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May 18, 2022
Maia Evrigenis's Playlist for Her Novel "Neon Jane"
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.
Maia Evrigenis's Neon Jane is as powerful as it is inventive in form, a haunting book.
Greg Fields wrote of the book:
"Eminently creative and memorably unique, Neon Jane marks the beginning of a literary career that merits close attention."
In her own words, here is Maia Evrigenis's Book Notes music playlist for her novel Neon Jane:
“Scorpio Rising” – Soccer Mommy
I listened to this song on repeat while I wrote Neon Jane. To me, this song is about being completely immersed in your teenage life and feeling so heavy about everything, like your life is the absolute entire world. A lot of this book is Maia reflecting on the intensity she felt growing up as a cancer survivor. The sound of the song also helped create the tone I was looking for to open the novel.
“Mirrorball” - Taylor Swift
This song is about reflections, seeing yourself in different ways, performing for someone and want-ing their attention. I think I have always been trying to perform for my childhood self who had cancer, to do something great for her, even in writing this book.
“Scott Street” – Phoebe Bridgers
In Neon Jane, Maia is surrounded by people in Sacramento who know her as the girl who got cancer, making her feel exposed and insecure, while respected at the same time. Phoebe Bridgers song “Scott Street” encompassed that feeling for me, singing about running into someone in a small town.
“Sunflower” – Post Malone, Swae Lee
I wrote the chapter “Central Line” listening to “Sunflower” on repeat. Something about the song’s energy helped me keep going as I wrote about emotional, heartbreaking and beautiful times pouring out tears.
“Closest To Me” – Liza Anne
This song influenced the chapter “Hair is Youthful” which brings experiences with Maia’s sisters and mom front and center in Neon Jane. The lyrics really comforted me and helped shape the chapter.
“re: stacks” – Bon Iver
I never met my uncle Jason but this song reminds me of him, or of his story, and the way he was talked about while I was growing up. I don’t really know what this song is about, but I played it probably 200 times while I wrote about him.
“Orange Sky” – Alexi Murdoch
This song is about the aftermath of a thunderstorm in which the sky is turning orange as the sun sets, symbolic for what happens after some difficult experience. The lyrics state that all the singer really knows for sure is that God is there, looking out for him somewhere. I connect to that a lot.
“In The Sun” – Hovvdy
Maia and Jane are both searching for something within each other, looking for help from the other in a way to survive, which this song touches on lyrically. I wrote “Tachycardia” and “Engraftment” while listening to this one.
“Bottom Bitch” – Doja Cat
I listened to this on repeat while I wrote the chapter “Automobile” over the course of a week. The beat influenced the pacing of the chapter in terms of writing style, but its themes about friendship also connect.
Maia Evrigenis is a writer from Sacramento, California. Her flash fiction piece Sanitize from Neon Jane was selected for the Best Small Fictions 2021 Anthology published by Sonder Press. She was a Stories on Stage winner for the 2020 writing contest in Northern California and is featured in the anthology Twenty Twenty: A Stories on Stage Sacramento Anthology. Her writing has been published in Necessary Fiction, The Black Fork Review, Arkana Literary Journal, The Sacramento News and Review, and The Sacramento Bee. Maia received her MFA in creative writing from CalArts and BS in applied psychology from New York University.
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