In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Justin C. Key’s novel The Hospital at the End of the World is a propulsive and moving work of speculative fiction that hurtles the reader into a near future where A.I. makes the rules.
Library Journal wrote of the book:
“A medical-minded dystopia with mystery elements that emphasizes the importance of human connection and equity for everyone in a world of artificial intelligence. For readers of Laila Lalami.”
In his own words, here is Justin C. Key’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel The Hospital at the End of the World:
Music has always been a significant player in my mental health. I overheard one day my wife telling my kids that ‘when Dad’s singing along to a song, that means he’s in a good mood.’ Music fosters happiness, calms anxiety, soothes sorrow and loneliness, inspires, motivates, and connects. Though I mostly listen to Hip-Hop and R&B, my ear is broad. If I like a song, I like it. And if I love it, I walk with it.
I have no set routines. Sometimes I write with music, sometimes it’s in silence. Sometimes I listen to music on long drives and other times I listen to podcasts. Sometimes I lift weights to gospel and other times it’s hardcore rap that gets me going. Whatever the case or occasion, music holds my emotional memory. Known songs aren’t just melodies but rather life’s bookmarks, bookmarks that evolve and change with each listen (much like the fluidity of human memory—look it up!).
My listening history very much reflects and shapes my emotional repertoire and, thus, informs the emotional beats of the stories I write. I’ve been working on what will be my debut novel, The Hospital at the End of the World, for ten years. The following playlist reflects a bit of my journey with Pok, the book’s protagonist, and where he spends most of his time, Hippocrates Medical Center.
“Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys
“If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.” Pok’s story starts in New York. That’s where he grew up and that’s where, as a young medical student, I got the idea for his world. Empire State of Mind, set in one the most influential cities in the world, performed by one of the best rappers in his prime, and made epic with Alicia’s vocal command, is perfect for Pok’s beginnings. Jay-Z is a confident, braggadocious MC. He’s clever and he’s proud. That’s Pok’s mindset on page 1. He’s a top tier medical school applicant. But, of course, life never fails to humble . . .
“Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional
“Slight hope dangles on a string like slow-spinning redemption.” The ultimate feel good, volume all the way up, sing at the top of your lungs, imagine yourself saving the world, kind of song. When I think of a determined Pok setting off on his big journey early in the book, I imagine this song playing in the background. He’s looking for vindication, for redemption, for answers. Most of all he’s seeking out hope.
“Dancing on the Light” by Richard Dillon
I can’t for the life of me remember how this one entered my life. I have a vague memory of it being in a movie but all my searches tell me I’m wrong. Whatever the origin, this is the only entry on this list without vocals. The calm piano invokes simultaneous feelings of current importance and of something epic about to happen. That’s what it’s like to write a novel; the need for a calm, focused mind that’s also teetering on the edge of discovery and, every once and awhile, greatness.
“Read All About It” by Emeli Sande
An amazing track. It’s about the power of narrative juxtaposed with the fear of speaking against the grain. With Hospital, I knew I wanted to do something with media and how we consume news. Pok quickly learns the different players in New Orleans—two rival newspapers that have two very different takes on Hippocrates Medical Center. The Daily Hippo and The Second Opinion. When Pok becomes the news, he has to figure out how to get his voice—his narrative—heard.
“Nonstop” from Hamilton the Musical
“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” Aren’t we all running out of time, in one way or another? Though Alexander Hamilton was engaged in a very different type of writing, we’re both strive for legacy. The song is complex, both admiration and criticism, and I’ve leaned into the former as motivation.
“Changes” by Tupac Shakur
Tupac is a legend and arguably the best rapper, dead or alive. I love Tupac’s versatility; he made cross-generational club bangers, feel-good melodies you could bob your head to while doing the dishes, and political commentaries that elicit a ‘damn’ and a ‘shaking my head’ thirty years later. Pok also strives for greatness while recognizing the injustices around him. A part of being a medical student is the need to set yourself apart, to be the best of the best, and sometimes that directly conflicts with the want to do right.
“Like A Star” by Corinne Bailey Rae
The first five seasons of Grey’s Anatomy live rent free in my head. I binged the show right around the time I was applying to medical school. One episode featured Like A Star and I fell in love. It’s forever been associated with the hospital and I’d listen to it often while crafting Pok’s scenes. It plays as he passes from hospital room to hospital room, as he goes from case to case, as he tries to deal with death and disease and the power of healing. The song’s smooth, magical quality represents the transformation of going through medical school and residency. Listening to it, you know importance awaits on the other side.
“I Will Get There” by Boyz II Men
My cousin, Douggie, was shot and killed in 2004. He was 25; I was 17. This was part of the soundtrack to my subsequent grief. It’s associated with sorrow but also with hard times that must be passed through. When Pok feels it’s impossible to go on, when he just wants to give up from exhaustion or fear or guilt of incompetence, when he has to dig down and somehow believe that he’s going to be able to ‘get there’, this song’s spirit is present.
“If I Die Young” by The Band Perry
Is there a greater tragedy than dying young? Working in the hospital means a certain proximity to death, including young death. It never gets easy. It never makes sense. This song’s power is in its message of taking control of not just life but also death. “If I die young, bury me in satin / Lay me down on a bed of roses / Sink me in the river at dawn / Send me away with the words of a love song.” Pok needs this perspective as he bears tragedy after tragedy.
“Dangerously In Love” by Beyonce
You know those songs you can easily play on repeat? As soon as it’s over you hit ‘restart’? And it never gets old? Dangerously In Love is that for me. I’m already a sucker for love songs. Reflecting, love songs may serve for me the same purpose as horror: a relatively safe space to tap into raw emotion.
I likely listened to Dangerously in Love hundreds of times over the course of writing this novel (and likely racked up significant procrastination from breaks to belt out the chorus). It undoubtedly helped me connect to the deeper emotions needed to craft what I hope are rich, complex characters.
“The Loneliness” by Babyface
Another sad face love song from me (look, I was a sappy, love-struck teen, okay, and these songs clawed themselves into my developing brain!). Babyface’s smooth tones and heartfelt harmonizing make for great music. It embodies Pok’s lowest points, the emotions he has to sit with, the loss. For Pok, it isn’t a romantic loss, but a loss just the same, that comes with regret and longing and, fittingly, loneliness.
“Good Day” by J. Moss
Gospel has been a significant part of my listening journey. It calms, inspires, and reminds. Good Day is manifestation. For me, it isn’t about being in a good mood, but about getting in a good mood. I remember listening to this song on the way to the hospital as a fourth-year medical student on an away rotation at UCSF, which basically meant everyday was an interview. No matter what was going on at home with my two small kids, no matter what difficult patient cases might be weighing on my mind, no matter the self-doubt, the fear, the uncertainty, I had to show up every day and try to be a superstar. I needed to have a good day. This song, every morning, helped me get there.
There’s a part in Hospital where Pok, overwhelmed with his studies and clinical duties, finds himself suddenly in charge of a specialized medical unit in lieu of his mentor’s absence. Knowing that he’s underwater, knowing that he’s overwhelmed, he was to take the weight of being a doctor onto his shoulders and say, ‘Okay, I got it.’ He definitely had this song on repeat.
“Renegade” by Jay-Z and Eminem
“See they call me a menace, and if the shoe fits I’ll wear it. But if it don’t, then y’all will swallow the truth, grin and bear it.”
Pok, as protagonists are wont to do, has his burst of confident competence in the second half of the book. If a reel were made from this ‘step into the hero roll’ moment, Renegade would be the audio. Jay-Z and Eminem’s back and forth is about misconceptions, about letting people have their false beliefs while working against them. It’s about setting your own path and coming out on top. At a point Pok has to go against what he’s told to do as a medical student (and trust me, med students are at the absolute bottom of the totem pole) and still strive for excellence. He has to become a mf’ing renegaaaaaade!
“Out Here Grindin’” by DJ Khaled and various artists
You want to get hyped? Put this one on. It’s my guilty pleasure ‘LET’S F’ING GOO!’ song. Metaphorically, DJ Khaled is known for making legendary Hip Hop music, but he can’t do it on his own. His superpower is creating winning rosters. A director is nothing without actors, a coach jobless without the players. Pok needs to realize that ‘WE the best’, not just him.
“Da Drought 3 Mixtape” by Lil Wayne
Yes, the whole album. At only 24 years old, Lil Wayne took some of the top songs in Hip Hop, took the beats, and, as we say in the genre, destroyed them. He made the songs his.
The Hospital at the End of the World is proudly set in New Orleans. Lil Wayne cemented himself as one of the best to do it in the years following Hurricane Katrina, when it felt like the country had abandoned one of its most culturally rich cities. “They trynna make a new map without us / But no matter how you change it, it’ll still be ours” Lil Wayne raps on his Sky is the Limit remix. In the book, New Orleans refused to be rewritten, redrawn, rebranded. By embracing an AI-run future, the country decided to go against not only the historic city’s best interest, but it’s collective own as well. In Hospital, New Orleans is taking the beats of that narrative and rewriting the hook and the chorus, laying down awe-inspiring bar after bar, to open the nation’s eyes to a better way.
Justin C. Key is a practicing psychiatrist and a speculative fiction writer. He is the author of the debut novel The Hospital at the End of the World and the story collection The World Wasn’t Ready for You. His stories have appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Lightspeed, and on Tor.com. He received a BA in biology from Stanford University and completed his residency in psychiatry at UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.