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July 20, 2020
Amanda Brainerd's Playlist for Her Novel "Age of Consent"
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, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Amanda Brainerd's novel Age of Consent is an engaging and smart debut.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"Bracing . . . engaging . . . well written . . . On the surface, Brainerd’s tale is a nostalgic trip into the early 1980s, including an inspired evocation of the Downtown art scene, but her teenage characters make the greatest impact. The takes on parental neglect and the ways young women are taught to see sex as transactional make this more than a throwback."
In her own words, here is Amanda Brainerd's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Age of Consent:
My novel, Age of Consent, takes place over the course of one year, from September 1983 to September 1984. It is the story of Eve, Justine, and India, three 10th grade girls trying to move into adulthood when their own adult role models stink. Music plays a big role in the novel, as it has in my life, particularly in 10th grade at boarding school. I got expelled because of my love for music. I snuck off campus to see U2 in 1983 in New Haven, Connecticut. It was on the War tour, and there were several fresh out of college teachers at the concert! Of course, at 15 I had no concept that they would be hip enough to see such a cool band. Big mistake. Huge.
“Lady Grinning Soul” by David Bowie
When I was a teenager Bowie was my entire world, not exaggerating. My room was plastered with his image. In 1983 I went to all three Serious Moonlight Tour concerts at Madison Square Garden, and fought my way to the front. After the third night, I managed to get into the after party at Café Seiyoken where I shook David Bowie’s hand. He was sitting between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon (they had just finished filming The Hunger, see more on that below). In the novel, Justine and Eve lose a bet, and have to dance naked in the snow under a starry sky. They dance to Lady Grinning Soul. It’s one of my absolute favorite Bowie songs, soaring, his vocals tremble, and dazzle, the exotic Spanish guitar, the inventive piano. Just breathtaking.
“Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by Bauhaus
This is one of the great songs of that era. It is an homage to the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi who played Dracula in the 1931 film. The song was fittingly used as the intro to the vampire film The Hunger when Bowie and Deneuve hunt their victims at a nightclub where Bauhaus is performing. Peter Murphy performs in a cage, lit from below. It’s totally creepy and totally genius. I love how this song builds for a long time, and how Peter Murphy’s deep voice finally starts.
“Yashar” by Cabaret Voltaire
This is the song that Justine is dancing to at The Pyramid when something shocking happens beside her (no spoiler alerts). She is coked up and spills her drink down her front and the strobe is making her nuts. The lyrics, “there’s seventy billion people of earth, where are they hiding?” always made me laugh. I loved dancing to this song at nightclubs in the '80s, it made me feel cool.
Nowhere Girl by B-Movie
While I was at boarding school, I was listening to fabulous British New Wave and synthpop, while most of my peers listened to James Taylor and Cat Stevens. I loved knowing these obscure bands and buying imported 12 inch singles at Venus Records on 8th Street. Most of these songs or bands ever made the U.S. charts. “Nowhere Girl”, like “Strange Little Girl” by the Stranglers, and “Charlotte Sometimes” by the Cure, are songs about the alienation teenage girls experience. For me it was a very isolating time, and I lived much of my life in my head, my headphones always on, Walkman always playing. This song reminds me of those feelings.
“Take a Chance With Me” by Roxy Music
Ah, Roxy Music. Swoon. Really one of the great bands, which actually was formed in the 1970s, and initially had Brian Eno as the keyboardist. Bryan Ferry invented the aristocratic, well-groomed gentleman pop star. I remember the first time I heard this song. I was walking across the footbridge that spanned between lower and upper campus at Choate. It was night. Suddenly the song swelled into action and I started running down the footbridge, my feet pounding to the rhythm. In Age of Consent, there are several scenes on this footbridge, as Eve and Justine have to cross it so often.
“Our Lips Are Sealed” by Fun Boy Three
Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s co-wrote this song with Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three and The Specials. The Go-Go’s first recorded it as an upbeat pop song, but in 1983 Fun Boy Three made this, their own gloomier, SKA version. Although this version is the best known in the UK, very few Americans have ever heard it. In Age of Consent, Eve and Justine try to ignore Justine’s roommate Tierney, who would have bopped around to the Go-Go’s version. Tierney and her friends whisper to one another when Eve and Justine walk by. The lyrics go Can you hear them? Talking about us, telling lies, well that’s no surprise…
“A Forest” by the Cure
Robert Smith is an incredible songwriter. In Age of Consent, after Eve and Justine dance to “Lady Grinning Soul,” Justine escapes into the forest with Clay. This song always evokes the feeling of the woods at night. In the song, a girl calls his name, and he runs towards it, only to find himself lost. The lyrics: I'm lost in a forest All alone The girl was never there It's always the same I'm running towards nothing again speak of alienation and feelings of the futility of existence that were a big part of my teenage angst, and the angst of my characters.
“Computer Love” by Kraftwerk
I finally got to see Kraftwerk in concert when they played at the Museum of Modern Art, albeit without the original line up. The four of them were at consoles while an incredible 3D video played behind them. I loved turning around and looking at the crowd all in their 3D glasses. “Computer Love” is a simply beautiful song, a song, again, about loneliness and alienation. It is a perfect example of how a song of electronic music can be poignant and touching. “I don’t know what to do. I need a rendez-vous.” I love the German pronunciation of that French phrase!
“Age of Consent” by New Order
The inclusion of this song should not require much explanation. It has the same title! AND it was released in 1983! New Order’s early albums are exquisite works of art, and “Age of Consent,” the first track on “Power, Corruption and Lies” is one of their best., New Order combined synth, bass, and jangly guitar on this track. The percussion is a slightly altered version of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. The suicide of Ian Curtis haunted me in my teenage years, and still does.
“Cracked Actor” by David Bowie
Bowie again? Eve and Justine sneak off campus to see David Bowie in an unusual small performance in New Haven. (Do we see a theme here?) He sings “Cracked Actor” holding a skull and making out with it. Then he kneels before an enraptured Eve and snaps the skull’s jaws in her face. I won’t tell you what happens next because it is a spoiler, but if you’re paying attention you can guess. I have included the live version from 1974, as it is the first tour on which Bowie performed this song with the skull and because it is more tied to the live concert in the novel.
“Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” by Soft Cell
Another terribly sad synth-based song, and one of my top favorites of all time. This song reminds me of painful breakups, “Take your hands off me, I don’t belong to you, you see. Take a look, at my face, for the last time. I never knew you, you never knew me, say hello goodbye.” I think about this song in the scene near the end of the novel of Clay and Justine’s final encounter. Marc Almond’s gorgeous torch song voice was the perfect complement to David Ball’s synth melody. Heartbreaking song.
“Uncertain Smile” by The The
Another gorgeous song, a brooding, melancholy, yet upbeat song about unrequited love. We’ve all been there, I’m sorry to say. I included this because it reminds me of my character David McClurken, who suffers through his unrequited love for Eve. She tries very hard to like him back, she’d love to fall in love with him too, but it just doesn’t work.
“New Year’s Day” by U2
Yes, I got kicked out of boarding school because of this song. I know it was my fault, but I couldn’t help sneak off campus to see this amazing band at the beginning of their career in a small music hall in New Haven. I still think it was worth it, because I hated Choate, and U2 did me a favor. New Year’s Day is such a hopeful song, a song of rebirth and new beginnings, and leaving Choate was exactly that for me, a new beginning. And for Eve leaving Griswold in Age of Consent.
Amanda Brainerd lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, blocks from where she grew up, and attended The Nightingale-Bamford School before going on to graduate from Harvard College and Columbia Architecture.
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