How do you know you've really arrived?
When Largehearted Boy runs your playlist in Book Notes. Here's how it starts:
The protagonists of first novels are commonly assumed to be stand-ins for their authors. And for good reason – they commonly are. However, in the case of my character, Harry Rent, this is most emphatically not the case. His unhappy marriage ends in the death of his wife. My marriage is happy, my wife thankfully breathing as I type this. Harry is digressive and indecisive. I’m, well, not. But, to be fair, we do share a few things – we’ve both trained with a spin instructor with a mystical presence and skin-tight shorts, though I did not fall off my bike in my first class. Although I am not one of those writers who must create a character’s entire biography before writing about him or her, another thing I suspect we share – had I thought to sit down and sketch out the contents of Harry’s iPod – is the wish that our musical taste was cooler than it is. Harry is riddled with anxiety about status, and although we’re both too old now to care whether we’re one of the cool kids, we haven’t yet fully made our peace with the fact of our occasionally pedestrian musical tastes. So with that tremendous caveat aside, here’s what my imaginary notes might have said about Harry’s imaginary iPod ... which would probably share a good deal with my own. Alphabetically:
A fun list and a very funny set of caveats. My freshmen gave me a bunch of music this year, so I'm more in the know--and more humiliated about the source--than usual.
I LOVE "Mexican Wine" and agree 100% about Fountains of Wayne.
My mom read your book on the flight home & totally loved it, btw.
It's now on mom-in-law's TBR pile. They both let "Friend-of-Anne" books rise to the top. Hope all's well.
Posted by: Anne | May 15, 2009 at 07:48 AM