In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Seb Doubinsky’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Liberation Now! is as captivating as it is inventively told.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“The heady standalone conclusion to Doubinsky’s City-States Cycle is another drug-infused dystopian fantasia, this time focused on a group of women who, after career crises and experiments with the perspective-shifting hallucinogen Synth, lead a people’s revolution. . . . This bohemian rhapsody, with its sleek details and crisp narrative structure, is sure to satisfy series fans.”
In his own words, here is Seb Doubinsky’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Liberation Now!:
There is no liberation without music, pure and simple. And both are central themes in my latest novel, Liberation Now!, as Vita, one of the main characters, worked as a manager for a rock’n’roll band while making plans for a revolution. Revolution, like oppression, have sounds — pleasant, unpleasant, mainstream, underground, loud, muffled, etc. And to find your own sound is actually really finding yourself: so many couples are created over music, so many divorce or separate for the same reason — even if both parts will often lie and find other reasons.
In my novel, all the main characters find their way not necessarily through music, but through sounds, environment, and setting. All are women, and all want the world to change. Of course, it’s a fictional world, but it’s close enough to ours, and the readers will surely relate. That’s why there’s a majority of female singers and bands in my playlist, all of them with a message to their audience, whatever their gender. This not only the soundtrack of my novel, this is the soundtrack of the structures finally cracking.
The West Coast Experimental Pop Art Band — Shifting Sand
This band was actually the spark that lit the creative drive of the novel. The main singer’s life and story, Bob Markley, inspired the character of Mark Leigh. What’s more, the fact that the band never really “made it” was a definite plus for the novel, as the question of mainstream success is also part of the deeper plot. In any case, this is a beautiful song, and I’m glad I can share it with you.
Barbara Manning –– Scissors
Barbara Manning is definitely one of the best post-punk, “indie” singers around, and also an outsider. This song is both beautiful and terrifying, as it deals with obsession and self-destruction. That’s what this society does to women, trying to mould them into conformity. Fortunately, more and more women, like Barbara Manning, just go the other way.
Throwing Muses — Bright Yellow Gun
Throwing Muses is a band I listened to a lot in the 1980s-1990s, because I found their songs raw, twisted and relevant. They gave me strength when depressed, compassion when hopeful, ironic when happy. It was perfect, and still is today. To me, they could be the opening song of the second part of the novel, when energy is needed.
L7 — Everglade
L7’s radical feminism made them a perfect match for Liberation Now! and the lyrics of that song will give the readers a clue on how to deal with male ass*oles. I worked as a bouncer for a couple of years in my ytouth, and I’m still ready to kick some ass — for the revolution and absolute gender equality.
Grace Slick, etc. — Fat
Jefferson Airplane and their various incarnations belong to my secret love library, with bands like The Grateful Dead and CSNY. They belong to a time when revolution was actually at hand, and believed in it 100%. I was floored by Grace Slick’s autobiography, Somebody to Love? and she also has been a direct inspiration for the novel, especially for Carla. I chose “Fat” because it’s about how we deal with everyday life, for better or for worse. It’s about reality, all of it.
Babes in Toyland — We are family
Babes in Toyland belong to the same generation as L7, and I love them for the same reasons. I chose their cover of the famous Pointer Sisters’number because it sums up the final message of Liberation Now!: we’re all in this together and nothing can destroy us.
Compagnie Jolie Môme — Hymne de Femmes (Women’s anthem)
As some of you probably know, I am actually French, and I wanted to add a number that had universal significance: “Women’s Anthem”, written in the 1970s, when feminism had begun to endorse political activism as its best way of bringing about change. It’s has a beautiful melody and very powerful words, and is the best last number I could think of for Liberation Now!.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Seb Doubinsky’s playlist for his novel Paperclip
Seb Doubinsky is an award-winning bilingual writer born in Paris in 1963. His novels, all set in a dystopian universe revolving around competing city-states, have been published in the UK and in the USA, and translated into numerous languages. He currently lives with his family in Aarhus, Denmark, where he teaches at the university.