In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
The stories in Sara Jaffe’s collection Hurricane Envy are smart and surprising, thought-provoking and funny.
Megan Milks wrote of the book:
“These stories crackle and hum, bristle and buzz; they charge the air with their characters’ queer wants while asking and showing what stories—and music—can do. And the prose! Each finely tuned sentence of this superbly crafted and disarmingly funny book delivers some jolt or delight. An outstanding collection by one of my favorite writers.”
In her own words, here is Sara Jaffe’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Hurricane Envy:
As a nearly lifelong, nearly fanatical believer in freeform radio as one of the highest art forms, it’s unsurprising that I also love my mixtapes to be all over the place: a loud song follows a quiet one, guitar folk segues into noise, dub bridges to twee pop, etc. It’s not random, or difference for the sake of shock. When I used to make cassette mixtapes I would listen through to a song, then pause it when the track ended, attentive to what sounds emerged next in my head. It wasn’t a logic, exactly, more of an intuition, and a sense of how the parts (songs) made their impact through standing alone and in relationship with their neighbors and the tape as a whole—and what the whole revealed about the fascinations and contexts of the person who made it.
I feel the same way about books of short stories. I’m not particularly interested in collections closely linked by setting or theme. My favorite collections include stories that may be varied in subject matter or form but put forth a shared set of concerns, aesthetic or otherwise, cohesive or productively in tension with themselves. It’s my hope that that’s the kind of collection Hurricane Envy is.
In my playlist, each story gets a song. Because the composition of this book spans over 15 years, my choices are less about remembering what song shaped the writing than thinking about what musical analogue the story evokes. Because some of the stories are directly about music, I tried not to be too literal, but sometimes I indulged. There’s only one choice I’m really embarrassed about, but maybe every mixtape (and collection) needs a track like that too.
Burning Earth: “In the Form Of” by Silica Gel
This song is an incantation, teen girl-witch style, and while the young narrator of “Burning Earth” is not witchy, she does think and act with a boldness that may be incomprehensible even to herself. I think she and Silica Gel are warding off some of the same things.
Baby in a Bar: “Dumb Dog” from Annie soundtrack (1982)
The dorkiest easter egg in the book, about which I’m obviously most gleeful, is that the dialogue between the narrator and the creepy dude at the bar, when he accuses her of not being her baby’s real parent, is lifted directly from the dogcatcher scene in Annie (1982). As many times as I watched it as a kid, I always felt the suspense and relief when Sandy ran to her. I think there’s something in there about what it feels like to be a parent?
Ether: “Evil Going On” by Animals and Men
In this story Ada describes the song she’s fixated with as “a completely predictable song for her to be into,” and it might very well be a song like this—late ’70s/early ’80s UK DIY post-punk, with tom-centered drumming, driving bass line, repetitive vocals delivered with attitude. I did forget about the harmonica when I was, as Ada did, trying to remember the song for months and years after first hearing it, but I guess if the rest is so good anything can be forgiven?
My Sleep: “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)” by Horsegirl
This might be the kind of song that the narrator’s college band would be trying to write in their basement practice sessions, if only they could get it together. It’s also just the right kind of fuzzed out and driving, melodic and off-kilter, to evoke what it feels like to not be able to help yourself from falling asleep all the time.
A Form of Love: “I’m Lucky” by Joan Armatrading
What makes this song so cool is its jaunty, very 1981 synth-driven beat with just a hint of the sinister sweeping in and out of the background. I suppose someone could interpret the singer’s proclamation as wholly sincere, but no one sounds this heavy when they’re actually feeling as lucky as she claims to be. That’s the vibe I was going for in this story, in which fame is both welcome and a cold comfort.
Arthur Why: “oomoo” by bulbs
Main character Arthur, who is in some ways inspired by Arthur Russell (e.g., according to Tim Lawrence’s biography, AR’s parents did buy a boat after he left home), is obsessed with the gamelan and makes music that I think would sound like the music made by bulbs—mix of drum kit and electronic drums, some swipes of guitar for texture. Dense soundscapes knit like a sweater with good holes in it.
Stormchasers: “Zero Degree Machine” by Horse Lords
Truthfully all I ever really want from a song is some kind of compelling interplay between chaos and order, and Horse Lords do it so well—repeating guitar line that could’ve been lifted from The Fire Engines occasionally drawn so taut it collapses, driving drums and bass and is that saxophone? barreling above and beneath. “Stormchasers” is about the chaotic feeling of wanting to be closer to disaster, and it’s the only time I’ve ever used an Oulipo-style constraint to compose a story, so “Zero Degree Machine” is just right.
Someone Like You: “Thief Detests the Criminal” by Erase Errata
I swear I wouldn’t include a song by a band I was in unless it was really essential and in this case it is, in a story about a former post-punk guitar player going to work as a “song analyst” for a streaming service and encountering one of her songs in her queue. Through the many draft this story has seen over the years (at one point the song itself was the narrator), this was always the song I imagined.
Demonstration: “She’s Real – Version” by Kicking Giant
This story is short enough that if you read it out loud while the song was playing the story would be over first—which makes sense because it’s a story about repressed teenage longing and of course the longing must overspill its bounds, which is what “She’s Real,” one of my all-time favorites, does throughout its epic middle-of-the-night city ramble. The story ends with a gut-punch and the song fades into feedback, both are correct.
Pockets: “Art of Losing” by The Ex
One of my best ever formative art experiences was when I was in college and, in rapid succession, learned the Elizabeth Bishop poem in a class and saw the Ex play the poem set to music, in the basement of my freshman dorm. Who could be as obsessed with ambivalence as I am and not be head-over-heels for Bishop’s “doth protest too much” masterpiece, and even more for the way The Ex lets it build and explode in the final revealing (“say it!”) lines. In this story, a person tries very hard to protect some precious objects, yet keeps losing them. How hard is she really trying?
Unsafe Is Not a Feeling: “So Many Things (To feel guilty about)” by orchestre tout puissant marcel duchamp
Most white people do not want to truly contend with their white guilt, but suppressing it doesn’t make it disappear. Guilt is politically useless, corrupting even, but sometimes it’s important to “name it to tame it,” as my therapist says. I feel like/hope that this story and OTPMD’s song are siblings in this aspiration.
Earth to You: “(Here Come the) Arrows of Fortune” by Emily Robb
For the longest time I wanted this story to just be an ongoing scene of one person standing on a lawn listening, through an open window, to another play guitar inside a nondescript house. A more patient writer might have been able to pull off that story, but I ended up adding more narrative elements; still, for me, that tableau is the story. And what I imagine Helen hearing is something very much like this track on Emily Robb’s first solo album—guitar swathed in distortion but the instrument breaks through. Playing like this would draw me to the window for sure. (Btw, alongside Hurricane Envy I’ll be releasing a compilation of eight solo guitar players—including Emily Robb—responding to this story!)
Dogpatch: “California” by Aislers Set
Okay, maybe every one of these selections is obvious? But for this story about a night that’s trying to be a California fairytale but can’t quite eke out the magic, no song tells it better than “California.” Every gold rush is steeped in disappointment.
Today’s Problems: “Some Love” by New Age Steppers
I’m not going to get all the details of this story right, but in 2003 or so Erase Errata played a show in DC with Ari Up, best known for The Slits. She had her young kid with her, who was maybe napping in the green room, and at some point during her performance, which was her sing-rapping along to a boombox, she mentioned her son and chanted “I pooped him out me pussy!” I was 26 and had never thought about having kids. “Today’s Problems,” a story about trying to be an artist and a parent, often failing at both, and also about pooping, maybe exists so that that anecdote could find its way into it.
Why I Am Not a Storyteller: various
Since the start of the genocide, I have been doing my best to support music projects that donate their proceeds to grassroots efforts in Gaza. Some favorites include compilations Women of Noise for Palestine and For Gaza with Love Vols. I & II. I also do my best to keep up on the releases of the Majazz Project/Palestinian Sound Archive, who release both archival recordings and contemporary mixes of music from Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora.
Sara Jaffe is a writer, educator, and musician living in Portland, OR. Hurricane Envy is her second book. Dryland, a novel, was published by Tin House Books and Cipher Press (UK ). Her short fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in publications including Joyland, Fence, BOMB, NOON, and Maggot Brain. She co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writing and visual art by musicians drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata. She is a proudly anti-Zionist Jew working for Palestinian liberation.