In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Lauren Sanders’s debut Kamikaze Lust, now with a new foreword by Carley Moore to celebrate its 25th anniversary, is as propulsive and necessary as it was when first published.
The Toronto Star wrote of the book:
“The fact that Sanders can so overtly take on sex and death, write almost exclusively of their relationship to each other and their effects on a developing personality, and not sound clichéd, is a monumental achievement in itself.”
In her own words, here is Lauren Sanders’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Kamikaze Lust:
Novels take me FOREVER to finish. I keep a running playlist in my head that fuels the spirit or, as the kids say, the vibes of the book. This changes the more I begin to see the world through characters’ eyes, and songs seemingly unrelated ear-worm their way in.
I would be hard-pressed to remember all of the songs that soundtracked my debut novel Kamikaze Lust, which I wrote over several years throughout the 1990s. It’s the story of Rachel Silver, a journalist in New York City whose newspaper union goes on strike and she’s forced into a gig ghostwriting the autobiography of a feminist pornographer. Simultaneously the one sane person in her endlessly fucked-up family is dying of cancer and seeking her own way out. Sex and death are the main themes here, alongside love, friendship, work, identity, budding queerness, and so on.
The zeitgeist (a fancy word for collective vibes) is pure Nineties. As Carley Moore writes in her foreword to the reissued 25th anniversary edition: “Remember when there were feminist filmmakers like Tristan Taormino, who changed the porn industry with their queer, radical moviemaking? Remember when we didn’t have smartphones, and you could make a living as a journalist? Remember when just one or two top stories dominated the news?”
Through this nostalgic haze I revisited some of the music I remember being called to while writing and living the book. There’s an order to the playlist that loosely follows the narrative, but it’s more vibes.
“Let’s Get Lost” — Chet Baker
When the book opens Rachel’s got Chet Baker in mind after witnessing with the rest of the world a double-suicide on TV. She remembers playing her dead father’s records, amazed by Baker’s voice that mimicked the timbres of his trumpet. She’s thinking, “Blame it on My Youth,” and later in the book, “My Funny Valentine.” But this version of “Let’s Get Lost” slays and our dear Rachel is indeed about to get lost.
“Romeo Had Juliet” — Lou Reed
The great poet of the Lower East Side rewrites the great poet of the Elizabethans. Off the New York album coming into the Nineties… “I’ll take Manhattan in a garbage bag with Latin writ on it, That says it’s hard to give a shit these days.” The ethos is NYC everything. Doomed romance, Uptown/Downtown, walk on the wild side, and maybe the scariest abortion ever put to song. But lovers gonna love, even as the scornful world drags them down.
“The Power of Pussy” — Bongwater
More sounds of the East Village in the early Nineties, where Kamikaze Lust’s feminist pornographer lives and works: here’s Bongwater, the sadly short-lived psychedelic rock project from Ann Magnuson and Mark Kramer. Magnuson’s kittenish paean to pussy power, sexual awakening, and the ascendance of orgasm is “WAP” for sex-positive art girls—“I am woman hear me roar, who you callin’ fancy whore?”
“Baby Let Me Bang Your Box” — Daddy Cool (but listen to The Toppers)
Robin Byrd, the happy-go-lucky Oprah of the porn-star set, ran her show on Manhattan’s Channel J (dirty public access cable) from 1977 through 1990. The stars shed layers in clothing and conversation that now in our Only Fans world seems downright wholesome. Each episode culminated in a joyful dance to this song so steeped in innuendo was a middle finger to any society that marginalized them. Listen to the original 1954 version by The Toppers. The others are rather, um, flaccid.
“Justify My Love” — Madonna
Haters, move on. This song splashes erotic. It’s desire makes you wanna wrap yourself in sheets and run half naked through a warm tunnel in 35mm black & white because you’re crawling out of your skin but it feels so good. It’s touching every limb on your lover’s body and when they’re gone your own till you obliterate yourself. Please listen with headphones.
“Nothing Even Matters” — Ms. Lauryn Hill + D’Angelo
Slip through your Marvin Gaye kaleidoscope with these two souls (RIP D’Angelo) into a mellifluous cocoon where nothing—and we mean nothing—else matters. Even if your damn boss calls! It’s just you and your lover into the slow groove. When this feeling comes for Rachel she doesn’t know what hit her, only that she wants to pull down the blinds and dig herself in.
“One More Hour” — Sleater-Kinney
Is this the saddest, slinkiest, most screamingly sensual breakaway song ever? I’m biased, yes, because Sleater-Kinney? The way Corin swoons before Carrie “oh, you’ve got the darkest eyes” into the slam of dueling guitars melts me every time. Their call and response…I needed you/I know, I know mirroring their back story—google it, I can’t. Verklempt, ok? Just know desire, love, passion, it’s fucking painful. But beautiful too, once the gut-wrenching chokehold releases.
“Fuck the Pain Away” — Peaches
Indulge the jump post Y2K, the same year Kamikaze Lust was published and Peaches broke heteronormativity, like, what took you so long, girl? If there’s a zeitgeist to the book, this song comes close. It’s brazenly ecstatic, devilishly erotic. It’s an electro-punk anthem. The way Peaches moves through love, lust, anger, recognition, loss shakes you raw. So grab it, sister! Just stay in school, mind your own. And if it hurts, you know what to do.
“Roads” — Portishead
Oh the heartbreaking denouement! How it shreds like those first lonely notes of “Roads.” This song is biblical. It’s a desert highway, a wakeup call, the trip-hoppy triumph of the soul after its long dark night. Gives full-body shivers. I want to wrap this song in a leather pouch and strap it to Rachel’s heart as her world grinds down and what’s ahead feels so devastatingly bleak. The way Beth Gibbons in a few lines wrestles with our profound loneliness but maybe together we can find a way. As a coda, in these dark days I cannot stop watching this 2025 version the band recorded for Palestinian relief, as if the song wasn’t already already so far ahead of its class. And isn’t that the mark of a great song? Its resonance renews again and again.
“Las Simples Cosas” — Chavela Vargas
Rachel’s family emigrated from Poland to Buenos Aires, where her father grew up, and much of what she remembers of him comes through the Spanish songs he and her beloved Aunt Lorraine adored. This one has many versions but none inhabit the spirit of Kamikaze Lust like Chavela Vargas, the dapper butch-dyke icon and sneaky, sensual crooner of ranchera music. This song is a bittersweet call to treasure these simple moments on earth and hold fast to love, because, well, you know.… Que el amor es simple y a las cosas simples las devora el tiempo—for love is simple and simple things are devoured by time.
Lauren Sanders (she/they) is the author of the novel, Kamikaze Lust, which won a 2000 Lambda Literary Award and has been reissued in a 25th anniversary edition from Akashic Books, with a new foreword by Carly Moore. An audiobook read by Helen Laser4, acclaimed narrator of literary fiction is now available on many platforms. Lauren’s other novels include, With or Without You (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award) and The Book of Love and Hate, which The Advocate called “a thrilling tale of espionage, family ties, sex, love, and betrayal.”
She is co-editor of an anthology, Too Darn Hot: Writing About Sex Since Kinsey, and her short fiction, reviews, and journalism have appeared in various publications over the past decades, including Bookforum, the American Book Review, Poets & Writers, the long lost New York Press—anyone else remember when New York City was crawling with alternative weeklies?
By day Sanders runs editorial and digital content at a national foundation dedicated to education and the arts. She has served on nonprofit boards, most recently at New York Writers Coalition, whose mission was to cultivate community through free and low-cost writing workshops throughout New York City and beyond. She is a graduate of Barnard and Columbia’s J-school and along the way also snagged an MA in Creative Writing from City College.
Sanders resides in the nation of Brooklyn and cavorts on the north shore of Long Island where on clear day you might find her paddle boarding the Sound or hanging with her partner and Staffie mix, Maverick.