her from herself. Aisha’s name is inspired by a song by Cheb Khaled, a famous Algerian singer my sister and I used to listen to when we were little. The song is a dialogue between a woman and her suitor: he offers her jewels and a comfortable life, but she replies that a golden cage is still a cage, and what she wants is to be equal to him.
Cut Your Bangs by Girlpool (cover of Radiator Hospital)
This song has such a melancholic, intimate feel. For some reason I always imagined it as a conversation between sisters more than something a lover might say.
Last night I saw your face in the hallowed light
You were standing taller than the mountain side
Your long hair flowed down in blues and whites
I just stood there, bathed in the quiet
No, you say you’ll cut your bangs, I’m calling your bluff
When you lie to me it’s in the small stuff
There is a scene in the novel where Mina and Aisha are cleaning the family kitchen and reminiscing about their past transgressions, and I actually wrote it with these lyrics in mind, imagining them as teenagers, daring each other to cut their bangs and smoking cigarettes in the dark, and then brushing their teeth quickly to avoid being found out.
This Must Be the Place by Talking Heads
This is my all-time favourite song. The longing for somewhere, or someone to belong to, such an intense feeling and yet the melody is light, and hopeful. I don’t think it needs further explanation for those who have read the novel – Out of all those kinds of people / You got a face with a view / I’m just an animal looking for a home and / Share the same space for a minute or two. This is Mina’s deepest and truest desire, and also her biggest fear.
A San Rocco by Davide Ambrogio
I heard Davide’s music for the first time in a live concert at a festival in Calabria, near my hometown. It was dawn and the set was on a cliff with a spectacular view of the sea and Sicily behind it. The light was pink. Davide uses a traditional Calabrian instrument called zampogna, very similar to a Scottish bagpipe, but he mixes it with a contemporary sound to create a mysterious, mystical atmosphere. We were all taken by it, and it felt like such a beautiful, shared experience, something that linked us all together. And then, Etna Mount started erupting. You could see the red strips of lava from where we were. If you’re not from where I’m from you will find this a stretch, but this is the landscape I grew up with: wild countryside on the sea, and land on the other side, and a very active volcano that seems so close. I can see all of this in Davide’s music. I recommend listening to Davide’s entire album: Evocazioni e Invocazioni.
Paper Planes by MIA
This song is a classic ‘immigrant in the UK’ song – and I feel it’s the kind of tune Mina would have listened to while trying to make a living in London; it also speaks to Omar’s character a lot. Her experience mirrors his: she might be considered an expat in the UK, but in truth, they are both immigrants. She has no money and no education, and she has to make it work – just as he did. She’s not a hustler but maybe she wishes she were, and there’s a level of unscrupulous lightness in MIA’s lyrics that reminds me of Omar’s childhood in Casablanca.
Le rane by Baustelle
I can’t even think about this song without crying. It’s a song I have loved in my twenties but only more recently did I truly grasp its meaning. The protagonist of the song, who lives far from his hometown, comes back and meets an old friend with whom he used to go frog fishing in a pond nearby. Now the pond has disappeared, and there’s a hotel with a pool instead. Everything has changed, they have grown up, maybe they have lost touch. Seeing each other is painful because it reminds them of who they used to be, and are no more.
I’ve tried to translate some lines:
In the meantime I left / I deserted you if you wish / how does it make me feel? / the swimming pool of an inn is all over the frogs / Last time I bumped into you / afterwards I took refuge into a toilet / and cried on the time gone by, and what remains.
Heart-wrenching for anyone who has moved away from home. Also Baustelle rock.
To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra
There is a house built out of stone
Wooden floors, walls, and window sills
Tables and chairs worn by all of the dust
This is a place where I don’t feel alone
This is a place where I feel at home
I connect this song to Berta and Omar – their love story is almost barely touched in the book, but the home they built together is the starting point of Mina’s and Aisha’s story. I’d love one day to go back to them and imagine how their relationship started: how did Omar end up in a small southern town and who Berta was in her twenties when they met. At some point in the novel Mina says she wishes she were the result of a love, or of a hope at the very least. I do think Omar and Berta loved each other, and the home they created was the image of that love – colourful, messy, full of smells and sand… and secrets.
Come stai by Brunori Sas
Brunori is a Calabrian songwriter who has risen to national fame only recently, but whom I listened to long before that, so I am a proud first fan. This is from his second album, and it’s just a delicate touch on the conversations you usually have with acquaintances when you randomly meet them during Christmas holidays. People will ask: how are things? And the narrator will reply: all good, and talk about their job or the mortgage or this and that, when what they’d really like to talk about is ‘How easy it is to go when you don’t know how to drive / how sad Christmas feels without my father’
We Italians might be a bit traditional on the composition, but we do know how to write lyrics that make you bawl your eyes out.
Emanuela Anechoum was born in Reggio Calabria in 1991 and lives in Rome. After completing her studies, she began working in publishing in London before relocating to Italy. Her writing has appeared in Vice, Doppiozero, and Marvin Rivista. Tangerinn is her debut novel.