January 24, 2023
Shorties (A Shirley Jackson Primer, An Interview with King Tuff, and more)
Vol. 1 Brooklyn shared a primer to the writings of Shirley Jackson.
King Tuff discussed his new album with Aquarium Drunkard.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBook on sale for $1.99 today:
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
Paste profiled Beauty Pill's Chad Clark.
Pitchfork listed new and rising artists who are shaping the future of music.
De'Shawn Charles Winslow recommended books about self-identity at The Week.
Stream a new song by Heather Woods Broderick.
Kathleen Rooney reconsidered Edna Ferber's novel The Girls at JSTOR Daily.
Aoife O’Donovan covered Sharon Van Etten's "I Love You But I'm Lost."
Clare Sestanovich talked to the New Yorker about her story in this week's issue.
A new edition of Kate Bush's lyrics collection How To Be Invisible will be published in May.
The Quietus interviewed singer-songwriter Jessica Winter.
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January 23, 2023
Shorties (Ayòbámi Adébáyò Profiled, New Music from Miya Folick, and more)
The Guardian profiled author Ayòbámi Adébáyò.
Stream a new song by Miya Folick.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931–1934: Vol. 1 by Anaïs Nin
Vulture and Pitchfork remembered David Crosby.
Elizabeth Colomba and Aurélie Lévy discussed their graphic novel, Queenie: Godmother of Harlem with NPR Books.
John Cale discussed his new album with All Things Considered.
Marisa Crane discussed her debut novel I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself with Shondaland.
When portraying the kid in the book, it was important to me to give her agency, to give her her own motivations and desires and ideas about the world. So often, children in fiction are used as a tool for another character to grow, and I hate that so much. She’s her own person, and she has asses to kick.
Steve Albini took World Cafe on a tour of his Chicago recording studio.
The Creative Independent interviewed writer, musician, and activist Michael Love Michael.
Before I knew your music, I knew you as a journalist. What skills from your journalism have you brought to your music and vice versa? How did one inspire you to start pursuing the other?
I like to think of myself as a writer of many disciplines. I don’t feel like I’m just one kind of writer. Music, for me, is an extension of that. It’s another way for me to tell stories that I’m passionate about...
Cover Me shared five covers of the Roches' "Hammond Song."
PEN America shared the longlists for its literary awards.
World Cafe visited the Museum of Post Punk and Industrial Music in Chicago.
Museum creator and curator Martin Atkins spent decades playing in bands like Public Image Ltd., Ministry, Killing Joke, Nine Inch Nails and the supergroup Pigface. The museum, which opened in 2021, pulls from Atkins' personal collection of memorabilia, photos and other rarities.
Electric Literature talked writing instruction with author Christine Ma-Kellams.
The directors of Judy Blume Forever discussed the documentary with Variety.
The Linda Lindas shared their Sunday routines with the Los Angeles Times.
The OTHERPPL podcast interviewed author Kevin Maloney.
Stream a new song by Bleary Eyed.
Granta shared a conversation between authors Pico Iyer and Caryl Phillips.
Stream a new song by NOIA.
Stream a new Dutch Uncles song.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider making a donation.
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January 20, 2023
Shorties (An Interview with Omar El Akkad, New Music from Caroline Rose, and more)
Omar El Akkad discussed his novel American War with Throughline.
Stream a new song by Caroline Rose.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler
Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
The Pitchfork Review podcast recommended overlooked albums that deserve to be heard.
Bandcamp Daily recommended albums by Ebo Taylor.
The New York Times recommended the week's best new books.
PopMatters recommended jazz albums for beginners.
Book Riot listed 2023's most anticipated cookbooks.
Atwood Magazine interviewed the musical duo Lowertown.
Aleksandar Hemon talked books and reading with the New York Times.
Stream a new Fruit Bats song.
The Creative Independent interviewed poet Aja Monet.
Consequence of Sound listed 2023's most anticipated albums.
The Paris Review shared an interview with Charles Simic.
Stream a new song by Tanukichan.
Stream a new song by Silver Moth.
Stream a new Algiers song.
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January 19, 2023
Josh Riedel's Playlist for His Novel "Please Report Your Bug Here"
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.
Josh Riedel's novel Please Report Your Bug Here is a profound debut that sharply examines technology and how it affects our relationships.
Vulture wrote of the book:
""Please Report Your Bug Here is a gripping literary thriller that forces us to confront our complicity in the technologies reshaping human connections, and it asks how far we will go to maintain those connections. Dark, funny, and highly inventive, Riedel’s debut is as addictive as the apps it criticizes."
In his own words, here is Josh Riedel's Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Please Report Your Bug Here:
Please Report Your Bug Here is the story of Ethan Block, an employee at a dating app startup who discovers a glitch in the app that transports him to other worlds. The novel takes place in San Francisco circa 2010, when I knew more people on Rdio than Spotify. Although Ethan is obsessed with work—and with reproducing the bug that transports him to other worlds—music still plays a big part in his life. He overhears songs at the bar down the street from his apartment as he works late into the night. His friend obsesses over The National’s new album. And he has a habit of playing songs on repeat as he commutes to the office. This playlist is a mix of what Ethan and I listened to in 2010, along with a few more songs that I listened to while writing this novel, and that I think Ethan would too, in whatever world he may be in.
Robyn, “Dancing on My Own”
Ethan, still reeling from a breakup, hears this song playing at the karaoke bar down the street from his San Francisco apartment at the start of the book as he works on a mission statement for DateDate, the dating app he works for. It’s a song he consciously does not stream on Rdio, the former Spotify competitor, because it’s not compatible with his publicly visible aesthetic preferences.
Dirty Projectors, “Stillness Is the Move”
After his dating app startup is acquired by the all-powerful Corporation, Ethan’s forced to commute by shuttle to the company’s campus in Menlo Park, about an hour south of San Francisco. Ethan plays this song on repeat as the shuttle cruises south on the 101. I have a habit of playing songs on repeat as I write. Like the glitch in Ethan’s dating app, a song on repeat can transport you to another world, and I love when I find the right song to put me in the mindset I need to complete a scene or a chapter.
Pete Rock, “Everyman (Instrumental)”
My novel is about technology, but it’s also about friendship—and it’s most often through friends (rather than apps) where I find my favorite music recommendations. My friend Rachel turned me on to the newsletter Flow State. Every weekday, the people (not algorithm!) behind Flow State recommend two hours of music that’s perfect for writing. I’ve discovered lots of new artists and albums through this newsletter. Pete Rock’s album The Original Baby Pa (Instrumentals) was a recent suggestion, and I’ve been writing to it ever since. Also, my first creative writing teacher is the author Peter Rock, and I can’t help but think of him whenever I see “Pete Rock” flash across my screen.
Haruomi Hosono, “Boku Wa Chotto”
Andrew Neerman, the owner of the Portland record label (and former record store) Beacon Sound, delivered records by bicycle during the lockdown-era of the pandemic, when I was revising my novel. I’d recently discovered Japanese City Pop, thanks to my friend Krish, and asked Neerman for a couple recommendations. He dropped off this record, and I fell in love with this track. A part of my novel takes place in Japan, so this feels appropriate. Looking at a rough translation of the lyrics on reddit, I feel this song is a cousin to Smog’s “Let’s Move to the Country.”
Smog, “Let’s Move to the Country”
I moved several times while writing this novel. Twice I moved to a rural seaside town north of San Francisco. This was my unpacking song.
Cassandra Jenkins, “Hard Drive”
After an hour or two of writing in the morning, I make breakfast, usually some kind of oatmeal. This is my oatmeal-making song. I read that Cassandra Jenkins wrote the album on which this song is featured, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, after the death of David Berman, just before they were to go on tour together.
Purple Mountains, “All My Happiness Is Gone”
I bought a copy of Purple Mountains singer David Berman’s poetry collection Actual Air on the recommendation of a friend when I was in college, in Portland, Oregon. I love his poetry and his lyrics. My favorite line in this song reminds me of that college friend: “It’s not the icy bike chain rain of Portland, Oregon.”
Arthur Russell, “I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face”
Aside from the sci-fi/tech elements of my novel, it’s also about love and longing, like many of the Arthur Russell songs featured on the compilation album Love Is Overtaking Me. I feel like off-page my protagonist, Ethan, definitely listens to Arthur Russell. His ex probably does too.
The National, “Terrible Love”
Ethan’s friend Allie is obsessed with this album. Ethan listens to this song on repeat on a long bus ride through San Francisco and gets tripped up by what exactly lead singer Matt Berninger means when he sings “It takes an ocean not to break,” sending Ethan on a search through internet comments to find the true meaning of the lyrics.
Phoebe Bridgers, “Garden Song”
I spent winter 2020 housesitting for my professor in Tucson. I’d drive from her house to a dried-out river where I’d run in the hot desert winter sun. This is the song I blasted both ways. Towards the end of my day, I noticed a collage on a wall that I suspect her daughter had made: at its center was Phoebe Bridgers.
Dirty Projectors, “Overlord”
This is one of those songs I can’t help but play on repeat. Yes, another Dirty Projectors song! It’s this decade’s “Stillness Is the Move” for me. I can’t listen to this one without being transported back to February 2020. I was at Yaddo, an art residency in Saratoga Springs, when the song and video were released. I listened to Maia Friedman on repeat as I revised the novel, before the pandemic shut down the residency. It became a kind of calming anthem for me as I finished the book.
Josh Riedel was the first employee at Instagram, where he worked for several years before earning his MFA from the University of Arizona. His short stories have appeared in One Story, Passages North, and Sycamore Review. Please Report Your Bug Here is his first novel. He lives in San Francisco, California.
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Shorties (An Interview with Constance Debré, Soccer Mommy's Tiny Desk Concert, and more)
AnOther interviewed French author Constance Debré.
...I think one of the answers, in terms of inspiration, is not in other books but is in law, and in my legal past. Especially in French case law, which is very different from British law or US law, in that it is very much about language, about a very precise, simple, clear and effective use of language. To me, it's so beautiful. And so I have this very simple, clear, cold, direct style of writing.
Soccer Mommy played a Tiny Desk Concert.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston
Stream a new boygenius song.
Paste listed the year's most anticipated horror books.
Rebecca Bengal wrote about Johnny Paycheck and David Berman at the Oxford American.
Vocally they were opposites. Berman’s deadpan baritone underscored the tilted humor and searching wisdom of his own lyrics, whereas Paycheck’s craned upward into the altitudes
Stat Significant examined how popular music has changed since the 1950s.
Electric Literature shared a new story by Bill Cotter.
Stream a new Deerhoof song.
Jessica Johns talked to Shondaland about her novel Bad Cree.
So, in the short story, I was intentionally omitting details and intentionally omitting things to build the tension. In the novel version, I was trying to do the same thing with a different technique, which was to add more and to build out.
Stream a new song by Wednesday.
Electric Literature interviewed Debutiful's Adam Vitcavage.
Bandcamp Daily profiled experimental music label Relative Pitch.
The Creative Independent interviewed cartoonist Johnny Damm.
Comics read well digitally. But there’s something about them when you make it into an object. I’m working with really old comics and I think it’s especially interesting how they’ve aged and decayed.
UPROXX interviewed musician King Tuff.
Debutiful interviewed author Josh Riedel.
Stream a new song by Braids.
Kashauna Cauley discussed her debut novel with Kirkus.
Stream a new Superchunk song.
Jyoti Patel recommended books about family secrets at the Guardian.
Stream a new Steven Van Betten song.
Esquire previewed the year's most anticipated books.
Stream a new song by Squirrel Flower.
Paul Theroux recommended books set in Boston at the New York Times.
Stream a new Florry song.
Mike Albo discussed his novel with Shondaland.
Stream a new song by Art School Girlfriend.
The Guardian and the New York Times remembered author Jonathan Raban.
Aquarium Drunkard interviewed Chad Clark of Beauty Pill.
The OTHERPPL podcast interviewed author Matthew Salesses.
Stream two new Tiny Ruins songs.
Vol. 1 Brooklyn interviewed author Mallory Smart.
Stream a new song by the National.
The Guardian interviewed TS Eliot prize winner Anthony Joseph.
The Raincoats' Gina Birch talked to The Quietus about her solo album.
The Millions interviewed author Amina Cain.
Stream a new song by Anna B Savage.
The Rumpus interviewed author Liz Harmer.
Stream a new Andy Shauf song.
The Los Angeles Review of Books shared new writing by Maria Sonevytsky.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider making a donation.
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January 18, 2023
Dawn Raffel's Playlist for Her Story Collection "Boundless as the Sky"
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.
The stories in Dawn Raffel's collection Boundless as the Sky are as imaginative as they are inventive.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"Raffel … draws inspiration from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and the history of Chicago’s 1933 World’s Fair for this sublime collection…. This profile of a city within a city creates a Russian nesting doll of urban tableaux…. This is one to savor."
In her own words, here is Dawn Raffel's Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Boundless as the Sky:
Boundless as the Sky is written as a diptych. Part One is a salute to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Its brief, connected fictions take place in many cities, real and fantastical, past and future, throughout time and space, but with a tiny stake in Chicago. Part Two takes place entirely in Chicago on a single day: July 15, 1933, from sunrise to sundown. This was the day that Mussolini’s wingman, Italo Balbo, landed his 24 seaplanes (dubbed a “roaring armada of goodwill”) in a display of fascist power at the Century of Progress World’s Fair, as hundreds of thousands cheered. Although fiction, it is based closely on a real historical event.
For Part One, “The City Toward Which My Journey Tends,” the music is instrumental, an invitation to wander inward, out of time and across borders.
“Dream 3 (in the midst of my life)” by Max Richter, Ben Russell & Yuki Numata Resnick
“Offering” by Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass
“Prashanti” by Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass
“For Jóhann” by Vikingur Ólafsson
“Le Temps Qui Passe” by Stephan Moccio
For Part Two, “Boundless at the Sky,” the music and lyrics of the era arrive in force.
“March of the Toys” (from Babes in Toyland) performed by John Williams and Boston Pops Orchestra
The original Babes in Toyland movie—not the lesser remakes—was released in 1934. Although anachronistic by one year, its famous finale, “March of the Toys,” captures the energy and optimism of the era.
“The Song is You” by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein was written in 1932; it’s top of mind for one of my (lovelorn) characters and is also playing in the fancy Café de Alex at the fairgrounds. I happen to like the Chet Baker cover.
“Bugle Call Rag” by Glenn Miller and his Orchestra
Although they had no way of knowing it at the time, many of the young boys watching the arrival of Balbo’s seaplanes would go on to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII, including my father, my uncle, and their cousin, who died in the sky over Nuremburg. Miller, one of the most popular big band musicians of the era, tirelessly entertained the troops at home and abroad; my father recalled him playing live during his training. Miller’s plane went missing over the English Channel on December 15, 1944, when he was 40 years old.
“We’ll Meet Again” written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles and sung by Vera Lynn
This hopeful 1939 standard captures the timely and universal longing for reunion.
Dawn Raffel is the author of five previous books, most recently The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies.
Other books include two critically-acclaimed short story collections, a novel, and a memoir. Her stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including NOON, BOMB, Conjunctions, Exquisite Pandemic, New American Writing, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Best Small Fictions, and more. Visit her website at www.dawnraffel.com
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Shorties (An Excerpt from Marisa Crane's Debut Novel, New Music from Screaming Females, and more)
Debutiful shared an excerpt from Marisa Crane’s debut novel, I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself.
Stream a new song by Screaming Females.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBook on sale for $1.99 today:
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
eBook on sale for $2.99 today:
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
eBooks on sale for $4.99 today:
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The January 6 Report by The January 6 Select Committee & Ari Melber
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
eBook on sale for $9.99 today:
The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection by C. S. Lewis
Kate Bollinger covered covered the French song “J’aime les filles.”
Stay Brave interviewed author Ananda Lima.
As a woman-identifying writer, what are the ways that you “stay brave” in your life?
Being a woman or a part of any minoritized group often means having to navigate a lot of things that feel contradictory, and trying to find your own nuance and balance.
The Oxford American profiled musician Lee Bains III.
Josh Riedel recommended books about losing (and finding) yourself in work at Electric Literature.
Bandcamp Daily recommended sound poetry.
Kai Thomas discussed his debut novel with Shondaland.
Imani Perry examined the confluence of hip-hop and country music at the Oxford American.
The Creative Independent interviewed artist, writer, and poet Diamond Stingily.
Stream a new song by NNAMDÏ.
Stream a new song by Emma Tricca.
Tor.com shared an excerpt from Kelly Barnhill’s The Crane Husband.
Stream a new song by Steady Holiday.
First Draft interviewed author Stephanie Feldman.
Stream a new song by Yaeji.
Literary Hub recommended the week's best new books.
Stream a new song by Fenne Lily.
The Atlantic shared a new essay by Xochitl Gonzalez.
Stream a new song by Bonny Doon.
Dan Kois talked to Literary Hub about his debut novel.
Aquarium Drunkard interviewed Jon Brion.
Stream a new Amber Arcades song.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider making a donation.
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January 17, 2023
Dan Kois's Playlist for His Novel "Vintage Contemporaries"
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.
Dan Kois's novel Vintage Contemporaries is a smart and funny debut, charming in the best and most profound of ways.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
"A bittersweet love letter to 1990s New York….what’s best about Kois’ work here is…his eye for detail and penchant for humorously trenchant descriptions….This keenly observed…atmospheric first novel is an ode to friendship, creativity, and an era now gone."
In his own words, here is Dan Kois's Book Notes music playlist for his novel Vintage Contemporaries:
In the first meeting between Em and Emily, the two friends at the center of my novel Vintage Contemporaries, the young women sit in Emily’s Lower East Side apartment late at night and listen to music. It’s 1991, and Em is astonished at Emily’s 25-disc CD changer, which allows her to play random songs for hours. “Let me introduce you,” Emily says with great pride, “to the shuffle.”
Many of the characters in Vintage Contemporaries really care about music, in the way that they also really care about books, theater, and movies. They bond over songs, argue about songs, theorize about songs—most of all, they just listen to songs, almost all the time. Here’s a playlist of the songs that the characters in this novel, which is set partly in the early 1990s and partly in the mid-2000s, listen to.
New Order: True Faith
The novel opens in a dance club in 1991. Em is not a true club kid, so when this song—familiar from the radio—comes on, she feels a sense of relief and finally allows herself to cut loose on the dance floor.
Breeders: Glorious
Emily plays this for Em on the CD changer during that momentous first meeting. It’s slow and roiling, and when it’s over, Emily says, “That song just fucks me real good.” Em spends a lot of their friendship wondering how on earth Emily can say the things she does.
Neneh Cherry: I’ve Got You Under My Skin
That same night, this song comes on the shuffle. It’s from Red Hot + Blue, an AIDS benefit album of Cole Porter covers that came out in 1990. Organizing against the government’s repugnant AIDS policies becomes the first real activist impulse of Emily’s life.
R.E.M.: Life and How to Live It
Emily is from Athens, Georgia, an origin story that drives Em very slightly insane. She can’t believe she’s meeting someone who’s actually from that place, a place that had always seemed to Em the epitome of an artistic wonderland, where everyone makes something beautiful and you might run into Michael Stipe in a coffee shop. Emily eventually asks Em where she’s from: “Wisconsin,” she says, meaning nowhere.
NWA: Straight Out of Compton
Like some white rap fans, especially in the 1990s, Emily has an overly sympathetic sense of her own relationship to the Black struggle. In the midst of an argument about the politics of the movie Boyz ‘N the Hood, Emily busts this song out and raps along with it as a way of proving what she sees as her bona fides. Em asks her to please stop using the N-word quite so much.
The Clash: Know Your Rights
On a drive to an ACT UP rally in Maine, Emily starts Side 2 of a protest-themed mix tape with this song, the first single off 1982’s Combat Rock. It’s the one that begins with Joe Strummer yelling, “This is a public service announcement … with guitar!”
Madonna: Like a Prayer
Louis, Em’s roommate, who is gay and more involved with ACT UP than either of the young women, accompanies them on the trip to Maine. Eventually, he gets sick of Emily’s protest mix tape and puts in his own cassette, which begins with this gift to people singing along on road trips.
Morphine: Cure for Pain
Em accompanies Emily to Georgia for her grandmother’s birthday party, and Emily listens to a Morphine CD on her Discman all the way down. This is mood music, and Emily’s in a mood; I confess that in my twenties I spent a lot of time on buses and trains listening to this exact album, staring out the window, whole towns passing by, insignificant in the face of my enormous feelings.
Ministry: N.W.O.
Em’s older sister and her husband come to New York to visit. Emily puts on this CD—described as “the most misbegotten choice of Em’s twelve-for-a-dollar BMG CD club deal last fall”—to fuck with them. Em’s poor, square brother-in-law asks politely, “Now, is this grunge?”
For those of you who do not know about the remarkable schemes that were these music clubs: For decades, two companies, BMG and Columbia House, ran mail-order CD businesses (previously, they had been mail-order cassette and record businesses). When you first signed up, you got some incredible number of albums for basically nothing. For a young person crazy about music in the pre-streaming era, this was astonishing and irresistible.
The problem was, you’d get your 12 free discs, mostly stuff you loved but a few things that were completely not to your taste—and you were then obligated to buy like five more CDs at exorbitant prices in the next few years. They would mail you a catalog, and if you didn’t reply in time, they would just ship you that month’s special selection and bill you $14.95 plus shipping and handling. And they would hassle you endlessly. Remember that scene in A Serious Man where Michael Stuhlbarg repeats, “I didn’t ask for Santana Abraxas”? It was like that.
When I departed for college I left behind four such memberships, two with each company, under the names Dan Kois and Daniel J. Kios, which somehow worked. My mom had to field angry letters and calls from Columbia House and BMG until she sold our childhood home, possibly for this very reason.
They Might Be Giants: Don’t Let’s Start
Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful.
Heartless Bastards: New Resolution
Now we’re in the part of the book set in the 21st century. Emily and Em’s friendship broke up a long time ago, but they’re taking tentative steps toward getting back together. They bond over this song during their first lunch in years. Attentive observers might notice that I am not a woman, though I am writing about women. I had a lot of help from a number of women readers for this novel, who gave me a lot of advice about maintaining a believable voice. No advice was more important than the instruction I got from my friend, the essayist and novelist Belle Boggs, who read the first draft of this scene, in which Em and Emily bonded over the Hold Steady, and said, “That is not believable. Do the Heartless Bastards instead."
Traditional: Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
I love this hymn, which Em hears, and thinks a lot about, during church.
Grateful Dead: Ripple
Em’s husband, in the year 2005, is a Deadhead of long standing. Em is somewhat bewildered to find that after years of marriage she just somehow knows a bunch of Grateful Dead songs, including this one, which makes a beautiful lullaby. I was never a Deadhead—like an idiot, I even skipped the chance to see them when they were playing in 1992, 200 yards from my dorm room at the Dean Dome—but I’ve come to love them late in life, fulfilling my destiny as a bearded man.
Spoon: The Underdog
In the novel, Em’s toddler dances an adorable naked dance to this song, waggling her little butt like a bee, and Em takes video of her with her new phone, and puts the video on YouTube, where it remains for years until it is deleted as algorithm-identified child pornography, a crushing development. This exact thing happened to us.
The Backyardigans: The Customer Is Always Right
At some point in parenting, you discover that you’re just listening to stuff like this all the time. The Backyardigans was a TV show about four anthropomorphic animals who lived in suburban houses with adjoining backyards, where they had musical adventures. Thirteen years after the last time I watched this show, I can still sing this song, because it is a bop.
Dan Kois is a writer, editor, and podcaster at Slate, where his work has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards and a Writers Guild Award. He’s the author of How to Be a Family, a memoir of parenting around the world; The World Only Spins Forward (with Isaac Butler), an oral history of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, which was a 2019 Stonewall Honor Book; and Facing Future, a book of music criticism and biography. He is a frequent guest and host of Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast, was a founding host of Slate’s Mom and Dad Are Fighting podcast, and hosts The Martin Chronicles, a podcast about Martin Amis. He lives with his family in Arlington, Virginia.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider making a donation.
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Shorties (Yiyun Li Interviewed, Margo Price Interviewed, and more)
Yiyun Li talked to the New Yorker about her story in this week's issue.
Vulture interviewed Margo Price about her new album and memoir.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBook on sale for $2.99 today:
Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler
The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago
VICE interviewed singer-songwriter Alex G.
Shane Burley, editor of the anthology No Pasaran: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, recommends ten books about combating far-right white nationalism through activism at Electric Literature.
Jeff Heiskell discussed the Judybats' Pain Makes You Beautiful album on its 30th anniversary at PopMatters.
Help a bookseller build a new Arabic bookstore and cultural center in London.
Aquarium Drunkard shared a collection of live Neil Young songs and rarities.
Electric Literature shared three new poems by Kyle Seamus Brosnihan.
Stream a new song by CMAT.
Anthony Joseph has been awarded the TS Eliot prize for his poetry collection Sonnets for Albert.
Stream a new patchnotes song.
Merve Emre examined academia's effect on literary criticism at the New Yorker.
Stream two new Eluvium tracks.
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January 16, 2023
Maria Dong's Playlist for Her Novel "Liar, Dreamer, Thief"
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.
Maria Dong's novel Liar, Dreamer, Thief is a stunning debut, a riveting literary thriller where the characters (and their relationships) are as compelling as the action.
The Chicago Review of Books wrote of the book:
"A snappy page-turner, with Katrina’s voice shining through . . . A fascinating hybrid between coming of age novel, workplace novel, and literary thriller."
In her own words, here is Maria Dong's Book Notes music playlist for her novel Liar, Dreamer, Thief:
Ten Songs from Liar, Dreamer, Thief
Liar, Dreamer, Thief is a psychological suspense about a 24-year old Korean American disaster lesbian (hey, if you know, you know) that has been lightly stalking her coworker as one of her mental-health coping mechanisms (in additional to shape and number rituals, slipping into a fantasy world—so, the usual.)
Then her coworker jumps off a bridge in front of her—but not before blaming her for what’s about to happen. Horrified, she launches her own amateur, poorly-funded investigation into what he meant, only to discover that the two of them were more closely intertwined than she could’ve ever imagined.
Katrina (like myself) is a lapsed musician, and music forms a central thread throughout the book—particularly the songs she hears when she’s deep in memory, or when she’s spinning out. It’s a way for the past to intrude on the present—and one of the ways her desperately repressed inner psychology vents itself out onto the world. All of the songs also, in addition to reflecting her mood and the overall tone and pacing of the narrative, also form important pieces of my own personal history.
Clarinet Concerto in A Major (K.622, Mozart)
As a once-clarinetist myself, I have a love-hate relationship with this piece of music. Love, because it’s god awfully beautiful, and hate, because I, too, had a major audition with the uber-famous solo from this piece. As [spoilers-removed], this piece represents the past that Katrina doesn’t allow herself to visit, even in her own mind.
Shim Soo-Bong, 그때 그사람
On Spotify as “The Man of the Time”
This song represents a genre called teurotteu (sometimes written trot), which I absolutely love (much to the chagrin of my mother; teurotteu can be seen as kind of old-fashioned, but the combination of minor keys, klezmer-style clarinets, synths, and absolutely swinging backbeats is so fire that there’s no way not to adore it.) Katrina remembers this song as one played during a road trip with her parents, so it forms a connection to her past.
Teurotteu music has a really interesting history (both in terms of its musical roots and the way it’s played into Korean politics), and it’s had these waves of popularity where it will sink out of fashion for a while before being revitalized again. Shim Soo-Bong was one of those revitalizers; she actually wrote this song herself and debuted it in a college festival, and it grew until it was a massive success—but then she witnessed the assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-Hee. After the assassination, she was incarcerated and put in a mental institution, and then banned from TV and radio until 1981.
Jang Yoon-Jeong, 어머나!
The other road trip song! (And such a banger!)
While Shim Soo-Bong was one of the revitalizers of the '80s, Jang Yoon-Jeong (commonly referred to as the Queen of Trot) is one of the singers that’s propelled teurotteu back into popularity with our current generation of young people (e.g., people Katrina’s age.) So between these two songs, we get a glimpse of the connection here between mother and daughter, through this musical strand a generation apart.
Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
As a young person, before I became a musician, before I grew to love classical music, I was absolutely obsessed with Swan Lake. It’s been rendered and reinvented in so many different versions—I mean, the 1981 cartoon is amazing—and the tragic themes were the exact kind of thing ten year-old me gravitated toward. To this day, I can’t listen to the build-up to those massive horns without absolutely losing my mind.
I feel like this piece works for this book on so many levels. Swan Lake is about power and obsession and fantasy, (about liars, dreamers, and thieves, if you will), and the protagonists are masters of transformation that lead double-lives (and have to make extreme sacrifices to defeat evil magic.)
Two random Swan Lake facts:
1. When Hachette did the audiobook, they shoved a pretty awesome easter egg into the introduction: a neat version of the Dance of the Little Swans, which starts out normal before breaking apart into a super cool electronic interpretation.
2. One of the live shows I was most excited about in my entire adult life was a Russian Grand Ballet performance of Swan Lake in Kalamazoo, MI. But then, someone two rows in front of me recorded the entire performance by holding an iPad into the air, just absolutely shattering the immersion. It’s been seven years and I’m still mad about it.
Rêverie and Clair de Lune- Debussy
I have such complex feelings around Debussy. He started out poor and got into music school, where he decided he was gonna compose his way, which made everyone super angry at him. At the time, his stuff was wild: musical “symphonic poems” based on poetry, impressionism (which he was real angry about, so don’t call it that), Symbolist influences. I love his music, but as a human being, he was a real mess: at one point, he threatened to kill himself if his lover—who was the best friend of his previous lover—didn’t marry him.
Koreans, like Americans, love Debussy, and his songs show up in a lot of popular movies and K-dramas. Rêverie is less famous and recognizable than Clair de Lune, and yet, it has this odd quality to it—like even if you heard it for the very first time, you’d feel like you’d heard it a thousand times before. It feels both old and weirdly timeless—I think very few people would guess it came out in 1890—and as such, forms a nice representation of Katrina’s kitchen-door fantasy world. Both pieces are nice reflections of some of the quieter, more contemplative moments in the novel.
The Firebird Suite - Stravinsky
My high school band at one point played part of the Firebird Suite. There are sections in 7/4 time, which is a bit rare (and feels off-balance, I think, to the casual listener). (And seven is a prime number, which is important for, uh, reasons.) I couldn’t find the exact clip I wanted, so you’ll have to make do with the Infernal Dance of King Kaschei. (Kaschei (or Koschei) is a common anti-hero in Slavic folktales and often hides his soul inside of protective containers, something I think Katrina would really relate to.)
One thing I love about this piece is that it represents rebirth and change, the idea that there can be new beginnings in even a pile of smoldering ashes.
Money - Pink Floyd
Another piece that experiments with 7/4 time, it’s also a micro-meditation on capitalism, class struggle, (and maybe even mental health?) There isn’t a line of this song that isn’t deeply connected to at least one of the characters in this book, and the way it just completely reinvents itself as it enters the musical jam-breaks feels pretty fitting for Liar, Dreamer, Thief’s pacing, which more than one reviewer has deemed “bananas”.
In The Hall of The Mountain King - Grieg
In addition to being one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar (yeah, I was a weird kid), this piece is structured somewhat similarly to Bolero, in that you’ve got a quiet, repeating theme that slowly grows until it’s reached an all out explosion. In the story behind the music, Peer Gynt is trying to escape from a Troll King, only narrowly making it out with his life. I can’t think of any piece that better encapsulates her slow creep over a junkyard fence, only to be later confronted with [real big spoilers].
Bolero - Ravel
Strange as it sounds, I used to hate Bolero. A big part of it is that I’m impatient and the piece is long; it requires patience to journey through the many iterations of the main theme. As I got older, though, I grew to appreciate it, how the composer managed to do so much with subtle changes. There’s a kind of insidiousness to it, an almost sleight of hand.
In a way, Bolero taught me how to listen again. When we’re teenagers, I think we listen to music wholeheartedly—lying on your bedroom floor, headphones on, nothing to pull our focus. And then we get so busy and lose that, and music just fades into the background, something to “put on” while we do other things. But Bolero requires your full attention—only that will give you the reward of that full in the face E major key change toward the end.
Prelude in C Sharp Minor, Op 3., No.3
Look, I love me some Romantics, and that means I love me some Rachmaninoff. And I feel so much compassion for him and his struggles with mental health—he had a four-year bout of depression that made it almost impossible for him to compose at all. He also struggled with his identity; he emigrated to the US due a combination of financial pressures and the political strife that followed the October Revolution and was deeply impacted by it, once saying that in losing his country, he’d also lost himself.
No matter how jubilant and lovely his music sometimes is, I always feel like I can sense a hidden sadness underneath, which relates to this book and the concepts of the Korean feeling of han, as mentioned by Katrina in [spoiler redacted].
Special Mention: 14 Dogs
This band doesn’t exist. I had 19 Wheels in mind when writing these sections, because that was my teenaged indie obsession (particularly the Sugareen album), but Katrina’s only 24 and the band broke up in 2005, so the timing didn’t line up. But if you wonder what it sounds like, now you know.
Maria Dong's short fiction, articles, and poetry have been published in over a dozen venues, including Apex, Apparition Literary Magazine, Augur, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Fantasy Magazine, Fusion Fragment, Kaleidotrope, Khoreo, Lightspeed, and Nightmare, among others. Currently a computer programmer, she has had a diverse career as a property manager, English teacher, and occupational therapist. She lives with her partner in southwest Michigan, in a centenarian saltbox house that is almost certainly haunted, and loves watching K-Dramas and drinking Bell's beer. She can be reached via Twitter @mariadongwrites or her website, MariaDong.com.
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Shorties (An Interview with Bret Easton Ellis, A Profile of Composer Kai Malone, and more)
Bret Easton Ellis discussed his new novel The Shards with the Guardian.
Are you less attracted to satire nowadays?
Less Than Zero [1985] had the kind of moralising that a sophisticated 19- or 20-year-old might inflict upon everyone with his self-regard; you grow out of that. I had no desire in this book to satirise Bret’s milieu. I just wanted to present it how I remembered it and how I felt it. Someone approaching it from a much younger point of view would maybe write a novel about Bret and his Nicaraguan maid and how he wants to help her. Maybe Picador would have published that book.
Bandcamp Daily profiled composer Kai Malone.
Much of Malone’s work employs rhythmic patterns like canons or tuning systems that guide the music in a certain direction. Within these confines, she finds space for creativity and change. “When you have a bunch of restrictions, you lose control because there’s some sort of agency that is given to the composition that you submit yourself to,” she says. “It’s a big puzzle. And then when it does fit together, the piece is so much more perplexing than I could have really imagined or linearly composed.”
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBook on sale for $1.99 today:
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
eBook on sale for $2.99 today:
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
NPR Music, BrooklynVegan, and Paste recommended the week's best new albums.
The Guardian profiled cartoonist Deena Mohamed.
Rodney Crowell shared songwriting stories at the Oxford American.
Literary Hub shared an excerpt from Laura Zigman's novel Small World.
The Current interviewed Ben Gibbard.
Bustle interviewed author Allegra Goodman.
PopMatters reconsidered Bob Dylan's covers album Good as I Been to You 30 years after its release.
The New Statesman previewed the best fiction and nonfiction of the year.
Osa Atoe, editor of the Shotgun Seamstress zine and anthology, recommended music at Bandcamp Daily.
PEN America interviewed author https://pen.org/the-pen-ten-an-interview-with-jamila-minnicks/.
Far Out examined the literary influences of the Fall's Mark E. Smith.
John Warner considered the flawed business models for current literary magazines at the Chicago Tribune.
The Guardian shared a new Rebecca Solnit essay ion climate change.
Stream Peel Dream Magazine's new EP.
Maggie O'Farrell discussed her novel The Marriage Portrait with Hot Press.
“I didn’t want to write the kind of novel where you need a degree in English literature to appreciate it. Of course, it’s an absolute gift of an opening. I thought, ‘Why not? Let’s go for it – full gothic Renaissance horror.’
The Masters Review interviewed author Jen Michalski.
The OTHERPPL podcast interviewed author Bruce Wagner.
The Rumpus interviewed poet Maggie Millner.
Jonathan Carroll talked to the Los Angeles Review of Books about his new novel, Mr. Breakfast.
Vol. 1 Brooklyn interviewed author Robert Freeman Wexler.
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January 13, 2023
Shorties (Two Interviews with Maria Dong, New Music from Vagabon, and more)
Maria Dong discussed her new novel with Electric Literature.
I’m mostly done writing white people. I knew I wanted her to be Asian. I knew I wanted her to be queer, because I’m queer, and honestly it’s just easier. I’m mentally ill, so I don’t know if I could write a person without mental illness. I think it would be difficult.
Shondaland also profiled Dong.
Stream a new song by Vagabon.
95 year-end lists were added to the Largehearted Boy list of "best books of 2022" lists Monday (bringing the total to 1,528).
eBook on sale for $1.99 today:
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble
eBooks on sale for $3.99 today:
Civilizations by Laurent Binet
Joni Mitchell has been awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.
Aubrey Gordon talked to NPR Books about her new book You Just Need To Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People.
Pitchfork shared a guide to Hawaiian slack key guitar music.
The New York Times recommended the week's best new books.
PopMatters recommended David Bowie deep tracks.
Patrick Modiano talked books and reading with the New York Times.
The Pitchfork Review podcast previewed 2023 in music.
Members of Heavenly discussed their reunion with SPIN.
Kashana Cauley discussed her debut novel with Debutiful.
Stream a new Xiu Xiu song.
Kristen Iskandrian shared tips for holding literary events.
Alvvays covered Jane Wiedlin's "Rush Hour."
Slate interviewed Ross Benjamin, translator of The Diaries of Franz Kafka.
Aquarium Drunkard interviewed singer-songwriter Meg Baird.
Literary Hub listed 2023's most anticipated books.
Stream a new song by Miss Grit.
Tor.com shared an excerpt from Mike Albo's novel Another Dimension of Us.
Stream a new song by @.
Tommy Pico and Carmen Maria Machado discussed horror at Document.
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