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January 31, 2022
Peter Mann's Playlist for His Novel "The Torqued Man"
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.
The Torqued Man is incredibly funny, heartfelt, and poignant, a smart debut.
Peter Mann's novel Kirkus wrote of the book:
"Mann’s brisk and well-constructed plot is enhanced by equally impressive prose…A wily spy novel with a human touch."
In his own words, here is Peter Mann's Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Torqued Man:
The Torqued Man is about the life of an Irish spy in wartime Berlin, told through dueling perspectives, and filled with grim choices and dark comedy. At its center is the complicated friendship between wild Irishman Frank Pike (aka Finn McCool) and his conflicted German spy handler Adrian de Groot, a relationship marked by longing, humor, despair, and rebellion.
I’ve tried to capture the mood and counterpoint structure of the novel by choosing a track to illustrate each of the 54 chapters. Taken together, they convey the story’s flavors and emotions in a condensed three-hour listen. At least that’s the idea.
For Adrian’s narrative I employ the early seventies sounds of John Cale and The Kinks, often plaintive pop melodies on the surface but with acerbic, knife-twisting ironies underneath; or the foreboding folk ballads of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen; or the history-rich, elegiac rock of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Decemberists.
By contrast, for Finn McCool’s story I look to the Dionysian energies of Balkan brass band music, the Pogues, the St. Vitus Dance outbreak of Vinicio Capossela, and the wall-jumping, post-punk dynamism of Neue Deutsche Welle icons like Ideal and Falco. In deflated moments, I have Finn wallow in the mischievous, dark cabaret of Tom Waits and Nick Cave. Or, when injured and in the care of a lusty nun, he nurses on the transcendent tunes of Schubert and Hildegard von Bingen.
Throughout, I also try to convey a sense of time and place with recurring songs of flamenco, swing, and crooners and chanteuses who carry us across Spain, France, and Germany in the early 1940s.
Here’s the full playlist, with annotations for the first dozen or so tracks...
Chapter 1: “Los Besos de Verdad” by Diego El Cigala and Diego del Morao
The story begins with news of Frank Pike’s death and Adrian’s reminiscence of their relationship, which starts in the war-torn ruins of Spain after the Civil War. El Cigala’s homage to flamenco legend Paco de Lucía in the year of his death strikes the perfect opening tone: mournful, wistful, with notes of suspense.
Chapter 2: “Wild Cats of Kilkenny” by The Pogues
A Celtic roar, a feral beast uncaged and prowling the emerald cliffs—these are the sounds conjured by Shane MacGowan and his merry band of rogues as Finn McCool begins the tale of his one-man insurgency “in the bowels of Teutonia.”
Chapter 3: “Half Past France” by John Cale
John Cale evokes the loss of Old World Europe in his staggering concept album Paris 1919, and the unmoored dreaminess of “Half Past France” accompanies Adrian as he springs Pike from prison and drives him over the Pyrenees.
Chapter 4: “Contact” by Big Thief
Finn recalls how the numbing death-stupor of life in the Spanish pit is suddenly interrupted by the appearance of his lawyer with news of his pending freedom and a secret mission, just like Adrianne Lenker’s primal scream suddenly cuts through the sinking languor of this song. Contact has been made.
Chapter 5: “Chanson Bleue” by Édith Piaf
Piaf’s heartbreaking song plays after a fleeting romance at the Loire Valley spy chateau awakens Adrian’s dormant desire. But, as she sings, “Your mission is now completed. Your friends, you will leave them.”
Chapter 6: “Al Extranjero Me Fuí” by Flor de Córdoba
One of the many treasures I discovered on radioooo.com late in the composition of The Torqued Man, Flor de Córdoba was a flamenco goddess of postwar Spain. On her lilting voice, Finn travels from the Spanish pit and begins his voyage abroad.
Chapter 7: “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel
The title track from Neutral Milk Hotel’s brilliant WWII concept album, In the Aeroplane over the Sea is dark and weird and heartbreaking in exactly the ways I wanted my novel to be (it’s also the album I fell in love to). Here it plays overhead as Pike and Adrian travel under the sea in a submarine back to Ireland.
Chapter 8: “The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn” by The Pogues
Once again, The Pogues do heavy lifting. Not only do they provide the raucous Hibernian soundtrack to Finn’s first act of covert mayhem, but “The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn” alludes to the ancient Celtic hero from The Táin, the murderous teenager Cuchulainn, who makes a one-man stand against the armies of Queen Medb and who, like Finn, when the battle frenzy is upon him, undergoes, “a torqueing.” The song even mentions Frank Ryan (“Frank Ryan bought you whisky in a brothel in Madrid”), the real-life Irish republican who was my inspiration for the character Frank Pike.
Chapter 9: “20th Century Man” by The Kinks
Count on The Kinks to provide notes of humor and biting social satire, all in catchy honky-tonk Brit rock packaging. Back in Berlin, Adrian and Pike develop a convivial routine, comparing notes on their plights as 20th-century humanists in world rent by ideology.
Chapter 10: “Opium Tea” by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Finn watches the clouds, searching for his destiny and feeling like a layabout while he waits for another mission. Nick Cave nails the downbeat mood, the cheery sense of dissipation hovering just above despair: “I’m a prisoner here, yes, but I’m also free, and I smile when I sip my opium tea.”
Chapter 11: “Living in the Past” by W.I.T.C.H.
A ridiculously high quantity and caliber of psychedelic rock came out of the small African nation of Zambia in the seventies. Chief among them, the stylings of W.I.T.C.H. (We Intend To Cause Havoc). Here their stoned and soulful “Living in the Past” anchors Pike and Adrian’s pint sessions at the Ratskeller, where a haunting figure from Adrian’s own past appears.
Chapter 12: “Sat” by Boban Marković Orkestar
The king of gypsy brass bands, Boban Marković tears the veil of Maya to shreds and intoxicates you with the primal joy of being. Until I heard this music, I thought brass bands were just for misfortunate teenagers like me, forced to wear a Prussian military uniform and march around a football field butchering Earth, Wind, and Fire. I became so smitten, I even traveled to central Serbia to the Guča brass band festival to drink straight from the source. Here in “Sat” (Serbian for ‘time’) the rhythmic scale-climbing of the trumpet evokes the ticking of a clock, the turning of gears, and the machinations of Finn’s brain as he infiltrates the Irish radio service. For true orgiastic abandon, check out the later chapters 42 and 52, also featuring Boban and his demented horns.
Chapter 13: “Dido’s Lament” by Henry Purcell, Simone Dinnerstein, Tift Merritt
From the incredible collaboration album Night by classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein and country/roots/folk singer Tift Merritt comes this haunting cover of Purcell’s aria. While Adrian receives news of yet another death, the Carthaginian Queen longs for the grave and pleads for her memory to live on.
Chapter 14: “Il ballo di San Vito” by Vinicio Capossela
Vinicio Capossela, an Italian national treasure and man of many faces, erupts in this song like the hysterical fit that inspired it. A time-honored collective psychosis, the St. Vitus Dance would break out across European communities in the Middle Ages, afflicting people with twitching limbs, uncontrollable crying, and exuberant madness. It is thought to have given rise to the southern Italian dance of the tarantella, which Capossela draws on here, and whose name is derived from the bite of the dread spider la tarantula. The song is savage and anarchic, and ideally suited to Finn’s first hunt. He has finally found his vocation in the bowels of Teutonia.
Chapter 15: “The Garden” by Einstürzende Neubauten
Chapter 16: “Chitlin Con Carne” by Junior Wells and Buddy Guy
Chapter 17: “Graham Greene” by John Cale
Chapter 18: “Murder He Says” by Betty Hutton
Chapter 19: “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen
Chapter 20: “Ballad of a Thin Man” by Bob Dylan
Chapter 21: “Shankill Butchers” by The Decemberists
Chapter 22: “Erschiessen” by Ideal
Chapter 23: “Too Many Birds” by Bill Callahan
Chapter 24: “Primo Intermezzo” by Fabrizio de André
Chapter 25: “Silbury Sands” by Wolf People
Chapter 26: “High Trees” by Hanggai
Chapter 27: “Rain Dogs” by Tom Waits
Chapter 28: “Tramp” by Martin Böttcher [score from a Karl May movie]
Chapter 29: “Deja que me vaya” by Flor de Córdoba
Chapter 30: “Katja, Katja” by Pyotr Leshchenko
Chapter 31: “Ich hab’ eine kleine Philosophie” by Hans Albers
Chapter 32: “That’s Life” by Frank Sinatra
Chapter 33: “Paris 1919” by John Cale
Chapter 34: “The Battle March Medley” by The Pogues
Chapter 35: “Holland, 1945” by Neutral Milk Hotel
Chapter 36: “Der Kommissar” by Falco
Chapter 37: “Bats in the Attic” by King Creosote and Jon Hopkins
Chapter 38: “Fear is a Man’s Best Friend” by John Cale
Chapter 39: “After the Bombs” by The Decemberists
Chapter 40: “Stamping Ground” by Moondog
Chapter 41: “Here Come the People in Grey” by The Kinks
Chapter 42: “Mesečina” by Goran Bregović, Boban Marković Orkestar
Chapter 43: “Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues” by The Kinks
Chapter 44: “Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans” by Hildegard von Bingen, Anna Sandström
Chapter 45: “Communist Daughter” by Neutral Milk Hotel
Chapter 46: “Mass No. 2 in G: Sanctus” by Franz Schubert, Katrine Bryndorf, Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Chapter 47: “Wall of Death” by Richard & Linda Thompson
Chapter 48: “The Red Army is the Strongest” by The Red Army Choir
Chapter 49: “Pray Them Bars Away” by Lee Hazelwood
Chapter 50: “O Children” by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
Chapter 51: “Avalanche” by Leonard Cohen
Chapter 52: “Kalasnjikov” by Goran Bregović, Boban Marković Orkestar
Chapter 53: “No Pensar Nunca en la Muerte” by Mayte Martín
Chapter 54: “Clans of Mongolia” by Sedaa
Peter Mann has a PhD in Modern European history and is a past recipient of the Whiting Fellowship. He teaches history and literature at Stanford and the University of San Francisco. He is also a graphic artist and cartoonist. This is his first novel.
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