When I was a kid in the 1980s (which, I now realize, was the absolute best thing to be in the 80s), I had one unadulterated conduit to the wide world of popular music: my clock radio. My parents are extremely musical, so I was well-versed in everything from Billy Joel to Gershwin to Pavarotti...
Category Archives: Influence Stew
AND THEN, IT WAS ON-SALE DAY. It’s official: This Must Be the Place is out in stores, making its way, kicking up its heels and tossing its beret in the air and generally being a gadabout book-about-town. It seems a perfect moment to publicly (and world wide webbily) thank my amazing agent Bonnie Nadell; the...
In celebration of This Must Be the Place‘s first week in the world (it will be at your favorite local bookseller tomorrow!), I’m going to be posting a book soundtrack, one or two tracks a day, to give my early readers an accompanying score. I listen to music when I wake up, before I go...
Technically, I didn’t know of Joseph Cornell until I was in college, studying graphic design and art history. But in Joey C. I immediately recognized a kindred spirit: someone who was as taken as I was with the beauty of objects created to be disposable, and/or as compulsively unable to rid himself of things other...
And now for the first piping hot helping of Influence Stew, which takes a closer look at the people, places, music, and truly random stuff that inspired me to write This Must Be the Place. In writing a book largely inspired by the cultural influences of my childhood, full of pop culture-savvy characters who would...
