Today’s book soundtrack cuts represent two of my main characters who are (ostensibly) grown-ups, Arthur Rook and Mona Jones. And in the interest of perfect symmetry, both songs presented are by the same artist: the Stephin Merrit-fronted Magnetic Fields.
Arthur’s a gentle soul who works as a photographer, and the death of his wife, Amy, kicks off the main action of This Must Be the Place. I discovered the Magnetic Fields about halfway through the manuscript, and listened to them almost exclusively whenever I had to write from Arthur’s point of view. This may explain why he’s sort of shiftless and gently morose, and why his voice in my head is one hell of a baritone.
Mona Jones, who runs the Darby-Jones boardinghouse where Arthur finds himself hiding out in the days following Amy’s death, is a brighter, pricklier, yet still in-tune spirit. As a teenager, she ran away from her small upstate New York town and spent one formative and fantastical summer on the Jersey shore (alas, no bumpits are involved, though there is a Ferris wheel and lots of boardwalk pizza). I thought this tune, Strange Powers, nicely captured her sense of wonder at seeing the world for the first time on her own, in all its gaudy and ridiculous glory.
ALSO! If you’re in the Boston area, come on out to Porter Square Books tonight to celebrate my first reading EVER. I’ll read a few choice selections, answer questions, sign some books, and probably hug every single person who walks in that door, regardless of whether they’ve come for the reading or not.
AND THERE WILL BE CUPCAKES.
See you there!
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