In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Caitlin Shetterly’s The Gulf of Lions is an enchanting novel of motherhood, family, and France.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“Shetterly writes with intimate, journal-like immediacy, threading humor and longing throughout Alice’s journey. Without veering into the maudlin or the morose, her prose is warm and self-aware. Readers who cherished the self-reinvention of Frances Mayes’s Under the Tuscan Sun (1996), the emotional depth of Nina Riggs’ The Bright Hour (2017), and the fish-out-of- water perspective of Nicki Chen’s When in Vanuatu (2021) will enjoy Shetterly’s luminous and life-affirming novel.”
In her own words, here is Caitlin Shetterly’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Gulf of Lions:
My new novel, The Gulf of Lions, is the story of a mother called Alice who takes her two daughters, Sophie and Iris, on a once-in-a-lifetime camping-and-road-trip across France. They start in the Alps and drive down to Provence, then across to the Pyrenees, making a big circle to drive through the Dordogne river valley and on to castle outside of Lyon, where the book concludes.
Alice has recently recovered from breast cancer and a mastectomy and her marriage is on the rocks. Before she was diagnosed with cancer, she had found out that her husband, Pete, was cheating on her, and they briefly separated. During her illness, they came back together. Like in many long-term relationships, there is deep pain and loneliness in their marriage, but there is also the still-beating thrum of connection and tenderness.
In France, for the first time in a long while, Alice starts to feel like herself again: She diverges from her strict post-cancer diet and she starts to enjoy the tastes and textures of gorgeous French food; she begins to regain confidence in her beauty, feeling sensual in her dirty jean shorts, her linen shirts, and notices that her hair is fuller than it’s been since chemo; she finds sensuality in the breathtaking landscapes of France, the salty Mediterranean sea, a perfect, ripe raspberry with a glass of liqueur de citron while sitting on a beach towel. And then she meets a man who is the opposite of her husband, Pete. Or so it seems.
And this is where Alice, who is regaining some joie de vivre, starts unravel the thread of what she set out to do: to take a bonding adventure across France with her daughters.
What unfolds is a journey of self-discovery, kids and families, and all the ways we can lose ourselves, even when try hard not to, even when our kids are watching.
I have aimed to write an honest book about marriage, illness, family life, being a Gen-X mother, and the experiences of young girls in a family with problems. France is also a character (and so is a huge almost-600-year-old linden tree)!
Because the entire book is set in the summer of 2022, I write about the climate and how Europe was going through a terrible heat wave, and the Pyrenees are burning. I write about the healing importance of Nature and global violence and what it’s like to live in our world at this specific time—a large outer circle of fear inside the complications and pains of just regular human lives.
I listened to so much music as I wrote. I love music. And I included a lot of it, knitted into the writing. I can’t imagine writing novels without music, honestly. My husband sons helped me a ton, suggesting songs for me to listen to, or to include, each with their own perspective about what music might be playing here or there, or what music some of the characters might cotton to.
So, put these summery and beautiful songs on shuffle, grab a glass of rosé and a hunk of Brie, and take this journey with me until the moon goes down.
Johnny Hallyday, written by Edith Piaf, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” (2019):
When the book opens, Alice is already camping in the Alps with Sophie and Iris. Alice is sitting in a plastic chair with her notebook while Iris takes a shower. In the distance she can see white-capped Mont-Blanc. Someone, somewhere in the campground is “playing Johhy Hallyday singing, ‘Non, je ne regrette rien…’ in his low, sad, repentant voice,” I wrote. I wrote that paragraph and never looked back. The mood was set.
Sam Cooke, “Another Saturday Night” (1963)
When Alice, Sophie and Iris leave their campsite in the Alps, just over the border from Switzerland, they start on a long and meandering drive through national parks and mountains. Alice misjudges how long that route will take, and soon they are lost. In the dark, they come upon a chalet hidden in the woods with a long, lighted tree-lined driveway. It feels a bit Narnia-esque to them. Inside, are candles and long wooden tables, an actual Matisse, elegant guests, and incredible smells wafting from the kitchen. Hungry and travel-weary, they sit down to eat a delicious meal and Sam Cooke is on the stereo singing his jaunty song, “Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody…”
Serge Gainsbourg, “Vilaines Filles, Mauvaises Garçons” (1963)
This was an addition from my older son, a late catch. I noticed, while rereading the book last year that I had two Johnny Hallyday songs in the book. I don’t usually like to double up on artists in my work, I like to find one perfect song. I asked my son what he thought I should change the second one to and told him a bit about the scene, which is when Alice is drinking an Aperol spritz and this song comes on, the bouncy and insouciant sound of it making her want to “wiggle” her knees. The song , called “Bad girls, Bad Boys,” is one I hadn’t heard in years and years from one of my favorite French singer-songwriters, Serge Gainsbourg. Honestly, you can’t write a book set in France and not include Gainsbourg!
Walk the Moon, “Shut up and Dance” (2014):
One of the great things about having kids, is that they introduce you to all kinds of fun stuff you might not come across otherwise, they are always broadening your horizons. My kids have introduced me to so much music. My younger son really got me into Taylor Swift (see below) and we used to (guiltily) rock out, when he was little, to the Hamilton hit, “Helpless”—which we both loved and my older son couldn’t bear. His musical taste has started to change more in the direction of his brother’s—The Beatles, Bob Dylan, rap–but he’s still good for a fun dance party in my office (when his older brother is away!) to Walk the Moon’s “Shut up and Dance.” I put this song in the novel at a point when Alice and her daughters are driving out of the Alps, and they’re so full of joy, as the road is “dipping down and up and the mountains are sparkling” and Sophie puts “Shut up and Dance” on the stereo. For a moment, Alice takes her hands off the wheel as they all clap and sing and bounce. (True confession: I have done just this—oh the joy when my kids and I are all singing and jiggling in the car!)
The Kinks, “Misfits” (1978):
I don’t know how I came across this song while I was writing, but somehow it must have played on the radio or something, and it jogged something in me, some old memory from way back. At that time, I was writing a scene where Alice and her daughters are setting up their tent in a long, long, field that stretches to a cliff that drops right into the Gulf of Lions, and the Mediterranean beyond. And this song comes into her head as she walks across the field, particularly, this line, “You’ve been sleeping in a field but you look real rested….This is your chance, this is your time/So don’t throw it away/You can have your day.” I can’t think of Provence anymore without hearing this song in my head.
Aya Nakamura, “Djadja” (2018):
When Alice and the girls are in Provence, they become friendly with the family that is renting them their spot in the field, overlooking the ocean. This family is that kind of blue-blooded and landed aristocracy Europe is known for, their house more like a sprawling manor, or even castle. The adult son, and the father of four teenaged boys, is married to a Senegalese woman, named Marie. Marie and Alice become close while Alice and the girls are camping there, and there’s a scene when, early in the morning, Marie massages lemon rosemary oil into Alice’s scalp to help stimulate her hair growth. To build the character of Marie, I had to do a lot of research on Senegal to understand not only the culture, but also foreign influence on the country, what the wars were about, and why a French man would come to Senegal and meet his wife there. I fell so in love with Senegal, I am hoping to one day visit. I also wanted to think about whether Marie feels like an outsider Marie in France, despite four French children, a studio for her fashion design company in the Marais in Paris, and living on her mother-in-law’s estate in Provence. I loved researching Marie, and while I was at it, I found this oh-so-catchy tune called “Djadja,” by the French Malian singer, Aya Nakamura. This song was a huge hit in Senegal when it came out, so it made sense to me that Marie might be singing it. I love this song!
Eminem, “Lose Yourself” (2002)
Pete is back in New York, working, when Alice and the girls go to France, and he feels a bit out of sorts. He is not sure where his relationship is with Alice, he’s been struggling with depression, something he’s never really talked to Alice about, and he knows he’s made a lot of mistakes. When Alice and the girls are driving out of the Alps to Provence, he tries to call them, but the call keeps dropping, the sound gets contorted and he can’t read Alice’s vibe. This totally rattles him. Then, on the subway on his way to work, he puts on Eminem’s song, “Ope there goes gravity.” That’s just how he feels, he’s falling.
Ed Sheeran, “Perfect” (2016)
This is such a beautiful song. And it’s just the kind of song that teenage girls love (and their moms love to!) It’s about tender young love and it could melt the hearts of even the most jaded amongst us. Alice, Sophie and Iris listen, all lost in their own stories, to this song as they drive from Provence to the Pyrenees. Iris can grasp that it’s about more than she yet understands, she’s only 8 after all, but she can sense the import of perfect love, or at least perfect love stories, as it felt by her mom and older sister.
The Beatles, “Two of Us” (1970)
When Alice and her girls are driving from the charred Pyrenees to the Dordogne river valley, across south western central France, through fields of sunflowers, that are listening to the remastered Let it Be album (one of my favorite albums of all time.) “The Two of Us” is playing and Sophie is thinking about how they are, indeed, on their way home—after this stop they will drive on to a castle at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers and then fly home. Paul McCartney is singing, “We’re on our way home/We’re on our way home.” And Sophie whispers, “We are, too.”
Led Zeppelin, “Fool in the Rain” (1979)
When Alice is in the MRI machine getting scanned to find out she has breast cancer, she asks the technicians to put on “Fool in the Rain,” because her father has told her that he had had an MRI and asked for Beethoven and couldn’t even hear it over the loud clicks and clunks of the machine. “Fool in the Rain” is a long song and she is grateful that she has it with her for as long as she does while in the tube. I love this song—every time I hear it, I think “This may be the most amazing musical feat I have ever heard.” It’s incredible. And it makes me happy, too.
Taylor Swift, “Blank Space” (2014)
Toward the end of the book, Sophie thinks of this song when she starts hanging out with an older riding instructor, Marc. For a second, her mind registers that the song is both a warning and, also, a celebration of the bad guy. My younger song tuned me in to this song, and I absolutely love it. It’s about everything that’s wrong with what we’ve been taught as girls and women and, yet somehow, Swift turns it, also, into an anthem of power. I think, in many ways, I’ve written a novel about the resilience of women, how we make mistakes, we get knocked down and hurt, and yet we are strong enough to make long journeys back to each other.
Queen, “I Want to Break Free” (1984)
In our family, we called this song “Collioure,” after a small French town on the Mediterranean sea near the Spanish border. When we were in France in 2022, we rented a small apartment there on the water. And we had many dance parties to this song—it became the anthem of our entire trip. The freedom and joy we feel when we’re in France is just how this song makes me feel—and I hope that, in this summer of crazy gas prices, my novel will give all of my readers a trip they long for. I imagine a reader putting this song on their speaker when they close my book, and then dancing around, wherever they are, no matter what they are wearing, no matter if it’s morning or night. Joy can be fleeting—it’s now or never. Break free!
also at Largehearted Boy:
Caitlin Shetterly’s playlist for her novel Pete and Alice in Maine
Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, The Queen, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada.