In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Larissa Pham’s novel Discipline is a smart and reflective debut on art and creativity.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“A brilliant, entrancing, and provocative mirror-within-mirrors tale of art, story, and power, is all that and more.”
In her own words, here is Larissa Pham’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Discipline:
Every long project I work on has its own hyper-specific soundtrack, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the writing process is finding out what songs work for each book. Fantasian, a novella, was drafted while listening to a lot of dark, moody electronic music. Pop Song, my essay collection, revels in limerence and big feelings—the soundtrack for that book, appropriately, was a lot of pop and techno bangers.
Discipline proved harder, at first, to access, and I wrote much of the first half of the book listening to instrumental music, music without words. Christine, Discipline’s narrator, is a very observant, quiet woman, reserved almost to the point of repression; contemporary classical music proved to be a good fit for her character. In the second half of the book, Christine’s character opens up—encompassing both compassion and rage—and the songs on the later part of this playlist reflect her transformation. I like to think of Discipline as a slow-burn thriller, and this playlist has a similar buildup.
Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi – Yann Tiersen
This was the first track I found that really felt like it captured the essence of Discipline—elegant, melodic, slightly elegiac, with an insistent, steady undercurrent. Listeners will recognize it from the film Amelie, another piece of art about a singular woman. Christine and Amelie are very different characters, but Yann Tiersen’s piece seems to capture a kind of pulsing, inescapable current that felt perfect for Discipline—it could be memory, or it could be fate.
Our Lovely Star – Zephyr Quartet
I first heard this piece while listening to WQXR, New York’s classical radio station. Zephyr Quartet is a young string quartet based in Australia, and their album Epilogue is inspired in part by the lives of “femme fatales,” including Anne Boleyn and Hedda Gabler. This track feels more wistful and nostalgic than some of the others on Epilogue, but I love the clean, evocative simplicity of the composition and I listened to it often while drafting Discipline.
Mishima / Closing – Philip Glass
This track comes from the soundtrack to the movie Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, following the life of the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. I love Philip Glass, and his minimal style felt very well suited to the style of Discipline, which is purposefully very crisp, clean, and attenuated. I also love the drama in “Mishima / Closing”, and I think it mirrors the drama of some of the reveals in this book. As the text moves forward in time, Christine also recalls more and more of her past and the events that led to her fateful revenge novel.
Shadow 1 – 2012 – Max Richter
Richter might be the king of minimalist music, in my opinion. I love how this track combines the natural world—bird calls and ambient noise—and layers it with a hypnotic electronic soundtrack. This track is dreamy, surreal, and transportive—all effects that I hoped to accomplish with Discipline, especially as Christine gets more entangled in her journey.
The Beech Tree – Caroline Shaw
If Caroline Shaw has one fan in the world, it’s me. If Caroline Shaw has no fans, then I am no longer on earth. Fortunately, Shaw has plenty of fans, and she’s constantly making new work. I’ve been following Shaw for some time; I most recently saw her in collaboration with Pam Tanowitz and Sarah Crowner in the dance piece Pastoral. “The Beech Tree” is short and exquisite and seems to encompass the entire range of human experience. When I write, I’m often trying to summon the same kind of emotional resonance—I imagine myself as the conductor of a tiny orchestra, except the orchestra is made of words. Listen to this track; you won’t regret it!
Hyperballad – Bjork
There is a kind of woman protagonist I adore—call her the unhinged woman, the deranged woman, the cares-too-much woman. Although Christine begins the novel in a cool, composed register, I think that at heart, she’s an unhinged woman, not unlike the narrator of Bjork’s “Hyperballad.” The lyrics are so good: “It’s early morning / No one is awake / I’m back at my cliff / Still throwing things off.” Who among us doesn’t need to get up early and throw things off a cliff just to be normal to be around? When Christine finally agrees to go to Maine to meet up with her old mentor and one-time abuser, I imagine her listening to “Hyperballad” on the plane.
Fineshrine – Purity Ring
I am squarely a millennial—I was a sophomore in college in 2012, when shrines, Purity Ring’s debut album came out, and every fall I spend about a week absolutely running it into the ground with how much I listen to it. I love Purity Ring’s mix of ethereal yearning and menacing synths, and this track feels representative of Christine’s first few days in Maine, when all her emotions—including anger—are at a fever pitch.
FEEL NOTHING – HEALTH
The second half of Discipline takes a formal shift from the first part of the book, moving from past to present tense. It also becomes darker and more eerie. To channel this, I listened to a lot of HEALTH—or, as they’ve described themselves, “sad music for horny people.” Though there isn’t a ton of actual sex in Discipline, I did want it to have a very sexy, menacing vibe. HEALTH is perfect for this.
Christine – Christine and the Queens
Christine is the novel’s narrator; protagonist; and shining, beating heart. I first heard this track when it came up on shuffle, and I loved the honest, lucid delivery of the lyrics. I don’t speak French, but that turned out to be useful as it meant I could write while listening to this. I think of this track as Christine’s theme song, perhaps at the end of the book—there’s something hopeful and optimistic about it, while remaining steady, calm, and level.
Larissa Pham is the author of the essay collection Pop Song, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize. Her writing has appeared in Granta, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Aperture, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is an assistant professor of writing at The New School. Discipline is her first novel.