In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Angela Woodward’s Afterlife is a smart and affecting experimental novel.
Cara Hoffman wrote of the book:
“Sharp, spare, elegant. Woodward has created a catalog of the American consciousness. Her clarity is breathtaking. Afterlife is a triumph of the imagination.”
In her own words, here is Angela Woodward’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Afterlife:
Afterlife is an intensely though not overtly musical book. I had far more training as a violinist than as a writer, and the curious forms of my fiction and the rhythm of my sentences are best understood as coming from a musicality expressed through words. Afterlife is arranged in short chapters in alphabetical order considering a variety of subjects, from birds in art to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, anchored by memories of the narrator’s late older sister, Vicky. While the unfolding of Vicky’s life carries the novel forward, the reader sifts through flickering explorations of everything but the deceased sibling—cults, darkness, horses, Michigan, umbrellas. The way the chapters open, close, and follow one another is like a suite of bagatelles, or an LP composed of meticulously ordered short tracks. My playlist contains music referred to in the book as well as pieces that echo the mix of grief, cheer, and agitation that color the story.
Elton John’s “Beyond the Yellow Brick Road”:
An early chapter is titled “Elton John,” where the narrator struggles to learn to play the piano. Her sister tells her that Elton John sat down at the piano as a child and was immediately able to play anything he heard. Vicky holds out the possibility that she too is a genius with Elton John’s ability. Vicky just hasn’t sat down at the instrument yet to find out if she has Elton John’s talent. While I have changed many details of the family relationships that form the heart of Afterlife, the stories remain true. My real sister said to me exactly what Vicky says in the novel, with the same disheartening effect. As a teenager, my sister played Elton John’s albums with a repetitiveness far beyond what the rest of us could endure. I would almost think I dislike his music as a result. But I don’t, and this song, with its belted chorus, just has to be loved.
Arlo Parks’s “Cola”:
The chapter “Poets” considers 20th century American poets Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich, as well as the fictional poet/writer Arabella Essiedu, the main character in the 2020 BBC mini-series I May Destroy You. This brilliant show also has a wonderful soundtrack, through which I found Arlo Parks. This song’s restrained percussion and bassline, Parks’s quietly deadly articulation, the jazzy pizzazz with which she repeats that she “doesn’t really care” result in a cocktail of enthusiasmless enthusiasm that fits Afterlife’s take on grief.
Gyorgy Ligeti’s Etudes, Book 1, No. 5: “Arc-en-Ciel”:
The chapter called “Struck” deals with the narrator’s time working in a musical instrument store in Chicago. Her workmate’s friend Mark is a gifted classical guitarist who plays her an extraordinarily complex piece that had been composed expressly for him. When Mark gets robbed at gunpoint—this guitarist supports himself as a pizza delivery driver—she hardly worries that Mark might have died, just that his piece of music might have died with him. Though this episode is drawn from life, I have no way of tracking what the piece was that this person played in the music store circa 1990. Ligeti’s etudes for piano are the closest I can get to the feeling of it. “Arc-en-Ciel” evokes impossible landscapes and pushes the instrument to the limit.
Leo Brouwer’s “Un Dia de Noviembre”:
Or actually, if you take the Ligeti and cross it with this melancholy classical guitar favorite, you might arrive at the piece in “Struck” heard only once, decades ago, performed for an audience of three in a music store on Saturday morning before the first customers arrived. Certainly, the nostalgia and regret that comes with recalling any wasted Saturday decades ago is captured in this song’s silvery sound.
Four Tet’s “Lush”:
The shape of music seems so much freer and more accommodating than what we think of as plot points or narrative arc in a novel. I love all of Four Tet’s aimless but precise electronica. This track, with its glimmering hand pans, has an immense, forward-driving propulsion, while also not really getting anywhere. I admire the way this track picks you up but then doesn’t demand that you achieve anything with it.
The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied”:
Another thread that winds through Afterlife is the U.S. Army’s aerial release of cadmium over Minneapolis in 1950, in what was evidently a training exercise for a nuclear attack. Several chapters traipse through the history of the city, from settler days to the unfortunate application of tarpaper, asbestos shingles, stucco, and aluminum siding to the city’s historic wooden residences by homeowners who hoped to save themselves from having to paint their faded exteriors ever again. This modern re-siding afflicted a neighborhood known as The Wedge, which is where brothers Bob and Tommy Stimson, founders of The Replacements, grew up. The jangling longing expressed in The Replacements’ 80s hits might be sourced in sagging houses with all their former architectural detail obscured by cheap siding.
Gene Gutche’s “Utilitarian Fugue” (on “Piano Music of Gene Gutche,” performed by Matthew McCright):
Gutche was another Minneapolis artist (as is his champion, pianist Matthew McCright). Born in Germany but educated in the Midwest, Gutche was apparently content to live in a rural area on the outskirts of the city, unattached to any college or other institution, supporting himself on his composing. This short piece moves ahead according to a clear plan and structure, and yet flings itself into plenty of other musical directions. As a listener, you arrive far from where you thought you were going, though you never feel you should have gone someplace else.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Angela Woodward’s playlist for her novel Ink
Angela Woodward’s playlist for her novel Natural Wonders
Angela Woodward is author of the novels Ink, Natural Wonders, and End of the Fire Cult, as well as two collections of short fiction.