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January 21, 2021
Jon Sealy's Playlist for His Novel "The Merciful"
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.
Jon Sealy's literary thriller The Merciful is smart, inventive, and impossible to put down.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
"Sealy keeps the narrative running smoothly throughout...A thought-provoking volume about how a wrong choice can have huge repercussions."
In his words, here is Jon Sealy's Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Merciful:
The Merciful is a trial novel that circles around the hit-and-run killing of a bicyclist in lowcountry South Carolina. I structured it around a trial and along the lines of the film Rashomon, where each character has a different view of what happened—the narrator whose old college friend is the culprit, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the driver, the victim, and her family and friends.
I wrote the book primarily between 2015 and 2018, and the songs on the playlist below represent some of what I was listening to at the time, and they generally capture the mood of the novel and its characters.
Niel Brooks, “Baker Street”
Brooks is an upstate South Carolina musician, and is probably the best singer-songwriter most readers have never heard of. I had his first album Static Sessions on repeat in my car for probably ten years. He released this cover of Gerry Rafferty about the time I finished the book, and I love the surprise of how he interprets the famous saxophone riff. That sense of making the familiar strange, or interpreting an old story in a new way, is the essence of the fiction writer’s job.
Josh Ritter, “Kathleen”
This is a great love song, and a fine soundtrack to a love story that happens in the beginning of my novel, where the driver, Daniel, meets his wife, Francine.
Emily Barker, “Nostalgia”
You might recognize this as the theme song to the Wallander TV series. The Merciful opens with a narrator learning about an old friend’s arrest, and several lonely characters in the book experience the sense of then-and-now that Barker captures in this song.
Lord Huron, “Love Like Ghosts”
Like the novel’s narrator, the first major character—young prosecutor Claire Fields—is haunted by ghosts from her past. This case is her chance to redeem herself in her job, but also a chance to validate herself and let go some of the past. I don’t know what the musical technique is, but I love the watery sound of this song, which puts you in the mind of a dream journey.
Alabama Shakes, “Hold On”
I like a downbeat playlist to have at least a few up notes, and I love the spiritual affirmation in this song: “There must be someone up above / saying, ‘Come on, Brittany, you got to come on up / you got to hold on.’” In our time of fractured narratives, the realm of the metaphysical—God, religion, higher meaning—is due for a comeback.
Sam & Dave, “Hold On, I’m Coming”
The defense attorney in The Merciful is older, so I wanted to slide in a little music from his childhood. He’s presented as something of a scoundrel in the novel, but like everyone else, he’s carrying his own water and could use a little help.
The Strokes, “Last Night”
Part of The Merciful is set in Charleston, where I went to school, and I can’t think of the city without remembering the music that was popular when I lived there. One theme of the book is that nobody knows anything—no single narrative encompasses the truth. Or, as The Strokes put it, “Oh, people, they don’t understand.”
The Raconteurs, “Steady as She Goes”
The characters in The Merciful have tried to live according to the recommendations from this song—“settle down,” “get along,” “steady as she goes”—but of course that doesn’t work out.
Foster the People, “Pumped Up Kicks”
I haven’t read the reviews but suspect critics have described this song as “infectious.” It’s catchy, but if you listen to the lyrics, it presents a shocking narrative, which is unfortunately representative of our world today—and the world my younger characters grew up in.
Lana Del Rey, “Summertime Sadness”
I think this is the only song I reference directly in the novel. The hit and run victim, 19-year-old Samantha, has this on repeat while driving around with her friends in high school.
Bruce Springsteen, “Dancing in the Dark”
Samantha’s boyfriend, Charlie Gibbs, is a downtrodden Springsteen hero kind of character. After his girlfriend is killed, he’s grieving and doesn’t know how to process his emotions—and like a Springsteen character, he becomes somewhat dangerous.
Jason Isbell, “Relatively Easy”
This song closes out one of the best ever alt-country albums, Southeastern. At one point in the song, Isbell’s narrator reflects on the death of a good friend, and he’s struggling to put his private tragedy in the larger context of the world. The wisdom here is that he can’t do it; he can’t intellectualize his grief away, any more than my narrator can write away the inexplicable tragedy in a story. Like Isbell’s narrator, my central characters are all left with a mood: “My lonely heart beats relatively easy.”
Jon Sealy is the author of three novels and the publisher of Haywire Books. His essays and reviews have appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Rumpus, The Millions and Lit Hub. He has an MFA in fiction writing and has taught writing at Purdue University and the University of Richmond.
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