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March 17, 2022
Eugen Bacon's Playlist for Her Novel "Mage of Fools"
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.
Reminiscent of the works of Kathryn Davis yet wholly original, Eugen Bacon's dystopian Mage of Fools is a novel that is as compelling as much as it is amazing and important.
Nuzo Onoh wrote of the book:
"Armed with her all-conquering sword for carving unforgettable, lyrical and magical prose, Dr. Eugen Bacon has, yet again, delivered in her latest book, Mage of Fools ... A brilliant and powerful work of mind-blowing dystopian novel."
In her own words, here is Eugen Bacon's Book Notes music playlist for her novel Mage of Fools:
If I were to pick a series of beats for Mage of Fools—my black speculative fiction that is about motherhood, climate change, the spirit of humanity in the face of atrocity, free will—these are the songs.
They capture protagonist Jasmin’s hopes, dreams, longings, love and promise,
Empowerment
Togetherness
I am woman.
Gambia / Sona Jobarteh
Drums, vocals, kora—a wailful harp—in this African virtuoso with its polyrhythm and honey blues offer just the right soothing for Jasmin and her fierce hope against despair.
The Middle / Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey
This song about starting over, meeting in the middle might happen the first time Jasmin meets Queen Sheeba—right before the childless queen snatches our protagonist’s children.
Shivers / Ed Sheeran
What she feels is an arrow to the heart. Jasmin’s wants it all—she’s looking for strength, and something more:
Jasmin wants to fold into herself, but she must stay strong for Mia and Omar. She remembers a microfiction from the story machine. A crime tale by an author named Temper. It’s about a widow in bleakness who swears to stay strong for the children. Each morning she wakes with a prayer. “I must stay strong for the children.”
Oh, shivers.
That’s What I Want / Lil Nas X
Jasmin wants, needs… She doesn’t feel right at night.
I Guess I’m In Love / Clinton Kane
Jasmin is a mess but with stories and memories of love she sees hope. Still, she can’t help overthinking the not so little things worrying her nearly out of mind.
Yaba (Jatelo)/ ItsYaba
‘Yaba’ and its African tempo, me wanna spoil you… comes along with the very words you want to chime to Jas, as she aches for her lost Godi:
On days such as this, she misses Godi. There are stories in her head, tales of his smell, intricate as a star, luminous in this remembering. There are no myths about his scent, its brightness, positioning or direction. Just the scorching dance of its legend at the end of a long, long night. His touch is a perfect constellation, mummified beyond an autumn sky.
Overpass Graffiti / Ed Sheeran
Imagine Ed Sheeran’s song of a dark parade and the cost for salvation in a scene where Jasmin faces and flees her terror:
Before she knows it, the walls are slipping, bricks peeling from the house, curling into the now sea green smoke wafting in her direction. Sound explodes syllable by syllable, the factory song now a shout: Clatter-clatter-clatter. Ticky-tock-tock. Zip-papa, zip-papa. Wroom-wroom. The golem is inside her head. Run, Jasmin, run.
She finds her feet. Run, run. Jasmin is running. Run. Run.
How Will I Know / Whitney Houston
Jasmin says a silent prayer with every heartbeat. She’s asking anyone who’ll listen, asking, asking… what do you know about these things?
How Will I Know / Ed Sheeran
Sheeran chimes his very own lark that’s also a prayer with guitar and clap, assuaging with lyrics and drone Jasmin’s soul that’s already on fire.
Eagle / ABBA
Jasmin is thinking about eagles, absent in her climate-devastated world. What stories do birds tell? She longs for places beyond her lens, wonders if an eagle might appear and fly her across the horizon to a new story that holds meaning…
Sometimes stories flee her head as she lays quiet in the room. They bounce and swerve, careful of consequences. They leap and dive stillborn into turning pages of coverless books full of blanks. Her eyes are accustomed to darkness, but she needs the solace of text, of subtext that doesn’t match the maps of a censoring system. She seeks to find meaning, but there never could be logic except in the contraband. She’s entombed in dullness. Feels nothing as she stares at the blank screen of her mind, the bones of her anger fully broken.
Slipping Through My Fingers / ABBA
This song about a mother’s love for her little ones, her deep and terrible fear of losing them is the perfect one to contemplate this passage:
They demand stories—these children who’ve never seen a book. Omar who demands a big people story. Mia who wants to hear about Shiwo. But they know literature, stories she has faithfully told them in oral narration.
“If you brush your teeth, change into your sleeping clothes, maybe, maybe then I’ll tell you a story.” She smiles at the alacrity of their heeding. She ponders about stories. Today they’re primary colors dancing in her head.
The children are cross-legged on the mattress. Eye her with expectation.
Ghost / Justice Bieber
Jasmin is hollow. She misses touch. Dear Jasmin, there’s always tomorrow.
Hallelujah / Leonard Cohen
Jasmin remembers, mourns true heart, broken love. Leonard Cohen understands her dirge, celebrates
and
mourns
with
her
in
this
deep
Hallelujah
bass.
Hallelujah / Andrea Bocelli
Andrew Bocelli, a vocalist without sight, recognises the darkness in Jasmin’s world. He encompasses her with this bilingual rendition of ‘Hallelujah’ in operatic tenor:
La fede mia mi abbandonò
Si perse ma si ritrovò
Perché smarrito sempre la cercai
Bellezza, incanto e nostalgia
Ferirono la mente mia
Che in lacrime gridava un Hallelujah…
Best Love Song / T-Pain (feat. Chris Brown)
Turn up the lights. Dance with Jasmin. Sing her a sweet love song that’s the crunkest, the loudest, the best love song she’s ever heard. It’s gotta be the best.
No need to write it—tell it. And picture her smiling.
Rockabye / (feat. Sean Paul & Anne-Marie)
Oh, baby doll, take this song for single mums. Rockabye baby, someone’s got you.
Now don’t you cry.
This song of love, devotion, adoration, foundation, is about a parent doing her best.
Just
Her best
Is
Not enough.
Playing With Numbers / Molly Sterling
This song chimes hope to the surety of piano keys. Oh, Jasmin. They’ve tied your hands,
But you’ve
Cut through
The arms
Of devotion
To find
Your truth.
Eugen M. Bacon is African Australian, a computer scientist mentally re-engineered into creative writing. Her novella Ivory’s Story was shortlisted in the 2020 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards. Her work has won, been shortlisted, longlisted or commended in national and international awards, including the Foreword Indies Awards, Bridport Prize, Copyright Agency Prize, Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant, Australian Shadows Awards, Ditmar Awards and Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans. Bacon’s creative work has appeared in literary and speculative fiction publications worldwide, including Award Winning Australian Writing, BSFA, Fantasy Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Bloomsbury and The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction. New releases: Danged Black Thing (collection), Saving Shadows (illustrated collection), Mage of Fools (novel). Website: eugenbacon.com / Twitter: @EugenBacon
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