“It’s a novel interested in exploring Henry’s radical interiority, his non-sequitur imagination, through an intensely subjective first-person point of view. At its heartbeat questions about for whom we really create at the end of the day; about reading as problem; about the importance of serious art as a hospital for soothing hurt rather than a business privileging quantity over quality.”
“I love listening to music when I write, and the right piece or album can bring me to a much more inspired, connected, focused place.”
“During the act of writing, I never listen to music. External music is a distraction for me. My ears need to concentrate on an inner music: the music of language, of vowels and consonants which I struggle to fit together in my search for verbal harmonies and creative dissonance.”
“Some of these songs were around while I was writing it. Some feel like the Midwest I know. Some remind me of people I haven’t seen in years. Some just sound like something bad is about to happen.”
“Scott Platt, the narrator of Fail Sons, is an unemployed forty-year-old Brooklynite who spent fifteen years editing the culture section at a glossy magazine before the decline of print journalism ended his career. In other words, he’s a man with opinions about music.”
“Although I didn’t listen to Billie Holiday while writing the novel, her music haunted my imagination throughout the process.”
“Although I made a vibes playlist for the book early in my drafting process, I’m one of those people who can’t write to most songs because I’ll end up choreographing a music video before a single word lands on the page.”
“Given the dialogic nature of our book it seems only right to have this playlist move back and forth between us, to volley between the music of Ursula’s world and the music of mine, as we make a third music together, one that invites you now to join in with us.”
“I had to set a chapter in hell, of course, and there’s an echo of country music in my mind at least to a few of the chapters in the book.”
“Creating playlist is among my top favorite activities. It’s basically my love language. What a fun and stimulating thing to build one around my novel Asbestos, where music plays such an enveloping role.”