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"If the best is for the best then the best can be damned."

Bookshelf one, book two. Josh Ritter is a prolific folk songwriter, but, channeling a different kind of muse, 2011 saw the publication of his first novel, Bright's Passage. Still, his book plays much like his albums; it's an epic tale of all of mankind's most famous tragedies: love, war, faith, history. The only difference between the two, really, is that Bright's Passage comes in the form of 193 pages of text. 

Ritter continues to perform as a storyteller. He melodically weaves together the past and present of returned WWI soldier Henry Bright as he escapes the terrors of the trenches of France, the loss of his wife in childbirth, and the pursuit of his villainous father-in-law and a West Virginia wildfire. At the same time, Henry wrestles with the instructions of a self-proclaimed angel, who has followed him home from Europe, speaks to him in the form of farmhouse animals and declares his newborn son the Future King of Heaven. Bright's Passage journeys through the eternal conflicts men and women wage with each other and their gods.

No one could offer songs to a mixtape for Bright's Passage more fittingly than Ritter himself. It isn't surprising that his catalog almost seems like it was written over the years to provide the Future "Bone of Song" to a story like Henry Bright's. In fact, I often heard the story's soldier singing through Ritter as a surrogate - about the war in "Rattling Locks" ("There ain't nothin' new about the world that I ain't learned from 'a just standin' here in this spot."), about the girl he loved and thought he'd saved in "To The Dogs Or Whoever" ("Deep in the belly of a whale I found her, down with the deep blue jail around her.") and "Girl In The War" ("And I gotta girl in the war, Paul, I know that they can hear me yell. If they can't find a way to help her, they can go to Hell."), and about the search for a savior in "Another New World" ("After all I'd found, in my circles around the world, was there anything left?...I've studied the maps, and if what I am thinking is right, there's another new world...for whoever can break through the ice."). 

This playlist of Ritter songs is a short, simple confection, though not a sweet one. The story of Bright's Passage reads swiftly, but feels like a ramble. Despite its elements and themes, the novel's end does not feel entirely climactic, even as Bright makes the decision to save himself. I hear all of this in this mixtape; I hope you might. I can hear Bright singing, too, "If the best is for the best then the best can be damned."

Soundtrack to a novel: Bright's Passage, Josh Ritter

All songs by Josh Ritter

1. Curtains

2. Wildfires

3. Rattling Locks

4. To The Dogs Or Whoever

5. Best For The Best

6. See How Man Was Made

7. Girl In The War

8. Another New World

9. Bone of Song

10. Edge Of The World

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify

"No one ever says a word about, so much that happens in the world."

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. You see, a thing about me is that I suffer lots of cliches - you know, like, 'the grass is always greener on the other side' (of someone else's bookshelf - mainly, Borders' [pre-extinction] and the library's) and 'my eyes are bigger than my stomach' (or just too slow to keep up with masses of literature put out every minute I've been alive and every minute before). I wonder if Oskar's grandma learned those expressions. I wonder if it's not a coincidence that Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel sat untouched in my office as I've filled multiple bookcases and dresser tops and a Kindle with other unread treasures until I was just right and ready to be cut down at the knees by the terrifying journeys of the Schell family. 

You see, another thing about me is that I live my life in a certain inertia of fear. I know this is not unique to the human condition. "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" Oskar wears his heavy boots and, while there are no parallels here (as you'll see or already know), I carry my own life's tragedies in rocket-propelled roller skates - desperately trying to fly into the future of my mind's eye to know that everything turns out ok. I never want to lose what (and who) I love. I want to be perfectly, statically happy forever. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a beautifully funny, beautifully sad reminder that this is impossible. "It's a tragedy that we get to live only one life." As it turns out, rocket skates are heavy boots. "You can't protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." You tie yourself to your worrying weight about trying to live and not lose. Too many stories are romantic drivel about starting again. Oskar and his mother and grandmother and grandfather all know that in itself is a happy ending. This is the story of the present and future thick and loaded with the effects of the past.

Oskar Schell is a clever vegan-atheist of a little boy who loses his father in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He finds a key in his father's closet and embarks on an epic  scavenger hunt that introduces him to all kinds of survivors (but maybe not thrivers) throughout New York City. Running sideways to Oskar's adventure in holding on  ("It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.") is the story of his father's parents, both survivors of the WWII bombings of Dresden. I don't think I can write much more about the plot of this book. It has to be experienced. I laughed. I cried. I laughed until I cried and I couldn't tell how or what the hell I was feeling ("I feel too much. That's what's going on."). I cried a lot. About everything. The devastating tragedy in our world. The impermanence of life. The fierce fragility of the human spirit. For everyone. But especially for Oskar, tying on those heavy boots so young.

This playlist is a heartbreaker. One critic described Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as "consoling". Somehow, I think this playlist is that, too. It consoled me to piece it together as I finished this story. Foer's novel takes place between 2001 and 2003. I was a college student during those years. It wasn't hard to reach back into my own soundtrack for songs that really could've played Oskar's story: Ryan Adams' "Love Is Hell", Wilco's "Kamera", Nada Surf's "Happy Kid", Pearl Jam's "Thumbing My Way". The real (beautiful) downers are the injured heartbearts of the elder Schells: The Frames' "What Happens When The Heart Just Stops", My Morning Jacket's "Death Is The Easy Way", and Beck's "Guess I'm Doing Fine". The Beatles were the single band mentioned in the book - a part of the special bond between Oskar and his dad. They are the past in this playlist. I had to include songs written about September 11th: John Vanderslice's "Exodus Damage" and Bruce Springsteen's "My City of Ruins".  Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" (off their [appropriately] morosely-titled album Funeral) is the tragic moment in which a child is first destroyed by grief. Frightened Rabbit's "My Backwards Walk" brings down the mix, just as Oskar rearranges the photos of a body falling from the towers so that the man flies up into the harbor of a standing window. "We would have been safe."

I finally read this book because the movie is coming out in a few weeks. You see, another thing about me is that I really like to read the books of movies made from books before I go see the movies made from books. But it was the first book off the shelf in my office. It's a small gesture of mindfulness, but I plan to read the books down this case. This is the start of a new year, after all. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is also a story about writing (as a way of not saying or doing or holding on to so much). Now, instead of collecting books and thoughts, I'm writing a list of everything I want to read (and happen) next, even if "the sad, beautiful fact" is "that we're all going to miss almost everything".  I want to live, instead of  try to. I want each day to be "a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all."

Soundtrack to a novel: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer


1. Love Is Hell, Ryan Adams
2. Exodus Damage, John Vanderslice
3. Red Moon, The Walkmen
4. Wake Up, Arcade Fire
5. Fixing a Hole, The Beatles
6. What Happens When The Heart Just Stops, The Frames
7. Old Mythologies, The Barr Brothers
8. Kamera, Wilco
9. Death Is The Easy Way, My Morning Jacket
10. Underneath The Leaves, John Vanderslice
11. Guess I'm Doing Fine, Beck
12. Happy Kid, Nada Surf
13. I Am The Walrus, The Beatles
14. Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered, Noah & the Whale
15. Thumbing My Way, Pearl Jam
16. Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
17. My Backwards Walk, Frightened Rabbit
18. My City of Ruins, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band


Listen to this mix on Spotify (partial)

2011: the mixtape (and the list)

Just like last year. From Jay, and now from me: I liked this idea better than a straight forward "Top 10 Albums of 2011" list. This is just a list of artists/bands that made me happy in 2011, for whatever reason. Have at it.

MY 10

1. The Veils - Early valentine. Serendipity may be a bizarre Manhattan restaurant peddling Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, or a so-inspired John Cusack rom com. But really it's moments like hearing The Veils for the first time in an art gallery in Portland, Maine opening for Liam Finn. Fast forward three years, a three album catalog, and hand-drawn Christmas card later, and I am one of Finn, Soph and co.'s biggest fans. I've been devouring and fattening my Veils-greedy heart with every musical morsel they drop. Their EP, Troubles of the Brain (January), was a delicious way to start the year. I've yet to hear another band mix bone-chilling wails and toe-tapping tunes in such a frighteningly beautiful (and flawless) way. In an ever-changing world, The Veils' greatness is as constant as Finn's melodramatic swag and funeral parlor getup. Can't wait 'til they tour this tiny corner of the world again.

2. The Low Anthem (& Jocie Adams) - Magicians. The Low Anthem are a magical band of brilliant musicians who perform other-worldly folk songs that swirl around in the ether before tickling your soul from the ears down. The songs on their latest album Smart Flesh (March) join their repertoire of ghosts. The Low Anthem's live shows (in April at Portland's State Theatre, in October at the Somerville and in the streets of Davis Square) never feel long enough - so special and fleeting you just want to close your eyes and exist wherever Ben, Jocie, Jeff and co. take you. Adorable Jocie is also embarking on a solo career (Bed of Notions was released in January) and I love what I hear.

3. Middle Brother - Supergroup of the year. Middle Brother is the "side project" of three stellar indie rock frontmen - Delta Spirit's Matt Vasquez, Deer Tick's John McCauley, and Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith - but it hardly sounds that way. The friends got together to write and play and record one of the brightest, funnest albums of 2011 (Middle Brother, released in March). The record and tour were everything these guys are - loud, rowdy, romantic, and ridiculous ("I got a dick so hard a cat couldn't scratch."). The Middle Brother experience is like getting punched in the face by and making out with the same person. And this year, it didn't get much better than that. 

4. Dawes  - Throw-me-back. Nothing Is Wrong (June) is the title of Dawes' second studio album and it's true. Nothing is wrong with Dawes. In March, Taylor Goldsmith was the frontman-I-didn't-know in Middle Brother. My knees were practically buckling 60 seconds into Dawes' opening song at Paradise that tour and, now, post-Newport...Middle Brother who? Dawes play classic, earthy American rock and roll with nothing but their instruments (Taylor's golden larynx included) and a helluva lot of talent. Their songs are as romantic as the nostalgia they make you feel for a time when you (and they) were not yet even slated for existence. Taylor lights up the stage in the kind-of-corny-but-fuckin'-awesome way only a California kid with big dreams can. Dawes inspired some serious fangirl swooning this summer, including a detour (en route to My Morning Jacket in Montreal) to see them at Ottawa Bluesfest and a late-night ass-haul to Rhode Island to catch their Newport Folk Fest farewell with Deer Tick (a few songs better than the wait 'til October for the bonafide album tour). Call me smitten.

5. Lady Lamb the Beekeeper - Lady jams. Maine's Aly Spaltro is Lady Lamb the Beekeeper. Her album Mammoth Swoon (December 28, 2010) came out so close to the end of last year, it counts for this one. It counts for this year because, even though she is now a Brooklynite opening for the likes of Sharon Van Etten, it was the last minute decision to catch her solo at the Middle East Upstairs in August that made Lady Lamb one of my favorite acts of 2011. This girl and her guitar belt out (kind of neurotic) songs that crazy-eight through melodies and tempos and have overwhelming amounts of lyrics. But she is completely awesome. Her lyrics are charming. Her raspy wail is badass. You forget how confused you are by the end of "Crane Your Neck" when she whips her hair around and slams a nearby cymbal with her guitar. She is everything a young artist who is making big things happen for herself should be ("starving for it"). I love those Lady Lamb jams.

6. Laura Marling - Wonderchild. Laura Marling is back again. She released I Speak Because I Can just last year and her latest album, A Creature I Don't Know, dropped this September. Not only is the 21 year-old prolific, she is near perfect. I think. I can't stop listening to this record - my favorite of the year. Laura sings more cautionary tales, this time on a more thematic album. A Creature I Don't Know is not just a collection of beautiful folk songs. Laura's transformed herself from a shy British songstress into a storyteller for the road  - coloring her album with hints of jazz and blues and old Hollywood. She was enchanting on stage in September. She's just a treasure.

7. The Barr Brothers - Lifers, movie stars, archaeologists. I first heard Providence-bred, Montreal-based brothers Brad and Andrew Barr in The Slip. Although they've been playing music for nearly twenty years, they first rocked my iTunes library in the mid-2000s after my husband Jeff saw them open for My Morning Jacket on tour (and steal soda from a highway rest stop). Brad and Andrew have reincarnated themselves as The Barr Brothers, a folk-rock quartet featuring Sarah Page and Andres Vial (the story - and song- Brad shares onstage about listening to Sarah play her harp through their apartments' shared wall is the romance of movies). The Barr Brothers was out in September and their headlining show at Berklee's Cafe 939 this December was the holiday season's first gift to me. These guys (and gal) are just so wow. The tracks from the album vacillate between sweet and somber songs and ballsy, bluesy rock jams. The lyrics are clever. The Barr Brothers' impeccable live show reveals the tricks and treats behind the band's full, unique arrangements. Spools of string, cassette players, and all kinds of strange, antique percussive relics make them ever more compelling - as though they've gone digging through time's attic and made a masterpiece. So wow.

8. Fanfarlo - Favorite. I can't really articulate why I love Fanfarlo. My soul just glows when they're in my headphones. It only took one album (2009 debut Reservoir - still in constant rotation) to do me in. So maybe it's a story of love at first listen with these Londoners. I ticked off calendar days once I had tickets in hand to their latest Boston show in October. I sustain myself on anticipation and previews of new songs off their forthcoming record Rooms Filled With Light (2012). I can't wait. It was my happiest concert night of the year listening to the live North American premieres of their new material. Fanfarlo's sound is shifting - from Beirut meets Arcade Fire to some sort of run in with the Cure (farewell, folk. hello, electro-pop-rock.) They completely reimagined Reservoir for this mini-tour; every song was a surprise. They'll never sound stale. They won't let themselves. I can't wait.

9. The Wooden Sky - Buried treasure. Somewhere in Ontario is the best band you've never heard of. I've been listening to The Wooden Sky for less than a month now, but it feels like I can't remember my life before they were a part of it. That's just how much I've been listening to The Wooden Sky since our first tryst November 11 at Lizard Lounge. I'll forever think of Scott from visible voice as my musical fairy godfather for writing about these guys, posting tunes, and sharing the love. Gavin sings about restless youth in a way that makes it all seem magical - not ordinary or distressing. His voice sounds achingly familiar (like Ryan Adams, the Head and the Heart's Jonathan and a guy Stevie Nicks [holy vibrato!] knit tightly in a ball), yet recognizably unique. The Wooden Sky's 2009 album If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone is a sweet layer cake of indie folk-rock textured by lots of unforgettable little things. They released an EP, City of Light, on cassette this year (cassette! Be still, my cassette-reared heart!). The next day, their intimate living room set in Somerville (thanks, Kitchen Sessions) was the icing I didn't need to taste, but really, really loved sticking my spoon in. The Wooden Sky will never rely on big or fancy venues to sell their songs, but they are headed there. Toronto can't keep them hidden much longer. Delish.

10. Florence + the Machine - Epic girl power. I may never see Florence Welch perform at Paradise again (April 2010), but her meteoric rise to pop-rock stardom is so right on. Her 2009 debut Lungs is a gem, and so is her latest release Ceremonials (November). I've read music journalists describe lady Flo as the Stevie Nicks to our generation and I'll take it. Her soaring vocals, fierce vibrato and fringe-y fashion are just as bewitching. Her songs amplify the blood pumping through my veins. I feel like girls (and women alike) should be singing "Dog Days Are Over" into their mirrors and hairbrushes the way I once did "Gypsy". Ceremonials' second track, and single, "Shake It Out" is the perfect anthemic antidote for days when the world hangs heavy on your shoulders (and you just want to get down in your kitchen). "It's hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake it out!"

2011: THE MIXTAPE

1. The Veils, The Stars Came Out Once The Lights Went Out

2. The Low Anthem, Ghost Woman Blues

3. Middle Brother, Million Dollar Bill

4. Dawes, Time Spent In Los Angeles

5. Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Crane Your Neck

6. Laura Marling, Don't Ask Me Why/Salinas

7. The Barr Brothers, Beggar in the Morning

8. Fanfarlo, Deconstruction

9. The Wooden Sky, Angelina

10. Florence + the Machine, Shake It Out

(bonus track). Jocie Adams, Bed of Notions

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify (partial)

"I was just a card, caught up in the stars."

Capital! Straight out of the mouths of his characters, capital describes Amor Towles' beguiling and bittersweet novel about New York twenty-somethings swinging their skirts and drinks towards each other and the future. It's 1938 and adorably-named protagonist Katey Kontent is just one of the story's clever fish, swimming uptown in her own resourcefulness - from a Brighton Beach upbringing into social circles that sparkle like diamonds and bubble over like champagne. Like Katey, friends Evey and Tinker discover this year that pre-war Manhattan is the perfect place to lose yourself, find yourself, or maybe a little of both. After all, "Doesn't New York just turn you inside out."


Katey's reflection on 1938 is told from the halls of the Museum of Modern Art. In the fall of 1966, in middle age, walking through a Walker Evans exhibition with her husband, Kate is caught up with subway photographs of the young fellow she once fell for. Her memory's journaling of the year she passed with Tinker and Eve is a sharp reminder of how, no matter the quickness with which people may come and go, some are indelibly present in spirit - especially those who find us when we're young. 


Towles, as Katey, says best at book's end: "...life is...a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions - we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come." Rules of Civility is no fairy tale. In fact, Katey, Evey, and Tinker all lose sight of each other by the end of 1938. Yet, what still makes this story so charming and sweet is the fact that, somehow, Towles' little rascals seem contented just the same. "You mean how was he on the inside. He was happy." Or so I think.


Katey Kontent is such a likeable lead. Maybe it's because she is so independent in choosing her cards. She wavers so little in the moments up-to and after she makes her decisions. In this way, she is a modern girl's fairy tale princess. In a nod to Kate, I put together this mixtape without thinking too much. No eraser to paper once my gut cried out. 'Cause sometimes that really is just the way it ought to be. 


I went back in time a little for this one. Of course! 1938 is a year when Fats Waller, Count Basie, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Billie Holiday, and the Gershwins were making their mark on American music. Eve, especially, is a huge jazz fan, and Towles' trio frequents clubs with romantic names like the Hotspot and the Lean-To. For older Kate, telling her story from mid-century, I opened and closed this mixtape with Dinah Washington's 1960 recording of Gershwin's Loved Walked In and Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of Irving Berlin's Now It Can Be Told, from her 1958 sessions with Paul Weston's orchestra. 


But this mixtape really evolved around my concurrent (and constant) listening to Laura Marling's latest album, A Creature I Don't Know, and the track I Was Just A Card (kismet, right?). Laura's deep, sure voice tells cautionary tales with jazzy verve and bluesy beauty. This album breathes Katey Kontent to life for me. The Muse soundtracks Kate and Tinker's early flirtations. Salinas is for Eve as she rides the train to LA. 


Beirut always takes me places - other times, other continents - and they are all over this mixtape, too. St. Apollonia tips a cap to Katey's Russian heritage, nights at Chernoff's, and her love of churches. The Long Island Sound is the perfect antidote for an unbearable party in the Hamptons. A Call to Arms drones like the horn of a freighter, calling Tinker to the edge of the wharves and a new beginning.  The rest of this mixtape's modern songs are tunes that somehow walk the line, in lyrics and tone, between happiness and melancholy, still young and full of whimsy - much like these characters were during our fleeting friendship. About the proverbial discard pile, those choices, Towles writes, "...right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss." And here, that's not such a sad thing - in the end.

Soundtrack to a novel: Rules of Civility, Amor Towles

1. Love Walked In, Dinah Washington

2. Lulu's Back In Town, Fats Waller

3. St. Apollonia, Beirut

4. Winter Fawn, matt pond PA

5. The Muse, Laura Marling

6. Vacationing People, Foreign Born

7. Big Sad Eyes, The Immediate

8. Dots, Everest

9. In the Summertime, The Rural Alberta Advantage

10. The Long Island Sound, Beirut

11. Autumn in New York, Billie Holiday

12. Salinas, Laura Marling

13. September Song, Walter Huston

14. Waltz (Better Than Fine), Fiona Apple

15. Jumpin' at the Woodside, Count Basie & His Orchestra

16. Tupelo Honey (Van Morrison), Joan Osborne

17. It's De-Lovely, Eddy Duchin & His Orchestra

18. You Won't Be Fooled By This, Albert Hammond, Jr.

19. A Call to Arms, Beirut

20. Man\Bag of Sand, Frightened Rabbit

21. I Was Just A Card, Laura Marling

22. Now It Can Be Told, Ella Fitzgerald

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify (partial)

"What you love can be what destroys you."

One could argue I shouldn't touch this book here. Philip Stephens' Miss Me When I'm Gone comes with its own soundtrack. Musician Cyrus Harper returns to his hometown of Apogee, Missouri shortly before his mother's death. He has spent years chasing the ghost of his missing sister, Saro, in California. He finds the area decaying much in the way of his memories and hope of finding what, and who, he is looking for. And changing. Stephens fills the past and present of his story with traditional songs of the Ozarks - songs that Cyrus, Saro, and a cast of colorful characters sing, play, and carry themselves on like lifeboats. Embedded within this novel is the musical history of a region. 

Running at angles destined for collision are the stories of Cyrus and Margaret Bowman, a murderess on the run to the daughter she lost. Meanwhile, Stephens provides an education in songs. He is an expert. I cannot possibly attempt to share the legacy of these Ozarkian songwriters and songplayers. Instead, my mixtapes (there are two!) play these intertwining tales in modern music rooted in the folk songs of Cyrus and Saro's by-gone days (The Avett Brothers, Ben Sollee, The Civil Wars, Jakob Dylan), in music as heavy as the burdens the characters shoulder (Dead Confederate, Deer Tick), as terrifying as the loneliness they feel (The Slip, Elliott Smith), in songs ominous and full of loss. I created playlists for both Cyrus and Margaret, trying to tunefully trace their journeys in separate soundtracks, but with songs by (mostly) shared artists. Just like in the novel, I wanted their paths to cross in some way.

Every mixtape starts in some moment. It might make Mr. Stephens cringe, but here it begins with a music video by a trio of Australian teenagers. Miss Me When I'm Gone begins like this: "The hog-eyed man returned to her...his blood-black eyes reflected what moonlight filtered through the window. He grinned, and his gums shone." These hog-eyed men - constant demons of the Harpers' minds (and story) - are Cyrus' mother's undoing, maybe someday his. My image of these creatures came creeping in via an MTV memory from my early, grunge-tastic teen years - the greedy, hog-faced monsters of Silverchair's "Tomorrow". As unlikely as it feels that this song should soundtrack this story (I'm still not sure it should), I knew I had to include it on Cyrus' soundtrack. For me, "Tomorrow" is the way the Harpers' hog-eyed men stalk the mixtape. I couldn't get this damn song (and video) out of my head. The song invites the listener to a little town that is a dreadful place, churns in anger that Cyrus feels, eludes to the greed of his brother Isaac's vulture-like circling of the family land as he waits to complete the gentrified condo-ization of Apogee as a memorial to mom.

But a mixtape needs more than a song to exist, to tell a story. Along with the artists mentioned above, I wanted to shade these playlists with female voices that could tell Cyrus and Margaret's stories while feeling reminiscent of Saro Harper's legend - lending nightingale voices to the story's most important ghost. Earthy Emmylou Harris and angelic Alison Krauss were early additions. Before her disappearance, Saro and Cyrus were a duo of stagelings. For this, I also chose duets (and a triad) featuring the magical voices of Joy White (The Civil Wars), Kate Long (Release the Sunbird), and Neko Case and Kelly Hogan (Jakob Dylan ft. Three Legs). Gillian Welch sings of mistakes and endings. "That's the way the cornbread crumbles. That's the way the whole things ends."

Sountrack to a novel: Miss Me When I'm Gone, Philip Stephens

These Old Shoes, Deer Tick

Cyrus

1. Evil is Alive and Well, Jakob Dylan

2. Home Sweet Home, Emmylou Harris

3. Piece by Piece and Frame by Frame, Deer Tick

4. My Father's Father, The Civil Wars

5. Gone, The Black Crowes

6. I Don't Think I'm Ever Going to Figure It Out, Elliott Smith

7. Tomorrow, Silverchair

8. Echo/Always On/EZ Con, Blitzen Trapper

9. My Lady and the Mountain, The Avett Brothers

10. Life in Disguise, The Slip

11. Wrecking Ball, Dead Confederate

12. Pig Food, The Middle East

13. Come Back to Us, Release the Sunbird

14. Dead American Writers, Tired Pony

15. Copper and Malachite, Ben Sollee

16. Lay My Burden Down, Alison Krauss & Union Station

Margaret

1. Walkin' for You, The Avett Brothers

2. Paper Birds, The Slip

3. The Way It Goes, Gillian Welch

4. Dear Companion, Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore

5. Get Out, Dead Confederate

6. Without You, Silverchair

7. Anywhere I Lay My Head, Tom Waits

8. Holy Rollers for Love, Jakob Dylan ft. Three Legs

9. Fire and Fast Bullets, Blitzen Trapper

10. Lie Awake, Alison Krauss & Union Station

11. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars

12. I Am a Landslide, Tired Pony

13. Christ Jesus, Deer Tick

14. Another Roadside Tragedy, The Black Crowes

15. Bye, Elliott Smith

The Way The Whole Thing Ends, Gillian Welch

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify (partial)

"From the faun forever gone, in the towers of your honeycomb."

I first saw The Distant Hours on a grocery store shelf (yes, I am someone who actually browses the paltry book section at the supermarket - political memoirs and fad diet betsellers galore). I rarely seek out stories to read. I like to just find them. And maybe you can never judge a book by its cover, but title and artwork had me picking up this tiny giant of a novel and, next, I was off to my public library to check it out (get yourself the best present ever, if you don't have one: a library card). I cannot get over this book. It haunted me. It haunts me still (like, up-late-into-the-summer-nights, listening-for-creaks-in-floorboards haunting). Kate Morton's tale of the Sisters Blythe crazy-eights through decades, weeks, and days as a young editor, her mother and an isolated family of ancient spinsters piece together a mystery of literature, loneliness, and madness. Just like Edie and Meredith, I became enchanted by these characters, despite my instigated imaginings of the unspeakable things they'd done. Morton's charming and suspenseful ramble towards closure is tragic with a touch of bittersweet. The past will always hold on to some secrets.

Though it hardly felt it to me, The Distant Hours is nearly 600 pages long. A book (though deliciously) so cumbersome needs a gargantuan playlist. This mixtape is that - it's 24 songs. The list was grown from two instrumental tracks shuffled back-to-back one night in novel-and-mixtape serendipity: "Sydney to Newcastle" (The Middle East) and "The Violet Hour" (The Civil Wars). After this, I found myself searching for lyricless songs, wanting moments in this book to have accompaniment, but to talk for themselves. "Sydney to Newcastle" soundtracked Meredith's evacuation to Milderhurst (train conductor-speak and all), The Low Anthem's "Music Box" the night Tom Cavill never came, Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore's "Flyrock #2" and Noah & the Whale's "Paradise Stars" the fading ghosts of two lovers on a Notting Hill windowsill.

This story takes place between 1939 and 1992. Not a single song on this mixtape comes from any of the time in between (or the bookends). I let it be this way, not hoping to score the era of Morton's paper dolls. Instead, I wanted songs that evoked a sense of another time (those distant hours) as a young person can only imagine it: Johnny Flynn's folktale warble on "Lost and Found", Beirut's whimsical waltz "Forks and Knives (La Fete)", Grizzly Bear's "Dory" (opening with an otherworldly chorus that could have been Juniper Blythe's 'visitors'). Tori Amos and Florence + the Machine match Juniper's fiercely independent spirit in song - and even her appearance as a cat-eyed enchantress. Rogue Wave's "Love's Lost Guarantee" starts musically clock-like, ticking time and channeling June's abandonment. The inevitable tragedy, when told, had to beat like a heart in my head; cue Nick Cave's "Midnight Man" (also so close to Saffy's nightmare Mud Man). I cannot think of an album that does melancholia more beautifully than Beck's Sea Change ("It's All In Your Mind"). Laura Marling sings of "Night Terror", a man's madness and his protector. Finally, I titled this novel and a mixtape with a line from Bon Iver's "Towers". A story like this cannot be told in tunes without Justin Vernon's ethereal voice, singing of young love (and where there is a castle, there is a tower). Morton wrote, "The ancient walls sing the distant hours". This is how they sing to me.

Soundtrack to a novel: The Distant Hours, Kate Morton

1. Vapour Trail, Josh Ritter as The Cake Sale

2. Lost and Found, Johnny Flynn

3. Welcome to England, Tori Amos

4. Pear, Damien Jurado

5. Love's Lost Guarantee, Rogue Wave

6. The Violet Hour, The Civil Wars

7. It's All In Your Mind, Beck

8. Sydney to Newcastle, The Middle East

9. Forks and Knives (La Fete), Beirut

10. Dory, Grizzly Bear

11. I Remembered What I Was Going To Say (The Silly Pillows), Nada Surf

12. Towers, Bon Iver

13. The Garden That You Planted, Sea Wolf

14. Remnants and Pictures, Mimicking Birds

15. Lemonworld, The National

16. Night Terror, Laura Marling

17. Midnight Man, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

18. Music Box, The Low Anthem

19. To The Ghosts Who Write History Books, The Low Anthem

20. What the Water Gave Me, Florence + the Machine

21. Shallow Grave, The Tallest Man on Earth

22. You Are One of the Only Outsiders Who Really Understands Us, Fanfarlo

23. Flyrock #2, Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore

24. Paradise Stars, Noah & the Whale

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify (partial)