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.
Malavika Kannan’s Unprecedented Times is a perceptive and smart debut, easily one of the best pandemic novels I have read.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“Razor-sharp . . . Rishi is a relatable narrator, letting the reader in on both her most vulnerable thoughts and most biting social commentary. A sparkling work of fiction, this story feels like pages ripped straight from your funniest friend’s diary.”
In her own words, here is Malavika Kannan’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Unprecedented Times:
Foreign Friend — M.I.A.
M.I.A., like Rishi, is a quick-talking Tamil provocateur with indefensible takes. “Foreign Friend” is her raw, rough, vaguely menacing bop about the unapology of brown immigrants building lives in the West, working our way into your schools and neighborhoods and even your hearts, until you love us like best friends. “Pull me closer if you think you can hang. If you can’t, then screw it,” M.I.A. sneers. This song reminds me of Rishi’s dialectical, existential, homosexual struggle to be seen by Georgia, even as she consumes her.
Mother May I Sleep With Danger? — Joy Crookes
The British-Bangladeshi singer Joy Crookes’ moody, melancholic bequest to her mother splits my heart open. It speaks aloud the unsaid fears of daughters like Rishi who stray far from their families. When Crookes sings: “Mother, may I sleep with danger, please?/It’s been knocking on my door since I was seventeen,” I think of Rishi venturing into the world of love and sex, and risking getting burned.
Bravado — Lorde
Lorde’s Pure Heroine is the consummate coming-of-age album, and “Bravado” so special to me, to the point that Rishi’s mantra to herself to maintain her dignity, in the aftermath of sexual violence, is “Bravado and Aplomb.” I love the polyphonic chorus of “Bravado,” its swell of emotion and sound, evoking how intensely young women wear their courage on their sleeves.
Sex, Violence, Suicide! — Amaraee
“I BET THAT YOU HATE ME NOW!” Amaraee screams, cathartically, when the rock beat drops on “Sex, Violence, Suicide.” The queer Ghanaian artist was all over my playlists when writing UT, and her infectious, energetic voice bleeds into Rishi’s, a decidedly conflict-prone, headstrong protagonist you love to hate.
Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land by MARINA
If UT had opening credits as Rishi rolls out onto Stanford’s campus, it would be Marina’s “Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land,” a manifesto of modern womanhood set to a bold, bouncy beat. “We’re now living in a seminal age. The walls are being broken, and we’re ready for change,” Marina narrates. Her plan? “I am here to take a look inside of myself,” she declares. “Recognize that I could be the eye of the storm!”
Instant Crush by Daft Punk ft. Julian Casablancas
I listened to the mournful “Instant Crush” on repeat while finishing Part Three of Unprecedented Times, the section of disillusionment and regret. The anthem of a friendship breakup, “Instant Crush” resonates with anyone who feels too much, loves too hard. “I never really know where to go / So I chained myself to a friend,” the narrator admits.
WILDFLOWER by Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish’s sapphic breakup anthem was also on repeat during my writing process. Billie Eilish sang, “But I see her in the back of my mind all the time,” so that Rishi could say, “There is something about a girl not caring what I think that makes me want to suck her dick.” Billie Eilish sang, “Did I cross a line?” so that Rishi could say, “I want her to tell me why I am so hard to love—of all people, wouldn’t she know?”
Your Best American Girl by Mitski
In the canon of art by immigrant daughters trying their best to be worthy of love, Mitski’s “Best American Girl” is a crown jewel, and it echoes in Rishi’s opening monologue in Unprecedented Times, where she insists that she is lucky to be an American girl.
all-american bitch — Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo offers another banger to the canon of ungrateful, unruly Asian American girlhood. If Rishi’s naivety had a theme song, it would be this self-portrait of a song: “I know my age and I act like it!” Rodrigo’s aching, angry bridge, “I’m grateful all fucking the time!” is another moment of coincidental resonance with the opening line of Unprecedented Times: “Listen: I am not ungrateful.”
Ready or Not — Fugees
This song has the fierceness of youth and the swagger of an ensemble cast; it sings with the syncopation of a queer friend group ready to take on the world.
Lockdown — Priya Raghu
Tamil singer Priya Raghu’s COVID-19 lockdown hit has a boisterous, slinky beat that belies the singer’s open-hearted longing for her quarantine love interest. “Don’t leave me now,” she begs. “I really want to hang out!” Who among us ….
Tomorrow is My Turn — Nina Simone
Nina Simone, singer of my heart, lies in wait but promises — or perhaps threatens — that she will inherit the world tomorrow. ““All these years I’ve been learning to save fingers from burning,” Nina sings. “Tomorrow is my turn to receive without giving.” Her brazen, self-centered optimism reminds me of Rishi on the precipice of college after a failed career as a climate activist.
Love Me — Lil Wayne
There is no unique lesbian experience that has not been described by Lil Wayne first. His boastful account of all the women who love him is like the anthem of a toxic young queer who realizes she can pull women for the first time.
In My Room — Frank Ocean
What screams pandemic melancholy, being trapped inside your childhood bedroom, like Frank Ocean’s moody “In My Room.” It’s a touchy, anxious song you can’t sink into, evoking the cat-and-mouse game of a queer situationship: “I guess I can’t state my feelings too soon,” Ocean admits, defeatedly, in the song’s final lines. “I don’t know you!”
Denial is a River — Doechii
Doechii burst onto the scene after I’d finished writing Unprecedented Times, but her emergence felt like cosmic timing: Florida sapphics getting our due. “Denial is a River” is a masterclass in swaggering, sarcastic autobiographical storytelling, a classic of the genre of queer diatribes against your ex.
Malavika Kannan (b. 2001) is a Tamil American writer whose work appears in The Nation, The Washington Post, New York, Teen Vogue, and elsewhere. Her villain origin story is that, as a teenager in Florida, she organized for generational movements such as March for Our Lives and the Women’s March. Her YA novel All the Yellow Suns was published in 2023. She graduated from Stanford University and now moonlights as a gay socialite in Brooklyn, where she co-hosts the popular mutual aid supper club Girls Eat Girls.