“Music is always playing on the car radio, in roadside diners, on clunky boom boxes, and in the heads of many of the characters, giving context and texture to their lives. Songs help the characters explain themselves to themselves and to each other.”
“To write this novel, I built out a four-hour-long playlist that tracked the plot, beat for beat. Musical cues helped me escalate tension, or keep the energy at a simmer, or feel the longing my characters felt for their lost loved ones.”
“I remember lying back on my bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, ‘Hello darkness my old friend,’ and thinking, if I could express myself even a fraction as well as these musicians express themselves, I could survive.”
“If you play these LPs while serving people huge amounts of good food and wine, guests cannot but let their hair down and disport themselves.”
“Receiving a mixtape was the highest honor; making one, the greatest responsibility.”
“In true ’90s fashion, at one point, I sent him a mix tape.”
“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.”
“This is a set list of brokenhearted love songs, so listen to it when you want exactly that”
“…when you’re looking for a certain entry point to your writing, a tone or mood or feeling (grim in this case), then it’s nice to have a song that can ease you into that mood as into a warm bath.”
“In the days after I came out, I would sit in my small house, cut off from everything, with my kids, a toddler and an infant, with long nights ahead. Music brought me a lot of deep healing as I learned how to be okay.”