In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Awarded the Kenneth Patchen Award for Experimental Fiction, Kim Merrill’s novel Red Girl Jumping is innovative and breathtakingly told.
Carla Wilson wrote of the book:
“Red Girl Jumping subtitled as ‘an experimental memoir’ stayed with me long after the first reading: I was mesmerized by the surreal beauty of the prose, yet felt punched in the gut, holding my breath the entire time wondering about the protagonist’s fate. The narrative held my attention in a dream-like state of suspense from the first sentence, with its steady pace, ethereal tone and wordplay throughout.”
In her own words, here is Kim Merrill’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Red Girl Jumping:
Red Girl Jumping is a memoir about dissociative amnesia told from the point of view of Red Girl, who is memory itself. Red Girl is a shard in Kimberly’s brain (my brain, full disclosure) who hides herself in a dungeon mind with detritus of things forgotten. Her dungeon mind is beautiful – colorful, psychedelic, a child’s playground of myths, books, fairytales, anger stones of lava, a Laughing Corpse made of bones, and other shards of memory who hold Kimberly’s incest past. When I decided to write the book, I was on a residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. I spent a lot of time walking in the astonishing desert air of New Mexico, and one day an image of Red Girl, un-forgotten and struggled with decades earlier, re-appeared as smoky ash asking to be written. The book we created, she and I, became a mosaic of memory shards fighting for seats at the table while we tried to tell our story. When I think about Red Girl Jumping – both the writing and living within — the music that comes to mind embodies states of confusion, longing for saviors and hope, and the da-da-dum heartbeat sounds that Red Girl hears in herself.
Red Girl Jumping leaps around in time and speaks in different memory ages, so I thought about a playlist organized around the book’s chronological arc of Red Girl and Kimberly’s moves toward union as they live, and argue, in their Taos casita.
“Row Row Row Your Boat” and “Guess I’ll Go Eat Worms” –nursery songs
For Little One, the youngest memory shard in the book, I like these nursery songs. Both play a role in the writing, so I did a casual search of their history. Row Row Row Your Boat appeared as early as the 1850s. The song is child-like, though the turn of “life is but a dream” would be nervous-making for Little One, who has to question what is real/not real in her life. Guess I’ll Go Eat Worms is sung by the Laughing Corpse (because Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me) and it surprised me to read that worms may have been eaten by impoverished kids in the early 1900s, despite the song sounding like a joke.
“Illinoise” – Sufjan Stevens
Illinoise is for Wisp, a pre-teen memory shard. Wisp has a sweet and smooth disposition and lived in Indiana for 4th and 5th grade. Abraham Lincoln, born in Illinois, was her patient imaginary friend. The swells and magical lilting sounds in the song, as well as its title addendum “concerning the UFO sightings near Highlands, IL” seem perfect for Wisp — and I love the song myself.
“Speak to Me” – Pink Floyd
This 1973 classic suits Lola, the falling-apart-inside teenager shard who stomps her way with abandon through the years of high school. The clanging disjointed sounds of the song mirror her inner fracture, and the lyrics “very hard to explain why you’re mad/even when you’re not mad” pretty much sum up, for me, a throughline theme of the book.
“Drum Battle” – Robert Mirabal
This piece speaks to me of the casita in Taos where Red Girl writes and Kimberly stews. Actually the whole album, Music from a Painted Cave, created by Taos Pueblo musician Mirabal, embodies for me the da-dum heart rhythms and awe of unfamiliarity New York City Kimberly experiences when she enters Taos.
“Heaven? Somebody Else’s Heaven?” — The Hours opera, music by Kevin Puts
This heartbreaking piece is sung in a room at the Normandy Hotel, where the character of Laura Brown has come to read Mrs. Dalloway alone and face the internal feelings of oppression she’s been having. Though she considers suicide, she chooses eventually to return home. The piece, for me, expresses the fear and difficulty involved in facing the depths of yourself, which Red Girl pushes Kimberly to do in the Taos casita.
“I Drink Wine” – Adele
While Red Girl writes, adult Kimberly drinks too much to avoid fully dealing with her. The lyrics “…how come we’ve both become a version/Of a person we don’t even like?” speak to me of the longing and frustration Red Girl and Kimberly feel as they try to make peace with each other.
“Your Light” — The Big Moon
This peppy song pops with the energy of Red Girl and Kimberly hiking outside in Taos, trying to make up with each other after arguing. The lyrics “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t say another sorry today/One more time is more than you mean it, anyway” evoke endless apology. “Lately I’ve been fine, floating away/Got so out of touch and started to levitate” remind me of the dissociated levitation Kimberly used to separate herself from Red Girl.
“I don’t want to talk, I just wanna dance” – Glass Animals
A song about not wanting to talk, with the lyrics “leave it in the past,” fits my image of the avoidant conflict between Red Girl and Kimberly. The song is about a couple, not broken off pieces of memory, but the feeling of a wish for dancing more than endless re-hash is Kimberly’s view in a nutshell.
“Fetch the Boltcutters” – Fiona Apple
When Kimberly starts to lose her grip, the lyrics “fetch the boltcutters/I’ve been in here too long” capture perfectly, for me, the desperate longing for emotional freedom Kimberly feels when Red Girl’s writing generates a terrible fear of being trapped with no escape.
“Family” – Bjork
The gripping sad sound of this song and the lyrics “Is there a place/Where I can pay respects/For the death of my family” evoke in me the despair Kimberly feels when Red Girl writes about their estrangement from family. Bjork’s family grief is due to divorce, but the expression of despair in the song feels universal.
“Yvette” – Jason Isbell
This song has a young male narrator seeing, through his bedroom window, his classmate Yvette abused by her father. The lyrics “Your mother seems nice/I don’t understand why she won’t say anything” rip me up when I hear them. The young man’s fantasy of saving Yvette by shooting her father is simplistically heartfelt yet moving.
“Take it Higher” – Ashley Henry
There is a lot of talk about flight in Red Girl Jumping, and I love the repetition of the lyrics “let’s get away and take it higher” in Henry’s beautifully played jazz. The sense of uplift in this song gives me the ethereal lightness I feel toward the end of the book, when Red Girl tries to fly high from Kimberly to give her peace.
“Fly Away” – Ashley Henry
Again flight. The lyrics “They always saying keep your feet on the ground/But what if we don’t wanna be on the ground” speaks to me of Red Girl’s flying as memory ash.
“Funeral” – Lawrence
Toward the end of the book, Red Girl views herself as ‘dead’ after she finishes writing in the casita. “Funeral” is about a New York City girl who watches her own funeral. She is a very different girl from Red Girl, but the song’s poignancy about wanting to reach the living when dead echo Red Girl’s emotions. Also, my son is the drummer for Lawrence so I feel a connection there.
“Good Together” – Lake Street Dive
I like this song as an upbeat ending riff for Red Girl’s and Kimberly’s final understanding with each other. The lyrics “We could be good together/We could be good together” sing of great hope for a union hard won. Plus I love Lake Street Dive.
Kim Merrill was the winner of this year’s Literary Awards Writing Competition in fiction. Her plays have won awards and been produced regionally and off-off-Broadway. Her memoir, “Red Girl Jumping,” won the 2024 Kenneth Patchen Award for Experimental Fiction. An excerpt from her novel-in-progress, “Hilda’s House,” appeared in Action, Spectacle. Her writing has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Merrill lives in New York City.