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July 12, 2019
Virginia Reeves's Playlist for Her Novel "The Behavior of Love"
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.
Virginia Reeves' novel The Behavior of Love is deeply moving and delightfully complex.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"Enhanced by its particular time and place, this unique and uniquely compelling novel explores love, marriage, health, and agency in shifting phases."
In her own words, here is Virginia Reeves' Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Behavior of Love:
Music plays many roles in this book—courtship, apology, entertainment, redemption. My main character, Ed, jumps onto a stage at a bar to sing to the woman who will become his wife. That’s how he gets her. Later, she sings to his guitar around campfires and wood stoves. The loud hallways of the Boulder River School and Hospital where Ed works are filled with a music of sorts, and Penelope—a patient Ed becomes too close to—writes lyrics to the sounds. Poetry is music in the mouths of other patients, and there’s certainly music in the rivers and grasses of Montana, where this book takes place. It was difficult to narrow this list down to a reasonable length, and I found the process of selecting these songs much like the process of writing this book—full of revision, cutting, adding, rearranging. I could spend a year on this, at least, but here’s what I have for now:
“O Montana” by Christy Hays
Christy Hays and I are both connected to Texas and Montana. We met through a mutual musician friend in Austin and then we both separately fell in love with Butte, Montana. This song expresses our shared love of the state, but also the love my main character, Ed, feels. He falls in love with this place, and that love is largely what starts the series of events that comprise this novel. Writing about Montana was one of my favorite parts of writing this book. Montana is full of juxtapositions—beauty alongside hardship; wide-open landscape alongside the claustrophobia of short winter days. There’s a tax to living here, but it’s worth it. Christy sings, “We have debts that we have to pay / Just think of the summer and don’t be afraid.” Like the rest of us Montanans, my characters try to keep those long, golden days in mind as they deal with the dark ones.
“Late Again” by Stealers Wheel
This song is Ed’s through and through. He is—as ever and always—late again. Laura is waiting. Ed is late because “there’s always something there that keeps [him] hanging on.” He loves his wife, but he can’t pull himself away from other things. This book is full of cycles and repetition, and it asks whether behavior really can change. This song says it can’t, and—in this instance, at least—Ed proves he can’t either.
“Reason to Believe” by Bruce Springsteen
I’m going through a bit of a Springsteen phase, and I was thrilled to find this fit. The specific events within this song don’t necessarily reflect the events within the novel, but the sentiment is spot-on. My characters face seemingly unending hardships, yet they find some reason to believe. This song is about hope, and I see that hope reflected in my characters.
“The Bad Days” by David Ramirez
I see Ed singing this one to Laura. He knows she’s frustrated. He knows he’s always home late. But like Springsteen’s song, he believes in a great tomorrow when everything will fall into place. He recognizes that there are bad days—these ones right now—but he’s asking Laura to hold out hope for the good ones, and he believes those good ones will outweigh the bad. Ed is sure they will carry on. In his mind, Laura will always be his girl.
“Nothing Arrived” by Villagers
This song guts me every time I hear it, and I give it to all three of my main characters—Ed, Laura, and Penelope. They’re all waiting for something, but it doesn’t come, and in its place, nothing arrives—nothing they want—and they’re too distracted to make something of it, to live with what they have. “It’s a funny battle, it’s a constant game / I guess I was busy when nothing came.” They are all too focused on what isn’t to deal with what is.
“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac
Oh, Stevie Nicks. I love pretty much everything she’s done, but this song is about as perfect as they come. I distinctly remember the first time I heard it in my sister’s boyfriend’s old Datsun. I was in eighth grade, and he gave us rides to school. I had to sit in the back with all his sweaty wrestling gear. I was invisible back there, and here was Stevie Nicks singing to me. “Oh, mirror in the sky / What is love? / Can the child within my heart rise above? / Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? / Can I handle the seasons of my life?” God, what questions to ask an eighth grader! I still have no answers.
Anyway, nostalgia aside, this song speaks to my characters, too. They’ve all built their lives around each other, but those buildings are bound to collapse. I see the love in this book much like Nicks’ landslide—a great heaving mix of trees and boulders and mud rushing downhill, out of control.
“Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song)” by Oscar Isaac
Where “Landslide” pushes us into inevitable change, this song stands on the shore and waves goodbye to what was. Even when my characters part ways in anger and sadness, I believe they’re still wishing each other well, and they all ultimately believe that “Life ain't worth living without the one you love.”
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan
This song could belong to both Laura and Penelope. I could see either of them singing it to Ed. If he doesn’t know what went wrong by now, there’s no use trying to figure it out. And even though this song conveys the exact opposite of its literal message (things are definitely not “all right”), I think both Laura and Penelope send Ed off with the gentleness of this song. “You could have done better but I don't mind / You just kinda wasted my precious time / But don't think twice, it's all right.” They still want to protect him.
“April Come She Will” by Simon and Garfunkel
This was the first song I knew had to be on this list. Ed sings it to Laura in the novel, but it also embodies the changing nature of the characters throughout. Changes come, and they are as inevitable as the seasons. Ed may always be late again, but that behavior will eventually alter the life he’s living. The bad days will outweigh the good. “A love once new has now grown old…”
“All Is Well” by Austin Basham
This song speaks to the deep connection between Laura and Ed and also between Ed and Penelope. They’ve treated each other so poorly, but there is still love there. Pain is part of that love, and that pain is welcomed because it is a reminder of what once was. No one in this book is willing to fully let go.
“Nobody Knows” by The Lumineers
I’m unabashedly in love with the Lumineers even though they’re on every pop station. I think they’re making great music, and their lyrics are beautiful. I was hard-pressed to pick just one of their songs for this list, but I think this is the one. It’s for everyone in the book. Nobody in this novel knows how to say goodbye or how to get back home or how the story will end.
“Long Ride Home” by Patty Griffin
This song is Laura’s, and I see her singing it at the end of the novel. The context is different, but she is experiencing a similar long ride home, and she’s left with similar questions. I love the line: “Ain't nothing left at all in the end of being proud.”
“’Til It’s Gone” by JT & The Clouds
There is no other song to end this playlist or the soundtrack that runs in my head when I replay the events of this book. This is a nod to the Ed we know at the novel’s end. He is an eternal optimist. Every morning of his life is beautiful until it’s gone.
Virginia Reeves and The Behavior of Love links:
the author's website
excerpt from the book
New Yorker review
Publishers Weekly review
also at Largehearted Boy:
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