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July 8, 2019
Mona Awad's Playlist for Her Novel "Bunny"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Inventive and wildly entertaining, Mona Awad's Bunny is a stunning novel.
The Los Angeles Times wrote of the book:
"Awad has proved herself one of the most innovative and original authors out there, and Bunny is a wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel."
In her own words, here is Mona Awad's Book Notes music playlist for her novel Bunny:
This playlist is an expanded version of the one I made when I first conceived of Bunny in the spring of 2015. I saw a bunny dart across my college campus and took it as a sign. I listened to those songs long before I began to write in earnest and the mix of Anna Calvi’s Lynchian vocals and guitar, the eerie spell of Broadcast and the pure dynamite of Heart sparked my imagination, leading me down dark and wondrous roads. Listening to these songs again and again generated my first glimpses of the world I wanted Bunny to be and I fell in love. I expanded the playlist as I began to write and to know this world better—its particular shimmer and shadows. All of these songs are part of the fabric of Bunny and essential to helping me dream it in the first place. I won’t go song by song as there are a glut of tracks here (the rabbit hole down which I fell was long and winding), but suffice it to say that just as there are various threads of genre and mood woven together in Bunny—horror & fairy tale, satire, camp & teen movie—so there are varying notes of sound woven together in this mix—nostalgic, goth-tinted 80s, creepy-dreamy psychedelia and dark, female-fronted, guitar-driven rock. I owe a great debt to each of these artists as these songs not only helped me dream Bunny into being, but live in the world of it during the time I was writing and beyond, making it a place to which I’ll always long to return.
Mona Awad and Bunny links:
the author's website
the author's Wikipedia entry
Boston Globe review
The Los Angeles Times review
New Yorker review
Publishers Weekly review
Interview magazine interview with the author
Largehearted Boy playlist by the author for 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
also at Largehearted Boy:
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Book Notes (2015 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
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Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
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Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
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Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
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