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
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