In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Told in a single paragraph, Jess Shannon’s novel Cleaner is an imaginatively told and propulsive debut, an unforgettable coming-of -age story.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“Shannon’s writing is delightfully weird and witty as she tracks her narrator’s metamorphosis ‘from a daytime creature into a night-time hag’ who spends her days sleeping, her evenings with Paul, and her nights in Isabella’s studio. It’s a memorably off-kilter portrait of a woman’s search for meaning.”
In her own words, here is Jess Shannon’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Cleaner:
“Deceptacon” by Le Tigre
Cleaner is told in one paragraph with no chapter breaks: this song is how I wanted and how I imagine the reader’s experience to be. Pure uncut momentum and insanity. Not everyone will like it and that’s okay. I referenced this song when I was querying to give an indication of the vibe of the novel. The Cleaner in the title is overwhelmed by it all. Sometimes she is manically productive, working at high speed, before crashing into the paralysis of thought again. This is the soundtrack of frantic productivity. This is the song I go feral for on the dancefloor with my friends.
“Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol
I explicitly mention this song in the opening section of my book. The unnamed narrator ends up life modelling at a local nude art gallery and the host blasts this on the speaker. It was the funniest song I could think of for that awkward moment: a wet, sincerely romantic, noughties-sad-boy sound.
“Somewhere Only We Know by Keane
I also explicitly mention this song when the Cleaner is life modeling for the reasons listed above. The inspiration for the life modelling scene in the novel, the inciting incident, came from a genuine life modelling session I did on a whim. It was an interesting yet faintly underwhelming experience. And yes, I do remember listening to wet, sincere, heartfelt pop while being drawn naked.
“Pride and Prejudice suite II: Canon Collins and Lady Catherine de Bourgh” by Carl Davis
In my novel, the narrator attends a Pride and Prejudice themed gender reveal party. I thought it was funny. I loved the BBC sitcom Miranda as a child and her mad focal character attends a similar event, only in hers it’s a Pride and Prejudice themed lesbian coming out party. I am a genuine Austen fan, however, and credit a lot of my humour and prose style to her influence. This track from the 1995 series captures, I think, the awkward feeling of looking round a party and feeling like everyone else is insane. Or alternatively, my character is the insane one and this is her theme tune.
“What Once Was” by Her’s
This is an indie song picked for an indie book. I like this song and this band very much but find it hard to listen to them now because of the senseless tragedy surrounding them. But the juxtaposition between the joyful beat and the despondent lyrics are alchemic. Birth, sex and death are my dramatic triangle for this book and I think this band encapsulates that. Her’s makes me think about Camus too. I think about the unused train ticket found in his pocket a lot. I imagine the Cleaner cleaning the flat in a kind of hypnotic montage to this song.
“Touching Yourself” by The Japanese House
A key plot point in my novel is the disappearance of the narrator’s primary object of desire; a rich, spoiled, untalented, rude, self-indulgent woman called Isabella. It doesn’t make a difference if the person you fancy is a terrible person – if the hormones have got you, it’s already too late. This song is queer feminine longing and shame in a nutshell to me but also the painful joy of desire. I love a perky indie beat.
“The Leanover” by Life Without Buildings
This track in some ways is more spoken word poem than song. It’s random, it’s DaDa, it’s oddly beautiful. I feel like it has something to teach me but I’m never quite sure of what it is. Some people I show this song to demand I turn it off immediately because they find it infuriating. Some people fall in love with it. I imagine this song playing as the narrator reckons with themselves at the end of the novel. It’s that joyful indie sound with a bit of yearning to be understood that I enjoy so much. The song reaches a kind of catharsis but kind of doesn’t, in the same way my character kind of does and kind of doesn’t. It’s a nonsense song but also there’s also no such thing as nonsense. Cleaner follows a nonsense plot in some ways but also it doesn’t.
“I Know Alone” by Haim
The original ending of my novel consisted of my narrator at a nightclub not quite losing themselves to the atmosphere. I’ve not written a book where the character grows or changes: fugue state. There’s no other fugue state quite like being a young adult where you feel utterly stuck. I turned 21 a month before the first lockdown of 2020. The more I reflect on it, the more I think Cleaner is a Covid novel. Covid cut my clubbing days short but I’m secretly grateful. There’s nothing quite like disassociating at a place where you’re supposed be at your most youthful, most fun, most profound, most exhilarated. The ending of the novel changed for various reasons but I want to honour it here. This song is sad slow motion existential clubbing to me.
Jess Shannon is a writer from Birmingham UK and a proud graduate of the Warwick Writing Programme. She completed her MA in writing in 2021. She spends most of her free time at the theatre and hates cleaning.