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March 29, 2021
Sergi Pàmies' Playlist for His Story Collection "The Art of Wearing a Trench Coat"
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.
Sergi Pàmies' collection The Art of Wearing a Trench Coat is filled with stories both insightful and profound.
Letras Libres wrote of the book:
"Pàmies is honest and profound, but he never abandons lightness and irony, to which he adds a great ability for observation and a particular talent for tenderness."
In his words, here is Sergi Pàmies' Book Notes music playlist for his story collection The Art of Wearing a Trench Coat:
"Flowers for Peggy" - The Candle Thieves
The first story, “Eclipse”, is a freely adapted chronicle of an actual party. It was a birthday party and The Candle Thieves played there, live. Some of the details of the book are strictly true: the host (who discovered this band in the subway of London) is a radio announcer, and the woman who was introduced to me was generously delicate. Maybe I should send her some flowers.
"La Rua Madureira" - Nino Ferrer
During the process of writing, I listened to Nino Ferrer a lot. When I was a kid, in France, he was playing on all the radios and was the prototype of irreverent joyful pop of the 60’s. Years later, I read that he was a depressive soul, very creative, who ended killing himself from a shotgun in a beautiful poppies field in Provence, France.
"Como Fue" - Beny Moré
All the stories where my mom appears are inevitably linked to her great musical taste and her devotion bolero. She had the chance to see great stars like Agustín Lara, Olga Guillot, Marta Valdés in Mexico, Cuba, República Dominicana or Paris. This bolero was one of her favorites.
"It Is You" - Natalie Prass
The anecdote that inspired the story “Paternity” is based on the weeks where my daughter Natàlia was learning to drive. Fortunately the gruesome and rugged details of the story aren’t excluded from reality, but rather from the gruesome and rugged thoughts of the writer. Natalie Prass it’s a discovery of my daughter, who has the same taste as her grandmother.
"Maria De La O" - Paco de Lucía
I’ve been listening to Paco de Lucía for 40 years, while I write and also while I don’t. When I’m writing, he’s got the power of cheer me up when I’m weak, and to make me believe that I’m more inspired than what I really am. This is his posthumous album. He died in 2014, on a beach in Mexico playing soccer with his little son. I can’t imagine a better way to die.
"Ma La Vita Continua (Finale)" - Nino Rota
The story “I’m no one to be giving you advice” includes some of autobiographical elements. The problem is that in my family it’s very difficult to distinguish what’s biographical or what’s literary. An example: my parents always told me that I was conceived the night where my parents, in Paris, went to see the movie “Le notti di Cabiria”, with Nino Rota’s music. If that was true, I would be son of Jorge Semprún, Federico Fellini and of course Nino Rota.
"Leak at the Disco" - Baxter Dury
The story “Please” is an hyperbolic distortion of the troubled relation with my son Joan in that time. He is a filmmaker and back then we were both adapting to our respective roles; mine of concerned and powerless father, and his of despot, sinister and promising filmmaker. Curiously, now he says that it was me who showed him the first song he ever listened from Baxter Dury.
"Time After Time" - Cindy Lauper
“The 9/11 story nobody asked me to write” is the oldest one. I needed 15 years to write it. When I imagined the story, this song (and the incredible version Miles Davis did afterwards) started to sound in my head.
"Make Someone Happy" - Jimmy Durante + "Make Someone Happy" - Jamie Cullum
In my stories, I’m not a big fan of explicit references to songs. Sometimes, I think it turns them to an exercise of exhibitionism. As it’s thought in the title, the story “Bonus Track” had to be an exception. The song appears in two extreme versions; the Durante’s one is optimist and cordial, and Cullum’s seems to be made to sound in a bar halfway from the Mos Eisley cantina to the Rick’s Cafe Americain. The song was very important to accompany me emotionally but also to finish the book in a conclusive way.
Sergi Pàmies was born in Paris to a family of Spanish political refugees. He moved to Barcelona in 1971 and went on to work as a translator, journalist, television and radio presenter, and writer, for which he has received several awards. He is the father of two children.
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