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July 12, 2022
Jean Thompson's Playlist for Her Novel "The Poet's House"
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.
Jean Thompson's The Poet's House is a smart and insightful comedy of manners.
NPR Books wrote of the book:
"... a closely observed, droll, coming-of-age story about an insecure young woman drawn into a shimmering clique of poets; it's also a wise story about the corrosive power of shame and the primal fear of sounding stupid, unsophisticated and sentimental."
In her own words, here is Jean Thompson's Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Poet's House:
There’s a scene early in The Poet’s House, a night when my characters go dancing at Rancho Nicasio. A long time ago I used to live in Nicasio, on one of the valley roads, among the horse farms and roaming deer and wild turkeys. Downtown Nicasio is a few buildings enclosing a dusty baseball field. But Rancho Nicasio rocks.
I looked up their current music calendar and wished myself back there for one more night of dancing. Who would I want to be playing? Maybe the Zydeco Flames, real crowd pleasers with their rubboard and accordian. I’d ask them to play “Iko Iko.” Just try to stay in your seat. I see there’s a band called Mumbo Gumbo. They have a great track called “Love Makes Me Stupid.” Or how about the Illeagles, an Eagles tribute band? Could they play “New Kid in Town” for me? Wait, I’ve got it: Asleep at the Wheel, out of Austin, fifty plus years of western swing! Do they still do “Cotton Eyed Joe”, speeding up so fast that you think the fiddle player’s going to start a fire? Or maybe something newer, Ray Benson’s “Better Times”, his hope for the end of the pandemic, and, well, maybe other things too. Sing it, Ray.
Jean Thompson is the author of fourteen books of fiction, including the National Book Award finalist Who Do You Love, the NYT bestseller The Year We Left Home, and the NYT Notable Book Wide Blue Yonder. Her work has been published in the New Yorker, as well as dozens of other magazines, and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize. She has been the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, among other accolades, and has taught creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Reed College, Northwestern University, and many other colleges and universities.
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