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August 8, 2019
Alex DiFrancesco's Playlist for Their Novel "All City"
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.
Alex DiFrancesco's novel All City is a gem of speculative fiction, a book that deftly explores the near future while examining current issues like gender, climate change, and income inequality.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"This loving, grieving warning thoughtfully traces the resilience, fragility, and joy of precarious communities in an immediate, compassionate voice."
In their own words, here is Alex DiFrancesco's Book Notes music playlist for their novel All City:
My book All City takes place in a near-future New York City ravaged by a superstorm and economic inequality. The book is narrated by three main characters and one more as an epilogue. The voices of these characters came to me before anything else about the book -- Makayla, a young, fiercely loving, and equally angry woman growing up without resources in a city that’s trying to force her out, left behind when the storm apocalypse hits; Evann, a young, bored, art collector, full of ennui, narrating from the opposite end of the economic divide; Jesse, a young, genderqueer, foul-mouthed, traumatized street punk anarchist living in an abandoned elevated station in the Bronx when the disaster hits, mourning the loss of their best friend, a trans woman named Lux, and trying to help protect their two friends Sebastian and Jose, undocumented immigrants and activists. Finally, Alejandro, a boy throughout the novel, and a man narrating the past with hope for the future.
Each voice was distinct and came to me as such, and so when I made a playlist for this book, it seemed that each character would have their own songs, too.
Makayla:
Laurie Anderson: Example #22
An experimental song about ghostly voices on tape, with a brazen chorus (“So pay me/what you owe me!”), this seemed like the perfect intro to the first voice that spoke to me in the writing of this novel.
The Ramones: Blitzkrieg Bop
Makayla, in this near-future, finds a Ramones shirt at a stoop sale, and recalls hearing them on the soft-rock station once. She likes them anyway
Bessie Smith: Poor Man’s Blues
The title explains a lot, and Makayla has all the reasons to love the blues.
Fugees: No Woman, No Cry
The deep sense of community in this album and song is something I wanted to replicate in the life that Makayla knew before the storm, and helps create after.
Nina Simone: 22nd Century
The only “future” song on this mix, this ominous warning in the incomparable voice of Nina Simone captures both the beauty and terror I wished to in the book.
Evann:
Arctic Moon: True Romance
I picture Evann, pre-storm, taking drugs in her apartment in the East Village, and listening to this song.
George Ezra: Budapest
I think the list of treasures in this song would appeal greatly to Evann.
Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars: Uptown Funk
Okay, Evann maybe be from the East Village, but she’s still got that Uptown vibe.
Madonna: Beautiful Scars
This song, which strikes me as both overly sincere and also an incredibly simplistic way to talk about the subject of imperfection fit for me with Evann’s voice, too.
Lykke Li: Rich Kid Blues
In much the same way Poor Man’s Blues speaks for Makayla, this flipped coin is all Evann. It’s partly in the title, but all in the sentiment.
Jesse:
Woody Guthrie: I Ain’t Got No Home In this World Anymore
There’s a scene early on where Jesse and Lux are drinking 40s in their squat, playing guitar and singing this song.
Little Waist: Cops Confiscated My Lipstick
Not on Spotify (sorry, that’s Jesse!), this Little Waist song is as brazen and fuck-you and discordant as Jesse.
Evan Greer: Punks with Clean Kitchens
If Jesse could write a song (also not on Spotify!), it would sound just like this. The ultimate baby-punk, intro-to-anarchism song, this one has Wobblies to Zapatistas, and Jesse resembles every second of it.
Iggy Pop: Some Weird Sin
Probably the most main-stream song Jesse would listen to, Iggy’s still got the same in-your-face qualities as Jesse, who could be found any day begging for “some weird sin.”
Against Me!: Black Me Out
This is one of my favorite angry songs, and I think it’d be one of Jesse’s, too.
Alejandro:
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Death is Not the End
This Dylan cover is so surreal and weird, not at all the sticky-sweet sentiment the title implies. By the end of this book, after all Alejandro has seen (“when the cities are on fire with the burning flesh of men”), the titular sentiment is something he still believes.
Alex DiFrancesco and All City links:
the author's website
excerpt from the book
Lambda Literary review
Publishers Weekly review
Largehearted Boy playlist by the author for Psychopomps
PANK interview with the author
The Turnaround Blog interview with the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
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