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.
Sébastien Dulude’s first novel Asbestos is as moving as it is inventively written.
L’Humanité wrote of the book:
“In the land of asbestos mines, two boys build a paradise bound to be lost. A sensitive, powerful debut novel … that captures the dark side of the Canadian dream.”
In his own words, here is Sébastien Dulude’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Asbestos:
…Asbestos for all!
Creating playlist is among my top favorite activities. It’s basically my love language. What a fun and stimulating thing to build one around my novel Asbestos, where music plays such an enveloping role.
Asbestos, as you may know or hopefully are about to, is a story about friendship, and about going from childhood to teenage under rough conditions: an asbestos mining town, a violent father, and grief. I believe these songs support the novel’s narrative while also taking the listener into a more personal dimension, where music evokes everyone’s individual memories and emotions. I’ve tried to select songs that reflects both the luminous and darker moments of the novel.
So here are 25 songs, because that’s the way my character Steve would’ve wanted it (he has a thing with number 5).
One important rule to remember: never put a playlist on random mode; that goes against the very idea of a playlist. It’s a list for crying out loud! Respect it and enjoy!
1. Les mystérieuses Cités d’or, Jacques Cardona
The Mysterious Cities of Gold was my favorite animated series as a kid. I fondly identified with the main character, Esteban, while my sister used to pretend she was Zia and my little brother wasn’t so pleased about getting to be the goofy Tao. I really liked that the three kids were parentless, and that they got to fly in a giant golden condor.
2. Boys Don’t Cry, The Cure
This one’s a no-brainer here: Asbestos is all about boys needing to cry safely. Plus I think it has a great kicking groove to start the playlist. I wish Robert Smith was my father.
3. Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Tears For Fears
Especially kids.
4. In My Room, The Beach Boys
If you’d asked me when I was 9, Steve’s age, what music I was into, I would’ve answered Mozart and The Beach Boys. Ugh, what a nerd. Well, turns out I discovered at an early age what a perfect melody is – an art that both Amadeus and Brian Wilson mastered. I used to skip the slow-paced In My Room, which is now one of my favorite tracks from the surfer boys. This one is for Steve, quiet in his room, in his fort, in the security of his best friend’s gaze.
5. Les aventures de Tintin, Pierre Pain
Here’s a confession: a lot from Asbestos is autobiographical, but one thing that is pure fiction is Charlélie Poulin’s character, Steve’s BFF. I never had such a close friend besides me. Here’s another confession: my best friend was Tintin. I used to hop off the bus back from school and run home to read another Tintin album. I read them all, in order, one per day. How I wished he was my courageous, tender and bright friend in real life.
6. Où Est Le Soleil?, Paul McCartney
Where is the Sun, where is the Father, where is the light, where is the fire. Everywhere. It seemed like all the bad deeds we did as kids were witnessed by the Sun. I used to have a funny theory about the lyrics of the song (Où est le soleil / Dans la tête / Travaillez; Where is the Sun / In your head / Work): it was about a man feeling the urge to sneeze, looking straight into the sun, finally sneezing, and getting back to work. Yes, what a nerd!
7. Orinoco Flow, Enya
This one is for Claire Robin, Steve’s mother, whom I describe to have dark brown hair: “black Irish, like Enya”, she says herself. Enya is a major guilty pleasure of mine, I can’t help to love Orinoco Flow’s dreamy vibe. No one but Enya can strike the orchestra hit chords this seriously. I used to hear and sing “C’est Noël, c’est Noël, c’est Noël” (“It’s Christmas”) instead of “Sail away, sail away, sail away”.
8. Venus, Bananarama
Venus is the song that plays in the school bus when Cindy Drouin is introduced. I always thought it was a wonderful dancing song (it’s a cover, did you know?) and it fitted just right for the playful and mocking 10-years old Cindy, to draw a contrast with her later teenage gothic years.
9. Hold Me Now, Thompson Twins
Another core 80’s killer hit. I kept hoping for it to play on my dad’s reel tape compilation he made from recording songs on the radio. I wasn’t allowed to mess with the machine, but on Sunday afternoons my father would play it. I wish he held me back then.
10. Bad Boys Running Wild, Scorpions
This is when I started listening to music standing up in my bed, feeling 10-feet tall, air guitaring the riffs, air drumming the beat, air shutting my mouth the lyrics. Fists clenched, shy little Steve was channeling his inner bad boy running wild. You better get out of the way.
11. Damn Good, David Lee Roth
Even for an unhappy, mistreated, unloved child, some days are beautiful. The days of childhood, those shrouded in perfect innocence, are damn good times indeed. We spend our whole lives trying to forget it. This is another song I used to skip in my yellow Walkman, that I now consider one of the finest on the much-underrated Skyscraper album.
12. S.O.S. d’un terrien en détresse, Daniel Balavoine
One of the very first intuitions I had while reflecting on the idea of writing a novel was to create a sexually ambiguous teenager character that would hide his love for the Starmania space opera soundtrack. S.O.S. d’un terrien en détresse is a stellar song from the late Daniel Balavoine, whose high-pitched and tremulous voice was a gift from Above to all bleeding hearts. How Steve wished he was a bird to see the world upside down. (You may wanna check out Dimash Qudaibergen’s version for extra out of worldly chills. It’s the most glam shit you’ll ever hear. You’re warned.)
13. The Great Gig in the Sky, Pink Floyd
“I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do, I don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying, there’s no reason for it.” And then that voice, Clare Torry’s. For Steve, peace is to be found up there, higher, as far from the ground as possible, far from the giant hole behind the house. This is where the portion of Steve’s childhood on the playlist ends.
14. Good Times Bad Times, Led Zeppelin
This is Steve’s older brother Daniel’s music blasting in his Nissan 300ZX. “In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man.” Indeed we were. They made an obsession out of it. And yet they all secretly fantasized about singing or playing guitar shirtless in front of a sweaty male audience. Oh, the irony.
15. Possessed To Skate, Suicidal Tendencies
Suicidal Tendencies were among the bands I hid the cassettes from my parents. But the very name of the band had put words on something that kept nagging at me. Unlike my parents dreaded, I didn’t become obsessed with death because of heavy metal, I was drawn to it because I felt different, unfit, unwanted. I learned to live with my darkness thanks to metal and punk music. I felt like a belonged to a community of misfits, which I still had to discover.
16. 18 and Life, Skid Row
Hair metal was the best. Period. Badass, erotically filled, poignant: everything I wanted to be as a teenager. Skid Row’s singer was named Sebastian Bach. Sebastian fuckin’ Bach. I mean, of course I fell madly in love with him. One day, one night actually, I’ll sing 18 and Life in a karaoke, I’ll hit all the high notes and everyone in the place will cry their lives out. I’ll be Sebastian fuckin’ Bach.
17. Somebody Save Me, Cinderella
Cinderella posters were probably the ones that made my father (I mean Steve’s father, sorry) tilt out.
18. Every Rose Has Its Thorn, Poison
Or maybe was it Poison’s posters? Laugh all you want, “Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song, every rose has its thorn” is plain poetry. Get dressed, Robert Plant.
19. Blaze of Glory, Jon Bon Jovi
A deep cut. I could’ve put Wanted Dead or Alive (“on a steel horse I ride”) but I like the fire analogy of this one. And boy, that snare hit at 1:04. Pow, dead.
20. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
Is there even anything to add here? There was a before and an after Smells Like Teen Spirit. When I watched that music video for the first time, it was exactly like I wrote it in the novel. Just swap Cindy for my brother! I was 14, and nothing would ever be the same.
21. Tornado of Souls, Megadeth
Megadeth was arguably thrash metal’s angriest band. For legal reasons, we couldn’t print out the lyrics of the song in the book, so there it goes: “You’ll grow to loathe my name / You’ll hate me just the same / You won’t need your breath / And soon you’ll meet your death”. Pretty cool huh? Also, insane guitar solo.
22. Deep Down Trauma Hounds, Skinny Puppy
Here comes the real Cindy, the toughest character of the novel. What a pleasure it was to create her. All I had to do was to imagine everything I’m not: cool, bold, strong, pessimistic as hell.
23. Blood Red Skies, Judas Priest
If you read all the way down to here, congrats, you’re a die-hard music lover. This isn’t an obvious one, but if I imagine a song playing during the last few pages of the novel, it’s Blood Red Skies. I get goosebumps when Rob Halford sings: “As the end is drawing near / Standing proud, I won’t give into fear / As I die a legend will be born / I will stand, I will fight / You’ll never take me alive”. Another karaoke fantasy.
24. I Want to Know What Love Is, Foreigner
In the end, that’s all Steve ever wanted. I’m crying just to write it down. I love you, Steve.
25. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Maude Audet
A lullaby to soothe the angst. Merci la musique, merci la vie.
Born in Montréal in 1976, Sébastien Dulude grew up in the Mitchell neighbourhood of Thetford Mines from the age of six to sixteen. A writer and publisher, he is the author of three poetry collections and an essay about typography and poetry. Asbestos is his first novel.