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February 25, 2021
Ellie Eaton's Playlist for Her Novel "The Divines"
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, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Ellie Eaton's novel The Divines is haunting and complex, a captivating debut.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"At times both sharp and haunting, this novel embodies the awkwardness and regret of adolescence.... A layered and complex debut."
In her words, here is Ellie Eaton's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel The Divines:
I grew up in a family with such wildly differing tastes in music I was in danger of getting whiplash. My father, who lived in the Caribbean for part of his twenties, was fanatical about reggae and soca. My mother was an opera buff with a penchant for The Boss. Two of my uncles happened to be in the industry, one the co-founder of beloved indie label, 4AD, the other an A&R exec at Warner Bros. No surprise then that the tracks on my list are a little all over the map.
Drafting my debut, The Divines, I almost always worked in silence, but after my writing day was over I liked to stick on my headphones and take a walk around my neighbourhood in Los Angeles, blasting the music of my adolescence, hoping to recapture some of that teenage energy and angst. The songs on this list are a handful of the tracks that helped transport me back to my schooldays.
I’ll Never Grow Old - The Maytals
My sister and I were both pupils at an Oxfordshire boarding school, a monotonous three-hour drive from where we lived. On those long trips my father liked to distract us from the crushing sense of dread that came with the first day of term by cranking up the car stereo as loudly as possible. Ska, soca, reggae, rocksteady. This Maytals track is a reminder of the feeling of immortality I had at sixteen when I genuinely thought I’d never grow old.
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
The Divines is set in an all-girls boarding school where pupils plaster their dormitory walls with pictures of '90s icons. In my teenage years there was no one more idolised by my peers than Kurt Cobain. With his rasping voice, unkempt blonde hair, torn jeans and old woolly cardigans, Cobain seemed to encapsulate the spirit of teenage rebellion.
Cannonball - The Breeders
Growing up my uncle would periodically visit my family, depositing an armful of posters and cassettes on our kitchen table, the latest bands he’d signed to his record label, 4AD. Most of the artwork on my bedroom wall was by the legendary designer Vaughn Oliver—Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil—years before I was old enough to appreciate them. "Cannonball" was the song that turned me into a Breeders fan, hooked by those first few seconds of eerie vocal feedback. Something about this song reminds me of the wildness of the girls I write about in The Divines, their irreverence and unassailable bravado.
Common People – Pulp
The events of my novel largely take place in the nineties at the height of Britpop and grunge. At the time I was a devotee of New Musical Express, pouring over newspaper headlines that documented the ongoing feuds between the chart-topping bands of the day. "Common People" by Pulp is a nod to the elite bubble that the girls in my book inhabit. A gated world, the preserve of the privileged few.
Cakes - Max Tundra
London born electronic musician, Max Tundra, is a synth looping genius. The title of this glorious early album, Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be, is a tongue in cheek reference to the poisonous friendship at the heart of The Divines. While my book has somewhat sinister undertones, Max Tundra’s "Cakes," is a joyous and dreamy piece of electronic wonder, with flutes and trumpets and drum machine beats.
Little Fluffy Clouds - The Orb
When my sister and I were young we became obsessed with the idea of moving to America. Growing up in rural England, the US seemed to embody everything that we most craved; excitement, glamour, the open road. Rickie Lee Jones’s musings on the Arizonan skies of her youth, sampled in this track by The Orb, remind me of our teenage yearnings for something bigger.
Into My Arms - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
In The Divines, Joe, my narrator, describes a picture of Nick Cave she keeps by her bedside. A “signed photograph…bought from a stall at Kensington Market, a pre-Bad-Seeds-era Nick Cave in which a very young, cocky Cave smoked and gazed mysteriously upwards through quizzical eyebrows.” There’s no distance I wouldn’t travel to watch Cave perform.
Look On Down From The Bridge - Mazzy Star
The organ chords at the start of this spine-chilling track remind me of seven years of mandatory school chapel, sitting on hard wooden pews, aching for freedom. The song also makes me think of the ugly metal bridge at the heart of the school campus in The Divines, erected to keep the pupils out of the way of the (rightly) contemptuous locals.
Song To The Siren - This Mortal Coil
In Elizabeth Fraser’s hands this cover of Tim Buckley’s "Song To The Siren" is a haunting reminder of the agony of early love. How intoxicating it can feel and the bitter sting of rejection. In The Divines I tried to capture some of the pain of unrequited love which Fraser’s melancholy voice evokes so perfectly. This song is also a sly nod to the Greek mythological references that weave in and out of my book.
Girls! Girls! Girls! - Liz Phair
"Girls! Girls! Girls!" is an unapologetic song about the power of womanhood. “I take full advantage of every man I meet,” Liz Phair declares in her low-key, matter of fact tone. I want to sit down Joe, the narrator of my book, and force her to listen.
Sweet - Porridge Radio
These days almost all the new music I listen to comes from my friend Holly O’Neill who—in addition to being a supremely talented editor, writer and occasional butcher—introduced me to British indie rock band, Porridge Radio. The track "Sweet" reminds me of the notoriously tricky relationship between mothers and daughters that I navigate in my novel. The song reads like a diary entry, a flash back to the nail biting awkwardness of our teenage selves.
Born and raised in England, Ellie Eaton lives in Los Angeles with her family. Former writer-in-residence at a men's prison in the United Kingdom, she holds an M.A. in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. The Divines is her first novel.
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