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April 13, 2021
Paul Griner's Playlist for His Novel "The Book of Otto and Liam"
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.
Paul Griner's novel The Book of Otto and Liam manages to be dark, powerful, funny, and timely, often on the same page.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
"Griner’s novel is a powerful excavation into the darkest recesses of grief. . . . Unabashedly polemical, angry, and heartbreaking."
In his words, here is Paul Griner's Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Book of Otto and Liam:
Wounded in a school shooting that killed his best friend Latrell, eight-year old Liam Barnes lies in the Neuro-ICU, his parents Otto and May beside his bed. Three years later, on the shooting’s anniversary, a cop pulls Otto over because a red rag is covering his license plate, a sign of gang activity. Otto knows who covered it up: hoaxers, who’ve hounded Otto and May since the shooting, fracturing their marriage and demanding they admit it never happened. But it did, sixty children and their teachers, and Otto has had enough.
The book moves forward (mostly) on those two parallel tracks: as Liam fights to live in the Neuro-ICU, and three years later, when, unsure what’s happened to Liam, we follow Otto’s search for Kate, the hoaxers’ mysterious leader. Lamont—Latrell’s father and Otto’s best friend—pushes Otto to get tougher with the hoaxers, though Otto no longer needs much encouragement; he’s all in now on whatever it takes to stop them.
How far Otto will go to protect his family and what that will cost him are the book’s central mysteries, but it’s a hopeful novel, a book about family, laughter, redemption and perseverance, about love and violence and the echo of both through the years. It’s also about our country’s love of guns, and about hoaxers and their deceitful power. And because it covers a lot of ground and has so many different registers, the music I’ve picked does too.
“Four Seasons” Vivaldi
This should play the moment the reader opens the book, the instantly familiar opening bars, because Otto and May listened to it often when Liam was very young, and because there’s something fitting about starting a book that begins in October with a song about Spring, a way to alert the reader, however subconsciously, that something isn’t quite right.
“The Middle” Kina Grannis
Early on, detective Nash Sawyer visits the school shooter’s house; a neighbor has heard him planning to kill other students. Vague talk, at that point, and Nash, a smart and seasoned detective, knows that it’s either mere bravado or the preliminary to something darker. Hoping it’s the former, he tries to steer the boy toward a brighter future. Hey, don't write yourself off yet, It's only in your head, you feel left out. The Grannis cover because Sawyer plays it cool, thinking that coming across too hard will push the boy to violence. For the rest of the book, and the rest of his life, Nash berates himself for missing this call.
“Land of Dreams” Langhorne Slim
Otto’s theme song, early in the book. He dreams of Kate, craves her company, yet deeply wants to become invisible. The song opens slowly with brushes scratching across the snare, building speed and volume when the banjo and background singers enter halfway through, becoming more upbeat and less mournful. I like to imagine Otto listening to that part as he works (he’s a freelance artist), ideas springing to mind, the pleasure he takes in that pure process. Alternate song here: “Sitting in Limbo,” Jimmy Cliff.
“Froggy Went a Courtin” Bob Dylan
Because Liam is fundamental to the book, he gets his own songs. This one, because he loves it, giggling as he repeats it endlessly, its joyful depiction of the anarchic natural world
“Mr. Brightside” The Killers
They didn’t write this song about school shooters, but it’s about as good a portrayal of toxic masculinity as you’ll find (and nearly all school shooters are male). Destiny is calling me captures the shooter’s grandiosity as he stalks the hallways, just as the rest of the lyrics depict his victimhood and rage. And the song ends with the repetition of I never. School shooters are all about the never, and their nevers cancel out so many other young lives.
“This Is America” Childish Gambino
Yes it is, especially the guns, as Lamont is all too aware. Lamont opens Otto’s eyes to the country’s deeper pathologies of violence, beyond the headline-grabbing school shootings.
“Breaths” Sweet Honey in the Rock
Years ago, on a glorious Spring day after a long winter, walking across the quad at Harvard’s law school (where I definitely wasn’t taking classes), two guys came up beside me, their cassette player cranked (the cassette player tells you how long ago it was). What am I listening to? I asked, as the sweet harmony of those female voices filled the air. The one closest to me answered, The truth, and he was right; I’ve listened to Sweet Honey in the Rock ever since. Listen more often to things than to beings, Tis’ the ancestors’ breath, When the fire’s voice is heard, Tis’ the ancestor’s breath, In the voice of the water. Of the book’s three funerals, Latrell’s homegoing is the one filled with song. This would be one of them.
“Have a Little Faith in Me” Krystl
Lamont sets Otto up on a date, years after the shooting. Otto likes Palmer Skutch, and she likes him, but she turns cold once Otto fails to mention Liam or his shooting. Palmer’s ex-husband was never honest, so their romance seems over before it begins. John Hiatt’s version is the standard, but I like Krystl’s voice for Palmer’s ride home, after she drops off Otto. She’d sing along with it, thinking that all Otto needed was a little faith in her.
“Good King Wenceslaus” Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir
Liam fades as Christmas comes, and Otto leaves his bedside when it’s May’s turn to sit beside him. Outside, it’s a rare thunder snow, and Otto’s mood buoys as he watches it, then craters when he finds his car has a flat. It all seems too much, until three strangers change his tire, when a deep peace descends upon him, like the snow in this, his favorite carol. Not the Vienna Choir Boys version, much as I love them. Their take seems overly produced. Something plainer, something simpler, just beautiful voices, raised in song. Like this one.
“Silver Lining” Rilo Kiley
Manic and maniacal, Lamont and Otto buy 300 pink dildos, planning to soak them in urine and stuff them in hoaxers’ cars. They know it’s dangerous, but they go ahead, glee masking their doubts, doubts they can’t really banish as they begin to tip over into violence. The song’s a celebration of undoubtedly bad choices, which perfectly captures their mood.
“Blind Leading the Blind” Mick Jagger
Soon after they buy the dildos, Otto confronts a hoaxer outside May’s house at dawn on Liam’s birthday. The thrill of violence engorges his heart and hollows him out. The lyrics seem spot on (the song begins at the break of day) and Jagger’s voice, ragged, ruined and riveting, feels like it came into being just to capture this phase of Otto’s life.
“Loose Change” on Joe Henderson’s The State of the Tenor (featuring Ron Carter)
You can hear on this track (and this entire album) why Ron Carter is right and Branford Marsalis wrong about the “dreaded bass direct,” an argument Lamont would gladly dive into. Proper, since Lamont loves jazz and since this would play just as Lamont is about to get into it with the NFL player Tanner Weeks at his book signing. Weeks is a prominent and vocal believer that all school shootings are false flag events, and Lamont won’t have it.
“Águas de Março” Elis Regina and Tom Jobim
Liam’s other favorite song. It’s easy to imagine May and Otto singing this duet to him, one they heard in a cafe on their first trip abroad and instantly loved, enjoying the warm, wild thyme-scented Provençal March air. Fitting too that in Brazil, March rains end summer, the slightest shadow in a song that celebrates the promise of life and love in another’s heart.
“Let It Be” Chrissie Hynde
A song this wise has to be in a list about topics this heavy. Hynde’s cover, because of the way her voice breaks in the middle of so many words.
“Midwestern Night’s Dream” Pat Metheny (featuring Jaco Pastorius)
Lamont and Otto head to Club Lucky to hear jazz. During a break in the set, Lamont buys the bassist a drink, and they argue over the all-time best jazz bassists. Pastorius is Lamont’s pick, while the bassist won’t budge from Charles Mingus. The song’s a classic, immensely influential, and one Lamont loves, but he snaps it off in the aftermath of their outing (which ends in a bar fight), a sign that Lamont is taking a very dark turn. It’s also the right pick because Pastorius, despite or perhaps because of his brilliance, was in and out of trouble over his last years, sometimes homeless, and died after a fight outside a music club.
“Johnny Too Bad” The Slickers
After the bar fight, Lamont drops Otto off outside his apartment, and Otto watches him idling in the falling snow at a stop sign for a long time, deciding which way to turn. At last Otto goes inside, knowing that, whichever choice Lamont makes, it’s probably the wrong one. Walking down the road, With your pistol in your waist…One of these days, when you hear a voice say come, who you gonna run to?
“Hot Rod Lincoln” Charlie Ryan (1955 version)
Yellow ribbons go up around town after another school shooting in another city in another state—everyone’s wounds run deep, Otto’s deepest of all. Scalded by the ribbons, he heads to a Vermont fishing spot he and Liam love. Because of the full moon, he drives with his windows open and his headlights off; because of his grief and anger, he roars out his emotion and floors it. The telephone poles look like a picket fence and the white lines look like dots until he closes his eyes, staying on the road only through the feel of the wheel. Later, he tells May he’d never wanted to die more, nor felt more alive. Ryan’s version best captures that feverish maleness.
“Maybe Maybe” Nico Stai
The easiest song to pick and the hardest for me to listen to. Otto and May are at Liam’s bedside in late Spring, telling him the doctors will remove his breathing tube and he’ll be fine, but really, they’re terrified he won’t. Liam arches up and moves his lips, desperate but unable to speak. It’s a moment I know too well, the terrors it entails and the terrors that follow, a moment that helped inspire the book. It's all over your eyes, There's nothing you can do, I'm coming out my skin tonight, So tell me if you're ready or no.
“In the Sweet By and By” Elizabeth Cotten
Cotten plays a right-handed guitar left-handed, picking out the notes “cotton picking style,” she says—with two fingers. Simplicity and brilliance. Preacher Dexter Fenchwood is out of the Westboro Baptist mold, proclaiming the school shootings God’s work, in anger over the fallen world. Otto attends a service to confront him (Fenchwood, and perhaps God too), and I like to think of this beautiful instrumental playing as he sits in the pew, as a way to calm him down, and as counterpoint to Fenchwood’s bile. Real faith, versus ginned up hatred.
“Going Gets Tough” The Growlers
All my money worries, wherever I go, they come along, Worry’s a bully, No home since the fire, Me and the ash can’t settle down, Unsure of where I’m bound, so I sink another round. Otto, sinking as his freelance work flounders once he passes yet another awful anniversary, yet even so retaining hope. Like this song: The labor of our love, will reward us soon enough.
“Land O the Leal” Kathryn Joseph
Of the book’s three funerals, this would play at the last. Joseph’s aching voice is a perfect accompaniment for the few mournful piano chords, and that the meaning of some of her Scottish words isn’t instantly clear seems an apt metaphor for the bewilderment that overtakes anyone at a funeral for one so young.
“Feeling Good” Nina Simone
The Spring May and Otto meet, long before they have Liam, they take the train to the beach. It’s the day they realize they’re in love, and Otto remembers that first flush of love as Spring rolls around again. The second verse especially, where Simone’s languid phrasing from the opening speeds up, to keep pace with the blossoming instrumentals. Fish in the sea..Blossom on the tree, you know how I feel, It's a new dawn, It's a new day, It's a new life for me
“Dreams” The Cranberries
Dolores O’Riordan’s voice alternately soars and snarls, capturing May near the end of Otto and Liam. My life is changing, O’Riordan says, and You’re a dream to me, echoing May’s thoughts as her new boyfriend drives her to a gun shop. Is it Nash she refers to, or the gun he’s taking her to buy? Given what happens soon after, as O’Riordan’s voice drops and she quietly croons, And oh, my dreams, It's never quite as it seems, it’s likely both.
“Long Walk Home” Bruce Springsteen
Otto brings a painting by May’s house, a gift and a statement that he’s pulling out of his tailspin. It should be a happy moment, but it’s more complex than that. Last night I stood at your doorstep, Trying to figure out what went wrong, sums up Otto’s bafflement as he stands outside May’s darkened doorway, after a life that had seemed so perfect went so wrong.
“Hit Me With Your Best Shot” Pat Benatar
Benatar’s driving guitar and classically trained big rich voice challenge all comers to knock her off her feet. Ideal for May at the gun range, weeks after buying the gun with Nash. She leaves, certain she’s on the road to vengeance, and that’s the problem with guns: They make some owners feel invulnerable, and too often lead to disaster.
“Are You Alright” Lucinda Williams
Toward the end of the book, May misses her monthly dinner with Otto—dinners she’s set up—and abruptly disappears. On his phone, Otto tracks her as she drives west, destination unknown, and, no matter how many times he calls, she won’t pick up. Are you all right? 'Cause it seems like you disappeared. Are you all right? 'Cause I've been feeling a little scared. He’s scared all right, and correctly so.
“Fake Palindromes” Andrew Bird
Otto’s shadowed Kate for months, and even thinks he’s found her, but he hasn’t. Weary from the chase, from grief and anger, from watching Lamont and May spin out of control, he’s about to give up, but Kate won’t give up on him. She says..some lonely night we can get together, And I’m gonna tie your wrists with leather, And drill a tiny hole into your head.
“Sedona” Houndmouth
The singer tells us, about a cross-country move, that its better than a grave and a hearse, even with no money or prospects. It’s an oddly hopeful tune, proper as Otto drops down into Phoenix by plane, thinking about what’s befallen him and May, how narrowly they’ve avoided a worse fate, and contemplates uprooting his peripatetic life and beginning anew in the American Southwest. I listened to it a lot as I was nearing the end of the book, and its stubbornly optimistic nature influenced the writing of those final chapters.
“River” Leon Bridges
If I had to choose only one song for the book, this would be it. Otto’s in Phoenix, visiting the hospitalized May, talking to the waiting Nash before he does. Part of the song’s perfection is the odd way it moves, slowly at first, a woman humming, joined by a man after a few bars, followed by the simple strumming of a guitar. Then Bridges’s voice starts up, and what a voice it is! Tender, yearning, growing louder during his search for joy and redemption, his desire to be cleansed, to be free of what’s weighed him down and driven him on, the tambourine overlaying the guitar as his voice begins to wheel. After a minute or two, the two voices harmonize: Take me to your river, I wanna go, Take me to your river, I wanna know. Then the song pauses and seems to stop, and we hear falling rain, a break emblematic of what happens to Otto and May in the book, the drop into the void. But slowly, like Bridges’s rich voice, they come back, after the cleansing rain. Their new loves, their coming to terms with grief, just as Bridges comes to terms with all he’s battled. They may be broken, but they’re united by love and their shared history. The other part of the song’s perfection is that my daughter recommended it to me, a good place to end.
Paul Griner is the author of the novels Collectors, The German Woman, and Second Life, and the story collections Follow Me, (a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers choice) and Hurry Please I Want to Know (winner of the Kentucky Literary Award). He teaches writing and literature at the University of Louisville.
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