In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Andrew Dana Hudson’s novel Absence is magnificently inventive and original.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“Hudson (Our Shared Storm) gives a skillful metaphysical twist to a tale of apocalyptic horror in this strikingly original novel. Its setting is a near-future America devastated by “popping” . . . The thoroughness with which Hudson imagines how individuals and society would have to rewire themselves to contend with this bizarre phenomenon lends his tale impressive philosophical heft.”
In his own words, here is Andrew Dana Hudson’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Absence:
Like a lot of writers, I’m distractable. Scare quotes “Attention Deficit.” Nothing is harder sometimes than just sitting down and writing the thing I am so desperately excited to write—especially when the world gets chaotic and nasty outside. Music is a tool I use to block out the metaphorical and literal noise.
A lot of the time I write to music that’s designed to operate in the background. Soundtracks from movies, TV, video games. Light on lyrics, long on vibes. I spent weeks of work on my novel listening to endless loops of “Mercenary Tribunal” from the Disco Elysium soundtrack by Sea Power, or “Been Good to Know Ya” from Cyberpunk 2077. I’m not exactly breaking new ground here with this strategy, but it works for me.
The protagonist in my novel Absence, Harvey Ellis of the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs, would be a pretty steady, focused guy if his world weren’t so weird. People are vanishing into thin air, one by one, and it’s his job to do the paperwork that comes after one of these “pops.” There’s a staccato rhythm to this phenomenon that keeps Harvey on his toes throughout the book. Harvey would love to be able to lock in, if he didn’t have to keep an ear out for pops.
A good bit of the novel is spent driving, cruising around a noir-dark, half-depopulated Kansas landscape, Harvey and his partner Shonda Erins trying to puzzle out the mystery of Gabriela Reyes, the returned woman. So when I think about the music of this book, I think of the music Harvey and Shonda might have listened to while driving, looking out the window. Here a dead barn in a field gone fallow, there a vast, automated robo-farm. The Great Plains have a lot of space to get lost in.
Absence is divided into eight parts, six of them each covering a single day. I’ve picked out eight songs, one to set the vibe for each part.
Part 1: “Yellow Flicker Beat” by Lorde
A book full of people popping out of existence needs to lead off with a pop song. Lorde has long been one of the pop artists I’ve found most interesting, and the darker tones of her earlier works are perfect for this novel. This song might have originally premiered as part of a Hunger Games movie soundtrack, but twelve years later I think it’s fair game for another semi-dystopian thriller to try it on. “This is the start / of how it all ends,” Lorde sings in the chorus, and isn’t it just.
Part 2 – Tuesday: “Freakin’ Out on the Interstate” by Briston Maroney
Harvey and Shonda’s case begins with a long drive from Kansas City out to the middle-of-nowhere town of Dawnville, a disgraced former ‘Safe zone.’ Harvey is eager to spend time alone with this impressive agent, who recently took him into her bed. I like the way this Midwest emo track has the lazy, giddy-anxious vibes of taking a road trip with a crush. Harvey isn’t quite freaking out — but he will be once they get to Dawnville and meet the enigmatic Gabriela Reyes.
Part 3 – Wednesday: “Can I Live” by Jay-Z
On the second day of their investigation, Harvey wakes up to the TV scrolling news of the night’s notable Absences, including celebs like Kevin Bacon and Jay-Z. Just another day at the end of the world, and Shonda jokes that they should listen to the rapper’s debut album Reasonable Doubt. I like to think the pair of them might resonate the most with the eighth track, “Can I Live.” This is Jay-Z at about his most moody, philosophical, fatalistic. “We hustle out of a sense of hopelessness,” Jay intones in the intro, but by the end he’s “meditated like a Buddhist.” Harvey spends a lot of the book wrestling with similar feelings.
Part 4 – Thursday: “The Mother Road” by Chelsea Wolfe
This is a song for narrative turning points. Slow building, a strumming guitar gradually gets overpowered by a heavy drumbeat. This is the point in the novel when sides start to be chosen, lines drawn. “Guess I needed something to break me / Guess I needed something to shake me up.” Harvey realizes that, whatever happens in this case, it’s going to change him.
Part 5 – Friday: “Night Bell (Arizona)” by Kerala Dust
Suspicions start to bubble up from old mud. How do you know if you’re the cat or you’re the mouse? In this upbeat, dance-y track (parenthetically titled after my state of residence), roles are up for grabs: “lover,” “liar,” “preacher,” “fool.” At this point in the novel, trust is wearing thin, and Harvey is wondering who in his life is going to turn out to be which.
Part 6 – Saturday: “Dark Allies” by Light Asylum
In every good thriller, there’s a moment where it all goes to shit. The heroes are on the run, bad guys closing in, hands are forced, unwise ideas go out on patrol. No spoilers, so I’ll just say I like this track both for its car chase-worthy tempo and its resonant lyrics: “Inherit the Earth where / no words are spoken / and the sky like a veil / was our wounds torn open.”
Part 7 – Sunday: “Peacefield” by Ghost
At the end of Harvey and Shonda’s long, bad week, their returned woman takes everyone to church. What better soundtrack for the climactic convergence of cults, crazies, and maybe-false messiahs than Ghost. The faux-satanic metal band is a house favorite of ours, and my partner and I see them every time they come through town. “We all need something to believe in,” sings the Pope-like Papa Perpetua, with just the right amount of bittersweet cynicism. Ain’t that the truth.
Part 8: “River” by Leon Bridges
I love this soulful track of beautiful, gospel surrender. When I teach yoga, a side hustle for me for six years, I often use this as the closing song, the one that brings us out of the silence of corpse pose. Looming over the whole book is a question of resisting the cosmic unknown or accepting it, stepping into it for the sake of getting answers to greater mysteries. The refrain in this song repeats “I wanna go” and “wanna know” over and over again. Harvey wants to know so bad, but is he ready to go? Here at the end, he has to make that choice once and for all.
Andrew Dana Hudson is a speculative fiction writer, sustainability researcher, teacher, and critical futurist. He is the author of Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures and dozens of short stories and essays appearing in venues like Slate, Lightspeed Magazine, Long Now Ideas, and Jacobin—as well as his newsletter, www.solarshades.club. He lives in Arizona, where he teaches writing, futures thinking, and yoga.