I have really exciting news!

Well . . . it’s exciting news for me. But hopefully it’s decent news for you, too.

I HAVE A WRITTEN ANOTHER BOOK.

AND SOLD IT.

AND ALSO SOLD ANOTHER BOOK THAT I HAVEN’T WRITTEN YET.

My fourth book, Landline, will be published next spring/summer by St. Martin’s Press. It’s an adult book. (To the extent that it’s about people in the their 30s.) St. Martin’s also bought my next young adult book, which I’m working on now.

I’m incredibly, incredibly happy about this because St. Martin’s Press has been a complete joy to work with. They believed in Eleanor & Park in a big way, and I’m already thrilled with their work on Fangirl, which comes out in September.

And they don’t seem to mind that I write adult stories and young adult stories, and that all of my books are pretty different from each other. They seem to really like that — WHICH IS SO WONDERFUL.

Also, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, Sara Goodman, is smart and good and dear to my heart. And I don’t really want to be writing books without her.

So. LANDLINE. Here’s the story: 

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.

Maybe that was always besides the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

LANDLINE, Greg Laswell with Ingrid Michaelson

As an author, it can be extremely frustrating to hear someone else read your words. No matter how great the reader is, they can never match what you hear in your head, and it’s just …

… irritating.

So I never listened to the Attachments audiobook, and I wasn’t going to listen to Eleanor & Park. 

But people on Twitter kept talking to me about Eleanor and Park, specifically about the performances of the two narrators, Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra. (Rebecca reads Eleanor’s parts, and Sunil reads Park’s.)

I’d listened to both of these actors during the casting process. Listening Library, who published the E&P audiobook, was amazing to work with. The producers consulted me on casting, and even went looking for Sunil when I said that whoever read Park needed to sound like the kind of guy you could crush on while you were listening. (Mission accomplished.)

But I still didn’t want to listen to these two wonderful actors read my book. I already had Eleanor and Park’s voices in my head. I didn’t want the dissonance.

Then these showed up at my house — the library and retail audiobook editions. And they were so pretty …

Even the inside packaging is pretty:

I decided to listen for just a few minutes, just to get a sense of the production, so that I could have a conversation about it, if I had to …

OH MAN. I LISTENED FOR ALMOST TWO HOURS.

I just loved it.

And not because I was sitting there thinking, “I sure wrote a great book.” (Though Rebecca and Sunil do make it sound pretty good.) It was more like they made me forget that it was my book; I got lost in the story and their performances.

They’re both great. Intensely great. But Rebecca blew me away.

Even though she doesn’t sound exactly like the Eleanor in my head, there is zero dissonance when I’m listening to her. She manages to be tough and sarcastic without posturing, and without losing the vulnerability that runs through everything Eleanor says and does.

When I eventually stopped listening, it was only because I was getting so upset. Rebecca’s Eleanor was breaking my heart. (And Rebecca’s Eleanor was still my Eleanor, which seemed like a miracle.)

SO. I went on a Twitter rant about how great the audiobook is. And then Listening Library was like, We’re so happy you’re talking about this — would you talk about it even more?

And I was like, YES.

So they gave me five copies of the audiobook to give away. If you want one, just comment on this post, and we’ll select a winner, randomly, by Monday, May 20, 2013, at 5 p.m., Central Time.

Maybe in your comment, you could tell me about your favorite audiobook.

OH! And it’s not just me who thinks this audiobook is great. AudioFile Magazine gave it its Earphones Award.

And Publishers Weekly gave the audiobook a starred review, saying:

“Narrators Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra turn in superb performances in their portrayal of Eleanor and Park. Despite her age, there is nothing sweet or childlike about Eleanor, and Lowman refrains from portraying her that way. Lowman’s voice and tone believably capture the too-mature-too-soon strength of a girl living a hard life. Malhotra has a rich, smooth delivery, and perfectly renders Park as he fluctuates between confidence and insecurity.”

Here! Listen to a sample — then tell me your favorite audiobook, and give me an excuse to send you a free copy of Eleanor & Park.

The first time I was asked that question, three or four months ago, I had a pretty short answer:

“Because Park is Korean.”

Because Park was always Korean.

From the moment he was Park. Before he was actually “Park.”

It’s about a girl, and a boy, and I think she’s in trouble, and I think he’s lost, and she has red hair, I think, and he’s part-Korean. And it’s all going to end with them in the car. Or start with them in the car. She’s in trouble. Eleanor. And he’s scared. And it won’t be love at first sight. And she’ll be covered in freckles, and his hair will be straight and black, and he’ll play with something – a watch, a scarf, a chain – on her wrist, before they ever hold hands.

That’s how Eleanor & Park started in my head. That’s how stories always start for me. It’s like I’m uncovering characters who are already there, not assembling them piece by piece. I write them the way I see them, and usually never come back to think about why.

So, the first time someone asked me why Park was Korean, I just shrugged.

But the next time someone asked, I started thinking about it. And the third time, I found myself talking about it.

And now that I’ve been asked a dozen times – maybe more – I’ve realized that there are actually a lot of reasons that Park is Korean. Enough to write a whole blog entry about.

This is that blog entry.

I should say, before I go on, that the people who ask this question are not dismayed by Park’s race. (I’ve only seen one reader react to him in an ugly, racist way.) (That reader was also put off by Eleanor’s weight.)

Usually, this question is asked by younger readers and almost always by non-white readers – often by people who are Asian themselves.

I think the question is more about me than Park. It’s – why did I make Park Korean? There aren’t a lot of Asian boys in YA; the character calls attention to himself. Why would a white author write about an Asian guy?

Incredible Park fan art by Simini Blocker. siminiblocker.tumblr.com

Even now, I don’t have a complete, definitive answer . . . The following aren’t reasons as much as they are factors:

1. My father served in Korea, in the Army.

This is probably the most obvious explanation.

My parents separated when I was in the second grade, and I never knew my dad that well. I didn’t grow up with him around. But I remember being fascinated by the fact that he was in the military – and stationed in a place where there had been an actual war, even though he was there decades after the worst of it.

There was this photo of him, in uniform, hanging over my grandmother’s coffee table – an unrecognizable teenager with short hair and tiny wire-rimmed glasses.

Every once in a while, if he’d had a few drinks, my dad would talk about the Army. How he signed up at 17 to avoid getting drafted and sent to Vietnam. The Army wouldn’t send a 17-year-old to Vietnam, he said. (I have no idea if this, or much else my dad told me, is true.)

He was especially proud of having protested the Vietnam War while he was in Korea. There was a clipping from a military newspaper with photos of the protest. I was 12 or 13 when he showed me this, and I definitely didn’t get it.

Over the years, I’ve had people tell me I must be confused about my dad, that there weren’t Americans soldiers left in Korea in the ‘70s. But there are still American soldiers in South Korea. We never left.

Anyway, the other thing my dad would talk about, every once in a while, was a girl he’d known in Korea. My mom says he carried this Korean girl’s photo in his wallet for years after he came home. He’d been in love with her; my mom thought he still was.

I used to wonder about that girl. About how he met her. Whether she spoke English. Whether she was his age. Whether it was some secret love affair, or something her friends and family knew about . . . What if she was his soulmate?

What if fate and circumstance and the U.S. government had come together to deliver my father across the continents to his soulmate – and he just left her there.

He could have stayed, I thought. He could have brought her back. Omaha is a military town; people bring wives and husbands back from all over.

I remember being so angry with him. First for leaving the person he was meant to be with; then for leaving my mom, the person he wasn’t meant to be with; and then for leaving all my brothers and sisters and me in his wake.

So … in Eleanor & Park, Park’s dad gets sent to Korea because his brother has died in combat in Vietnam. He meets his soulmate there. And he brings her home.

What are the chances you’d ever meet someone like that, Park wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away?

The math seemed impossible. How did his parents get so lucky?

They couldn’t have felt lucky at the time. His dad’s brother had just died in Vietnam; that’s why they sent his dad to Korea. And when his parents got married, his mom had to leave everything and everyone she loved behind.

Park wondered if his dad saw his mom in the street or from the road or working in a restaurant. He wondered how they both knew . . .

2. Also, there was this kid on my bus.

Eleanor & Park takes place in the neighborhood where I lived for part of high school. It was a really poor, really white neighborhood, near the airport. The kids who lived there, like me, were bussed to a high school in a black part of town, for integration.

I didn’t stand out quite as badly on that bus as Eleanor does on hers, but it was a near thing. The kids in my neighborhood listened to classic rock and heavy metal – and most people dressed like they were on their way to a Quiet Riot concert. My style back then was basically Not That.

I sat next to the only other person on the bus who wasn’t wearing flannel, this guy who listened to punk rock music and dressed like John Cusack.

More amazing Park fan art — this time by Henna Lucas. pbjsandwitch.tumblr.com

One day he told me about this other boy on the bus – a relatively popular boy with perfectly feathered hair and a quilted flannel jacket; he said this popular guy’s mom was from Vietnam . . .

I was so shocked. It’s not that everyone in our neighborhood was racist, but it was the kind of place where people still flew the Confederate Flag on their porches.

I couldn’t figure out how anyone who wasn’t white could even survive in our neighborhood. I could barely survive in our neighborhood.

My seatmate said that this kid grew up on his block, that his dad was a Vietnam War veteran.

I remember thinking that he’d been literally grandfathered in to the neighborhood. Pre-approved. I’m sure, if I knew him, I would have seen that his life was more complicated – but he and my punk-rock friend were both accepted by the other kids, both one of them, in a way I never would be.

Neither of those guys, John Cusack or Vietnamese Popular Guy, are Park.

But would I have written Park if I hadn’t been on the bus with them?

3. And then there’s my friend Paul.

When you talked about race at my junior high, you were talking about black or white.

There were a few Native American kids, a very few Mexican kids and, I think, five Asian people.

One of them was my friend Paul, who was from China. (Who is from China.) (And also from Omaha.) (And Brooklyn.)

Paul was extremely popular at our school. He was one of those kids who could just sense the cool things to wear, the cool music to listen to – and one of those people everybody likes. (It was infuriating sometimes, as his friend. I felt like he could get away with anything, even with teachers.)

So Paul wasn’t exactly discriminated against in any classic, horrible way – that I observed – but his race was present, always. Like, there were so few Asian people in North Omaha at that time, people would always look at him twice.

And he talked about being Asian all the time. Joked about it. And complained if he ever thought it was a factor in some painful or unfair situation.

After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Paul made this beautiful protest T-shirt and wore it to school. He was really upset about what happened in Beijing, so the rest of us got upset about it, too. We all joined an Amnesty International chapter and started writing letters for political prisoners.

The way that I really remember Paul’s race being an issue was with girls. I remember girls at our school being very taken with him – but sometimes hesitant to go out with him. He looked so different from all the other boys. He was small. He was Chinese. He joked about wearing women’s jeans because they fit better.

I feel compelled to tell you that every girl Paul liked in junior high and high school ended up going out with him. He was (is) pretty irresistible. But I think some of those girls had to work through how different he was . . .

By the way, Paul isn’t Park either.

But it must have stuck with me – the way someone can be accepted, even adored, but still feel apart.

And so . . .

I think, in a way, that writing a novel is like dreaming. Your brain starts digging things up that you’d thought you’d forgotten. You try to answer questions you didn’t even know were still lying there. You realize how long you’ve been holding on to big emotions like hurt feelings and confusion, and also specific details – like a window that always got stuck, or the way someone’s hair curled at their collar.

All of these things become colors on your palette, there for you even if you’re not consciously reaching for them . . .

Why is Park Korean?

Because I think there should be more Asian-American characters in YA, especially boys. (And also more chubby girls.)

Because it’s up to people like me, who write, to write them.

Because I don’t live in a world where everyone looks and thinks exactly like I do. And I don’t want to write about a world like that. Even though maybe it would be easier . . .

Because my dad served in Korea.

Because there was a boy on my bus whose dad loved his mom enough not to say good-bye.

Park is Korean . . .

Because that’s how I saw him the moment I saw him.

And then I couldn’t imagine him any other way.

LOVE ON A FARMBOY’S WAGES, XTC

This is a SUPER-LONG post, with videos and thoughts for all four playlists. If you want to skip my director’s commentary and get right to the music, you can:

Listen on Spotify:
Eleanor, Side A 
Eleanor, Side B
Park, Side A
Park, Side B

Purchase on iTunes:
Eleanor, Side A
Eleanor, Side B
Park, Side A
Park, Side B 

All my other playlists are on my Spotify profile, too. For Attachments – and for Fangirl.

Eleanor, Side A

The Good Times are Killing Me, Modest Mouse

This song, for me, is what’s playing in Eleanor’s head when she gets on the schoolbus in the first scene. She’s so past hope, Eleanor; she’s just moving through life, keeping her head up — and not because she’s rising above her challenges (nothing so noble as that). Just because there are no other options. This song is tough and flat and cynical, but it’s got a sneaky beauty to it, too. Enter Eleanor.

Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod, The Mountain Goats

If I had to choose one album to represent this whole book, it would be The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats. I forced myself to choose just one MG song for this playlist. This one tells the story of a boy coming home, trying not to wake up his abusive stepfather. (Which basically sums up Eleanor’s whole life.) The line that slays me in this song is: “Held under these smothering waves, by your strong and thick veined hand, but one of these days I’m going to wriggle up on dry land.” The boy in the song is going to get past this. He’s going to EVOLVE.

You’re the Good Things, Modest Mouse

More Modest Mouse. More sneakily beautiful cynicism for Eleanor. This song got me through the scenes where Eleanor is intrigued by Park, but doesn’t believe any good can come of it.

Don’t Let’s Start (Demo), They Might Be Giants

I love how tentative this version of this song is, compared to the studio version. This is Eleanor slowly turning toward Park on the bus, slowly opening up to him. Still so cynical.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t let’s start,
I’ve got a weak heart …”

Like to Get to Know You, Spanky & Our Gang

Eleanor has bursts of longing and hope. Here’s one. But she still doesn’t quite trust what she’s feeling. She can’t let go.

“Now I can’t promise that I’ll spend a day with you,
Can’t promise that I’ll find a way with you,
Can’t promise, no, I can’t promise that I’ll love you.”

A Feeling,  Throwing Muses

This song is all about chemistry. It even FEELS like chemistry. (Like longing.) It’s perfect for Eleanor because it’s CHEMISTRY and LONGING plus a little bit of DOUBT and SELF-LOATHING.

“I never could see anyone besides you.
Believe it or not. (Probably not.)”

Drowning Man, U2

Finally a little abandon from Eleanor! Knowing Bono, this song is probably about Jesus. But I used it to write the telephone scene at Eleanor’s dad’s house. She lays it all out in that scene; she tells Park things she thinks she shouldn’t — and she’s so sure she’ll be hurt. This song feels like surrender to me.

“Take my hand,
You know I’ll be there, if you can,
I’ll cross the sky for your love . . .
Give you what I hold dear.”

There is a Light that Never Goes Out, The Smiths

If Eleanor & Park were a movie, this song would be in the trailer. This song IS Eleanor. When she falls in love with Park, it’s like she’s jumping off a bridge. She really believes it will lead to ruin — but  she still does it. Every time she sees him, she wonders if she’ll be allowed to see him again, and whether she’ll be allowed to come back home. I can’t even quote one lyric from this song because they’re all so perfect for her.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about an Eleanor & Park sequel. I find myself thinking, “There is a light, and it never goes out, there is a light, and it never goes out …”

Out of Control, U2

So, when Eleanor falls in love, it goes like this: cynicism, reluctance, side eyes, fear, fear, fear, maybe, no, maybe, hope, cynicism, abrupt surrender, ABANDON. This song is abandon. It’s Eleanor losing herself in her feelings for Park.

Real Love, Regina Spektor

Eleanor and Park, coming home from their date. It’s the fragility and fear in Spektor’s voice that make this song Eleanor for me. (Also, it’s nice that it’s a John Lennon song. What with Eleanor’s love for the Beatles.)

Park, Side A

Love on a Farmboy’s Wages, XTC

So this is the song that Park is listening to on his headphones the very first time we meet him.

XTC was no good for drowning out the morons at the back of the bus.

Park pressed his headphones into his ears.

Tomorrow he was going to bring Skinny Puppy or the Misfits.  Or maybe he’d make a special bus tape with as much screaming and wailing on it as possible.

I had this picture of Park as an island of thoughtfulness in a sea of chaos; everybody else is screaming and being crass, and he’s listening to intellectual New Wave. This song – Love on a Farmboy’s Wages – is one of my favorite XTC songs, and it’s especially quiet and romantic. It’s from the point of view of a poor farmboy envisioning how he’ll provide for his beloved.

With Park — with all of my male heroes, really  – I’m trying to portray someone who’s masculine, but still tender and full of big feelings. That guy doesn’t exist enough (for me) in fiction.

XTC = that guy.

“High climbs the summer sun, high stands the corn, 
And tonight . . . when my work is done,
We will borrow your father’s carriage,
We will drink and prepare for marriage – 
Soon my darling, soon my darling.”

Sweet Disposition, The Temper Trap

I am a SUCKER for men singing in falsetto. Again, it’s the masculinity/vulnerability that gets me. (Is it a bad sign that I’m only two songs into Park’s playlist, and I’m already swooning?) (I SWOONED for Park.)

This song is all tension and anticipation — the way Park feels electrified by Eleanor’s presence, pretty much as soon she gets on the bus. He’s on alert whenever she’s on the page with him.

When I was making playlists for my first book, Attachments, I tried to keep the songs consistent with the 1999 setting. But I didn’t stick to the ’80s with the Eleanor & Park playlists — I went with whatever songs felt right.

Love Will Tear Us Apart, Joy Division

If  Eleanor & Park had a tagline, it would be “Love will tear us apart.”

This is the song that Park gives Eleanor on their first mixed tape.

“It was awesome,” she said. “I didn’t want to stop listening. That one song – is it ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’?”

“Yeah, Joy Division.”

“Oh my God, that’s the best beginning to a song ever.”

He imitated the guitar and the drums.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said.  “I just wanted to listen to those three seconds over and over.”

“You could have.”  His eyes were smiling, his mouth only sort of.

“I didn’t want to waste the batteries,” she said.

He shook his head, like she was dumb.

“Plus,” she said, “I love the rest of it just as much, like the high part, the melody, the dahhh, dah-de-dah-dah, de-dahh, de dahhh.”

He nodded.

“And his voice at the end,” she said, “when he goes just a little bit too high…  And then the very end, where it sounds like the drums are fighting it, like they don’t want the song to be over …”

Park made drum noises with his mouth “ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch.”

“I just want to break that song into pieces,” she said, “and love them all to death.”

Under Your Thumb, The Vaccines 

Park definitely embraces the idea of Eleanor before Eleanor is comfortable with the idea of Park. For me, this song is Park wanting her to let go and loosen up — and this is Park just looking for an excuse to say her name.

The Morning of Our Lives, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers

After Park falls in love, all he wants to do is listen to pretty love songs.

Park played Elvis Costello for her – and Joe Jackson, and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.

She teased him because it was all so pretty and melodic, and “in the same phylum as Hall & Oates,” and he threatened to evict her from his room.

This song (and this video!) really, really get to me. I have a hard time living in the present; I tend to be anxious and twitchy, always feeling like I’m not ready for the future, or that I’m not enough for it. This is the song I need someone to write for me.

“Tell her it’s okay (it’s okay, it’s okay)
Tell her it’s all right (it’s all right, it’s all right)
And our time is now, we can do anything we really believe in.
Our time is now —  here in the morning of our lives.”

Androgynous, The Replacements

Neither Eleanor or Park is androgynous — but they definitely experiment with gender roles.

His mom sat on his bed. She looked like she’d had a long day. You could see her lipliner. She stared at a jumble of action figures piled up on the shelf over his bed — Park hadn’t touched them for years.

“Park,” she said, “do you . . . want to look like girl? Is that what this about? Eleanor dress like boy. You look like girl?”

“No . . .” Park said. “I just like it. I like the way it feels.”

“Like girl?”

“No,” he said. “Like myself.”

“Your dad …”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

I think I chose this song because it feels like Eleanor and Park, especially Park. It feels like two people who’ve chosen to be in love, damn the torpedoes.

Boys Don’t Cry, The Cure

For a while I had an all-Cure playlist for Park.

Robert Smith always gets called Goth — but the best Cure songs are about falling in love. They’re hopelessly romantic and hopefully romantic, and Robert Smith is The Man, no matter how much makeup he’s wearing. (Park’s patronus is totally Robert Smith.)  For me, this is the song that plays when Park and Eleanor fight, and Park can’t exactly figure out why.

“I’m not proposing,” he said. “I’m just saying … I love you.  And I can’t imagine stopping . . .”

She shook her head. “But you’re twelve.”

“I’m sixteen . . .” he said. “Bono was fifteen when he met his wife, and Robert Smith was fourteen . . .”

“Romeo, sweet Romeo . . .”

“It’s not like that, Eleanor, and you know it.”  Park’s arms were tight around her.  All the playfulness in his voice was gone.

“There’s no reason to think we’re going to stop loving each other,” he said.  “And there’s every reason to think that we won’t.”

Heavy Like Sunday, Leona Naess

The thing I loved about writing Park was that he really believes in love. His parents are still in love with each other, so he has every reason to believe that true love prevails. That’s not how my brain naturally works. My parents got divorced and remarried and divorced and remarried (not to each other), and I always approached love very skeptically, always expecting it to end. Park doesn’t have that expectation. It felt nice to spend time in his head.

“And friends make better lovers, 
‘Cause they look you in the eye
And they’ll put you in the middle . . .
Of a thousand whys.”

The Shining, Badly Drawn Boy

Another song for Park, trying to talk Eleanor out of the shadows.  I think of them sitting in the snow at night, in the doorway of the elementary school.

They were sitting against the back door of the school, in a little alcove where no one would see them unless they were really looking, and where the snow didn’t fall directly on their faces. They sat next to each other, facing each other, holding hands.

There was nothing between them now. Nothing stupid and selfish just taking up space.

“Now I’ve fallen in deep, slow silent sleep
It’s killing me, I’m dying – 
To put a little bit of sunshine in your life.”

Eleanor, Side B

Okay. I’m determined to write about this playlist without spoiling Eleanor & Park for you. But it’s going to be hard. Because this is Eleanor, Side B, and Side B is where things gets pretty intense in the book.

Two Dancers, Wild Beasts

It’s difficult, when you’re writing a very emotional scene, to maintain the same emotional energy and vibe the entire time you’re working on it. At the climax of Eleanor & Park, Eleanor feels hunted. Desperate. On the run. The scene took a long time to write, and I felt like my head had to be absolutely still while I was inside of it. Like I would just RUIN everything if I lost focus or shifted on my feet . . .

I listened to the album version of “Two Dancers” more than 200 times while I was writing — and even now, when I hear it, I feel like something horrible is after me.

“They dragged me by the ankles through the street,
They passed me round them like a piece of meat.” 

Kill With Me Tonight, Devlins

(The only video I could find for this song is an anime tribute video. But I’m kind of digging it.)

You know how the world feels different late at night? How you think things that you wouldn’t normally think, during the day?

When something goes wrong, really wrong, late at night — it’s hard to remember who you are anymore. What your normal rules are . . .

In my mind, this song plays while Eleanor and Park are talking in his grandparents’ RV.

“Your dad will kill you,” she said.

“No,” he said, “he’ll ground me.”

“For life.”

“Do you think I even care about that right now?” He held her face in his hands. “Do you think I care about anything but you?”

“Hold me close, I feel it coming,
Far away and out of sight,
Hold me close, I know it’s coming . . . changes to our lives
So kill with me tonight.”

Same Deep Water as You, The Cure

This song is NINE MINUTES LONG. And an acquired taste. And probably a stupid song to put on a playlist like this.

But if you let “Same Deep Water as You” into your head, it will lull you into an achy haze. Which is exactly right for Eleanor and Park, in his dad’s truck, both scared to say everything they want to.

I want to pull out every lyric from this song and say, “THIS! THIS IS THEM! OH MY GOD! THIS LINE! AND THIS ONE! UGH, DON’T EVEN READ MY BOOK — JUST LISTEN TO THIS SONG OVER AND OVER AGAIN. IT MEANS THE SAME THING.” But I’ll settle on . . .

“Kiss me goodbye, 
Pushing out before I sleep,
It’s lower now,
And slower now,
The strangest twist upon your lips.”

Bad, U2

Um, this might be weird . . .

This song isn’t really about Eleanor and Park. It’s about Eleanor and me.

Writing Eleanor & Park was a brutal experience. I’m not even sure why I did it – it’s not like me to do something like this. To write something like this.

Generally, I’m not a big fan of “harrowing.” If something is described as “harrowing,” I am not down with it. I’m not reading it, I’m not watching it, I don’t care if it wins a Pulitzer Prize.

But Eleanor & Park?

Kind of harrowing. A bit harrowing. It would be fair to describe certain chapters as fairly harrowing.

And I was miserable during those chapters.

“Bad” is on this playlist because it’s a song that got me though my own harrowing adolescence. And I needed it to get me through Eleanor’s.

“If I could, through myself, 
Set your spirit free —  
I’d lead your heart away, 
See you break, break away 
Into the light . . .
And to the day.”

Don’t Let Me Down, Bruner

It’s getting impossible not to talk in a spoilery way about these songs. Maybe you should stop reading  . . .

If you haven’t read Eleanor & Park yet, but you’re going to, please stop. Bookmark this page and come back or something.

This song flays me open. It’s completely unguarded. It’s what begging sounds like.

I’m not sure what Eleanor is begging Park for on their drive to St. Paul — understanding, maybe — but this is the noise she’s making.

This song is a Beatles cover, perhaps the best Beatles cover, by a woman named Linda Bruner. (The backstory is totally worth reading.) Her twist on the lyrics here makes all the difference:

“I guess nobody ever really loved me,
The way he done me,
He done me good. 
And if somebody ever really loved me,
Then he does me,
He does me good.” 

St. Swithin’s Day, Billy Bragg

When the movie One Day came out, I was sure this song would be on the soundtrack. (It’s an ’80s story that takes place on St. Swithin’s Day? COME ON.) Anyway, I was all defensive, like, “No, stop, don’t — that song is on Eleanor’s soundtrack.” But it didn’t end up mattering because they didn’t use it. Because they’re dumb.

(While I’m completely off topic, I’d like to observe that Billy Bragg is a stone-cold, weird-looking fox, and I want to make out with his accent here. And his posture. And his shirt.)

Anyway, in their last few scenes together, Eleanor begs Park for understanding — but she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t give enough to get it. (Now that I think about it, maybe this song should be on Park’s playlist . . .)

The album version of “St. Swithin’s Day” is more wistful, less angry, and I kept listening to it because it’s about the aftermath of a terrible good-bye.

“Thanks all the same,
But I just can’t bring myself to answer your letters,
It’s not your fault,
But your honesty touches me like a fire.”

My Love, Sia

One more wide-open, painful love song for Eleanor at the end of the book. Eleanor deciding to be vulnerable. Deciding that it’s better to love and to lose than to press her heart between the pages of a dictionary.

(Yes, I know this song was in the movie Eclipse. It totally worked there, too.)

“My love,
Leave yourself behind
Beat inside me,
Leave you blind.

Blackbird, The Beatles

This was always the last song on this playlist.

This was always the end of the book.

I know that some people think the end of Eleanor & Park is depressing. (And I know it feels a little bit like a truck hitting a brick wall.) But in my head, the ending was always hopeful. It was always about something broken finally breaking free.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”

Okay. I know that people have lots of Feelings and Opinions about Mumford and Sons, and maybe you’re sick to death of them. But the first time I saw this video, it hit me like a truck. I played “The Cave” to death when I was writing the scene where Park decides to help Eleanor escape. This song feels like someone forming a battle plan — I know, I will, I won’t, I need.

In this scene, Park is alone and determined to do what’s right for both of them. I think “The Cave” is probably about a breakup, but these lyrics still feel right . . .

“But I will hold on hope,
And I won’t let you choke
On the noose around your neck,
And I’ll find strength in pain,
And I will change my ways,
I’ll know my name as it’s called again.”

Eleanor and Park are in a truck — it’s the middle of the night, they’re driving through Iowa — and Park doesn’t know if he’ll ever see her again. Every nerve in his body is firing. His brain his shaking through his skull.

And Eleanor is asleep.

WTF, ELEANOR.

When I was writing this book , I wanted to capture how it feels to love someone. You love them with your head. And then you love them with everything else. When they’re with you, you vibrate. When they’re gone, you ache.

This song does both.

And God bless whoever wrote these lyrics because I love it when someone tries to describe a kiss and doesn’t care at all that there are no news ways left to describe one. “A thousand butterflies, from your lips to mine.”

(Also, THAT KEYBOARD BUILD at 2:09.  And THIS VIDEO. THE DANCING. THOSE FRECKLES.) (Here’s another great version.)

“Could
you wave
goodbye to sun?
The sea
the stars
the waves
the tide?
The wails inside
that life has died.
But all you need is a
kiss of life.”

My Invitation, Sarah Slean

I’ll never stop buying books.

For the purpose of this column, let’s define “books” as books, paper things with spines and pages.

(Real books have parts, they have heft, they exist.E-books simply are. E-books are practically ideas. Like those wisps of energy that Professor Dumbledore sucks from his brain with the tip of his wand.)

I know that an e-book is the same as a book in the abstract. In truth. And that reading is reading is reading.

But I’m not talking about truth right now. I’m talking about touch.

For the purpose of this column, “books” means books. And I’m never going to stop buying them.

Because when I love a book, I want to own it. I want to make it a part of my life. A part of my house. I want to be able to pull it off the shelf and show it to someone, or start re-reading it in the middle of the night.

And I don’t care what Apple or Amazon say, a digital library is not a library. You don’t really own those songs and books.

Routine software updates, for example, have wiped out my iTunes library; those music files are something I can carry and access only at Apple’s convenience. If I don’t keep buying new iProducts and updating and backing up, those songs will be lost to me.

I’m not willing to lose my favorite books the same way, to cloud storage. I don’t want to have to consult Google because I can’t get Watership Down to open — or because The Poisonwood Bible keeps timing out.

I love e-books. I love how light they are. How accessible. I love indulging my brain with the book it wants right this minute. But I’m still buying books; I’ll always buy books. What I won’t buy anymore are ugly books.

This is how e-books have actually changed my life (and how I think they’ll change the world):

I’ve started judging books by their covers.

Oh, I’ll still read exactly what I want to read. But if I’m going to buy a book, an actual book — if I’m going to bring it into my house and make space for it — it better be beautiful. It better justify its visual existence.

By freeing the book from its binding, e-readers have drawn attention to how physical books are.

They’re objects. (They take up a lot of space, they collect dust, they’re hard to move. Your husband keeps sneaking boxes of them up to the attic.) They’re just another thing, and your house is already too full of things — why bring a book home unless it’s going to add something?

Science fiction movies and TV shows always portray the home of the future as sleek and clutter-free.

The thinking seems to be, if you could store everything on a handheld device — books, music, your family photos, games, bills, clocks, calendars, notes, love letters — why would you ever need shelving?

But I think these predictions were wrong. (You were wrong, Gene Roddenberry!)

I think that as everything we need becomes digital, practically invisible, the things we bring into our home will be more about want.

More about beauty, more about choice.

A few weeks ago, I couldn’t find my copy of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. (It’s probably in a box up in the attic.) It’s still in print, but the current cover looks like it’s for a straight-to-video movie — and not even one starring Ralph Macchio.

So instead of buying it, I went on eBay and found a nice-looking hardback from the ’70s.

I still have room in my life for The Outsiders. I still have room for books. But now I expect the packaging to live up to its contents.

If you’re going to make something, a real something, why wouldn’t you make it beautiful?

This piece was originally printed in The Omaha World-Herald on January 15, 2012.

If You’ve Got Mail had a sequel, it would be all about Meg Ryan comforting Tom Hanks while his chain of superstores went bankrupt.

I wish I knew what she would say — I could use some comforting. This has been a tough week for people who love books.

Not for people who love reading. Reading is alive and well …

But if you love books — real, touchable, smellable, page-turnable books — it was a painful blow to hear that Borders would be closing all of its book supercenters, including three popular Omaha-area stores.

I thought immediately of the small bookstores Borders helped crush a decade ago.

Those deaths seemed so inevitable at the time. Remember Hanks’ character in the big-box romantic comedy, You’ve Got Mail?

“We are going to seduce them. We’re going to seduce them with our square footage, and our discounts, and our deep armchairs … We’re going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants.”

How could the Little Professor compete with that?

Ironically, Borders’s demise now feels just as inevitable. …

How could Borders compete with the deep discounts, deep armchairs and stimulants of all kinds that you can find in your own home? It was death by wearing pajamas/drinking Baileys/shopping for books at 3 a.m.

Conventional wisdom says that Borders died because it couldn’t get the Internet right. Borders doesn’t have a great online shop or its own e-reader. . . A brick-and-mortar bookstore can’t stay alive these days just by selling ink-and-paper books.

Back when the independents died (not all of them — never surrender, Bookworm!), it didn’t feel like a threat to books themselves.

Book lovers could still surround themselves with books — more books than ever — at the nearest Barnes & Noble. (Which was also the first Omaha Starbucks. So alluring. When Barnes & Noble opened, it was like having a dangerous new boyfriend.)

But the death of Borders feels like a mortal wound to books themselves. If a bookstore can’t stay alive by selling lots of cheap books, what does that say about books?

“I haven’t been in a bookstore since I got my Kindle for Christmas.”

My editor said that Wednesday when I was pitching this column, and it sent a chill up my spine.

I wasn’t going to argue with her — there’s no fighting awesome technology. I have a Kindle, too, and it’s fantastic. I wish I could find my charger, but it’s still fantastic, especially when I’m traveling or when I desperately want to buy a sequel in the middle of the night.

But I would still rather read a book.

I’ve had too many laptops and memory cards and mobile phones fail over the years to trust e-books . . . I like the convenience of digital, but I want the permanence of real books. I want to know that my books are there for me absolutely, always, barring fire or water damage.

Even when I buy an e-book, if I end up loving it, I buy the hard copy, too. So I can have it. So it can be a part of my life from now on. This is also why I still print all my photos; the digital world is lovely, but I want the red pill, not the blue one.

I hate to think of a world where I don’t have that option.

Do you remember that Twilight Zone episode where the book lover lives through the H-bomb and then breaks his glasses in the library? “Time Enough at Last,” it was called.

That show is the reason I want to have laser eye surgery.

Whenever I think about my life falling apart, I think (really, I think this), “Well, at least I’ll be able to read. I might be an unemployed shut-in, but at least I’ll have books.”

My fallback plan depends on the existence and survival of books.

Not e-books. If that Twilight Zone episode were to be made today, the protagonist would have a Kindle and nowhere to plug it in.

Here’s what I’m really hoping now …

I’m not glad that Borders failed; I’m especially sad for all the wonderful people who worked there.

But I’m hoping that we really miss it. I’m hoping that it reminds us how much we like bookstores — and how much we really, really appreciate booksellers.

In my You’ve Got Mail sequel, Meg Ryan lovingly comforts Tom Hanks — then decides to reopen The Shop Around the Corner.

Because the one thing Amazon can’t beat a brick-and-mortar store on is humanity.

There is still nothing like standing in a room full of books, talking to another human being who loves them as much as you do.

This piece was originally printed in The Omaha World-Herald on July 23, 2011.

A Washington doctor has concluded what hard-core readers have known all along: Reading makes you sick.

Well, of course it does. Any one of us bespectacled hunchbacks could have told you that.

Pediatrician Howard J. Bennett says he saw three young patients this summer who experienced headaches after reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for hours at a time.

Headaches. Ha! Get used to it, hatchlings. If you’re in this for life – and if you’ve read five massive Harry Potter books already, you’re hooked — the suffering has only begun.

Let video game addicts complain about sore thumbs and seeing digital ninjas even after they’ve closed their eyes. Let television watchers whine about their glazed and vacant stares.

You’re in for much worse.

There will be headaches, all sorts of headaches.

From hours of squinting. From cocking your head in your hand when your neck is too tired to hold it up. From the blood rushing to your head while you hang off your bunk bed to catch the light from the bathroom after your mother has ordered you for the last time to go to sleep.

Have you had that moment yet when you look up from your book and realize your eyes have forgotten how to focus beyond sixteen inches? How long before you become the only person in your family to need glasses? (Fifth grade, I’m guessing.)

Reading is bad for your posture. Curl up with enough good books, and you won’t easily straighten.

It’s bad on your figure. Watching TV isn’t the only thing you do on a couch. But you’re just as likely to become malnourished. Any writer worth her salt can make you forget to eat.

Or forget to sleep — or just decide not to. At 2 in the morning, you’ll come to a crossroads: Is it more important to find out what happens to Garp after his mother dies? Or is it more important to be lucid and functioning tomorrow at work?

Your husband — if you’ve found one who can stand your reading cereal boxes while he’s talking at the breakfast table — will learn to fall asleep with the light on. He’ll tell you that the book will still be there in the morning, but you won’t listen.

There will be exhaustion. And nausea (reading in the car). And numbness (reading too long with your legs crossed).

That’s all kids’ stuff. Reading’s assault on the body is mild compared with its long-term threat to the mind.

The social implications are dire. How old are you, child? Ten? Eleven? Don’t you prefer Ron and Hermione to your other friends? Your “real” ones?

Have you met Ramona yet? And Harriet? Lucy and Pippi and Superfudge?

You will never have a friend as true as Anne with an “e.” Or a dog as loyal as Ribsy. And if you read Pride and Prejudice before high school, you’ll be ruined for boys until college.

Everything is better in books. And only a fool would rather live than read. Living is what you promise yourself you’ll do after the next chapter.

You will read instead of clean. Read instead of study. Read instead of write.

You might pat yourself on the back for all that reading. You might take pride in your swollen vocabulary. But only English professors reward you for using words that only English professors understand.

I’ve saved the worst for last.

The worst is the fear and the paranoia. The pit you find at the end of your favorite books.

The richer the read, the greater the pain that waits on the last page. Just try to fall asleep when all you can think is: What if this was the best one? What if it’s all downhill from here?

What if I run out of books?

This piece was originally printed in The Omaha World-Herald on November 3, 2003.

It’s not enough that your kids learn to read. You want them to love to read.

It’s the love of reading that’s linked to success and happiness — to better education, better jobs and fewer cavities. The more kids read, the better they do, period. So it’s your job, as a parent, to make them love it . . .

Except you can’t really make anyone love anything.

All you can really do is read to them and read around them, and hope that reading is like chicken pox, that they’ll eventually succumb to it with enough exposure.

I have mixed feelings about all this. Obviously.

On the one hand, I believe that reading is fundamentally a good thing — maybe even the ultimate good thing.

On the other, I think that pushing your kids to read is sort of like pushing them to play with matches.

Reading is at least as dangerous as it is useful. At least. If you love to read — really, truly love to read — it’s more like having an addiction than a superpower.

I’m sure it helps on standardized tests and job applications. I’m sure it makes you more thoughtful, more strategic, more compassionate . . .

I’m sure that, in a way, reading sets you free.

But it also untethers you from the real world. People who fall in love with books never really stop falling.

Obviously, again, I’m speaking from experience. I have a . . . problem with reading.

Everyone but my husband, and maybe my mother, will read that sentence and think that I’m exaggerating or trying to be provocative.

I’m not.

I can’t stop reading. It’s always been this way. When I was a kid, I’d read in the dark. (That might be why I’m the only one in the family with glasses.) I’d read at the table. I’d read at recess. I’d read in the car right up until the moment that I was going to be sick.

And I read even more now, now that I’m an adult and nobody can tell me to stop.

If I’m late to meet you somewhere, you should just assume that I was reading in the car.

If I show up wrinkled with my hair in a ponytail, it’s because I read straight through the time I gave myself to shower.

I read instead of clean. I read instead of sleep. I read instead of write.

If I’m not reading (I do make a special effort with my husband and my kids), I’m still thinking about reading. I’m still feeling the loss of it. And I live — if not in fear — in anxiety that I’m going to be stuck someplace without a book. I pack books for vacation the way other people pack prescription drugs.

As far as I can tell, at this point in my life, reading is far more destructive than it is beneficial. It’s passive. It’s unproductive. Self-centered. Completely anti-social. If you’re a good reader (and I am an excellent reader), you can make yourself disappear in any situation.

Reading is escape.

Reading is running away.

If you love to read — really, really love to read — you never quite feel full. You never feel like the contents of your own head are enough. You’re always on a quest for new and more.

And nobody stops you. Nobody says, “You should really rein in all that reading.”

Reading is like Mother Teresa or breastfeeding. Untouchable. Unassailable. If you’re a kid with a reading problem, people pin awards on you. If you’re an adult, they pretend to be impressed.

But nobody tells you to stop.

I can at least make a living this way. Sometimes it feels like writing is just a side effect of reading. Word poisoning. Like my brain is so saturated with words that it’s sloughing off phrases just to make room.

Sometimes I worry that I’m not really living. That I’m spending as much time in secondhand lives than I am in the real thing. Sometimes, when I’m tired, the written word tips blearily into the real one, and I forget that no one around me knows where I’ve been.

So . . .

This is what I’m supposed to want for my kids, right? That they love reading? That something catches fire inside of them?

I’m doing my best. I set the table with books; I paper the walls with them. But sometimes I think that my sons would be better off . . . free.

Once a kid realizes that every book is a doorway into a new world, what incentive does he have to come back?

This piece was originally printed in The Omaha World-Herald on Sept. 25, 2011.

NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE, Neil Young

The first draft of this book was mostly written over the summer of 2010, and it was written in a very intense WHOOSH. It felt more like exhaling than writing. And then I moved on to the next thing. (I’ve written two books since then; Eleanor and Park seem like my high school friends now.)

But writing about these playlists took me back to them, to that summer, to what I was trying or not trying to accomplish — I feel like I can explain things now, about this book, that I couldn’t explain when I was writing it.

And this exercise made me more sure than ever that I need to write the sequel. I actually started plotting the sequel while I was writing E&P. (My agent, who is also my friend, accused me of writing my own fan fiction.) I’m not sure who’ll want to read or buy that sequel — it’d be set 10 or 15 years later, and probably have a whole different vibe — but I’m sure I need to write it.

OKAY. Personal reflection and growth over. On to the last playlist!

These playlists were built like mixed tapes, with an A and B side for each character.

Here are the blog entries on Eleanor Side A and Side B; and Park, Side A.

Or you can skip the reading and:

Listen to Eleanor, Side A  and Eleanor, Side B on Spotify.
Listen to Park, Side A and Park, Side B on Spotify.

Purchase Eleanor, Side A and Eleanor, Side B on iTunes.
Purchase Park, Side A and Park, Side B on iTunes.

Okay. I know that people have lots of Feelings and Opinions about Mumford and Sons, and maybe you’re sick to death of them. But the first time I saw this video, it hit me like a truck. I played “The Cave” to death when I was writing the scene where Park decides to help Eleanor escape. This song feels like someone forming a battle plan — I know, I will, I won’t, I need.

In this scene, Park is alone and determined to do what’s right for both of them. I think “The Cave” is probably about a breakup, but these lyrics still feel right . . .

“But I will hold on hope,
And I won’t let you choke
On the noose around your neck,
And I’ll find strength in pain,
And I will change my ways,
I’ll know my name as it’s called again.”

Eleanor and Park are in a truck — it’s the middle of the night, they’re driving through Iowa — and Park doesn’t know if he’ll ever see her again. Every nerve in his body is firing. His brain his shaking through his skull.

And Eleanor is asleep.

WTF, ELEANOR.

When I was writing this book , I wanted to capture how it feels to love someone. You love them with your head. And then you love them with everything else. When they’re with you, you vibrate. When they’re gone, you ache.

This song does both.

And God bless whoever wrote these lyrics because I love it when someone tries to describe a kiss and doesn’t care at all that there are no news ways left to describe one. “A thousand butterflies, from your lips to mine.”

(Also, THAT KEYBOARD BUILD at 2:09.  And THIS VIDEO. THE DANCING. THOSE FRECKLES.) (Here’s another great version.)

“Could
you wave
goodbye to sun?
The sea
the stars
the waves
the tide?
The wails inside
that life has died.
But all you need is a
kiss of life.”

My Invitation, Sarah Slean

To recap:

I always make playlists when I’m writing a book. And I take them really seriously. I soundtrack the scenes as I’m writing them, and often use specific songs to help me maintain the same tone in a scene that might take me days or even weeks to write.

Which means some songs get played A LOT while I’m writing. Check out these playcounts . . .

With Eleanor & Park, which takes place in 1986, I made mixed tape playlists for each character. (Cute, right?) So each character got a Side A and a Side B.

You can read about Eleanor, Side A here.
And Park, Side A here and Side B here.

Or you can skip the reading and:

Listen to Eleanor, Side A  and Eleanor, Side B on Spotify.
Listen to Park, Side A and Park, Side B on Spotify.

Purchase Eleanor, Side A and Eleanor, Side B on iTunes.
Purchase Park, Side A and Park, Side B on iTunes

All my other playlists are on my Spotify profile, too. For Attachments – and for Fangirl.

All right. Eleanor Side B — y’all ready for this?

Eleanor, Side B

Two Dancers, Wild Beasts

It’s difficult, when you’re writing a very emotional scene, to maintain the same emotional energy and vibe the entire time you’re working on it. At the climax of Eleanor & Park, Eleanor feels hunted. Desperate. On the run. The scene took a long time to write, and I felt like my head had to be absolutely still while I was inside of it. Like I would just RUIN everything if I lost focus or shifted on my feet . . .

I listened to the album version of “Two Dancers” more than 200 times while I was writing — and even now, when I hear it, I feel like something horrible is after me.

“They dragged me by the ankles through the street,
They passed me round them like a piece of meat.” 

Kill With Me Tonight, Devlins

(The only video I could find for this song is an anime tribute video. But I’m kind of digging it.)

You know how the world feels different late at night? How you think things that you wouldn’t normally think, during the day?

When something goes wrong, really wrong, late at night — it’s hard to remember who you are anymore. What your normal rules are . . .

In my mind, this song plays while Eleanor and Park are talking in his grandparents’ RV.

“Your dad will kill you,” she said.

“No,” he said, “he’ll ground me.”

“For life.”

“Do you think I even care about that right now?” He held her face in his hands. “Do you think I care about anything but you?”

“Hold me close, I feel it coming,
Far away and out of sight,
Hold me close, I know it’s coming . . . changes to our lives
So kill with me tonight.”

Same Deep Water as You, The Cure

This song is NINE MINUTES LONG. And an acquired taste. And probably a stupid song to put on a playlist like this.

But if you let “Same Deep Water as You” into your head, it will lull you into an achy haze. Which is exactly right for Eleanor and Park, in his dad’s truck, both scared to say everything they want to.

I want to pull out every lyric from this song and say, “THIS! THIS IS THEM! OH MY GOD! THIS LINE! AND THIS ONE! UGH, DON’T EVEN READ MY BOOK — JUST LISTEN TO THIS SONG OVER AND OVER AGAIN. IT MEANS THE SAME THING.” But I’ll settle on . . .

“Kiss me goodbye, 
Pushing out before I sleep,
It’s lower now,
And slower now,
The strangest twist upon your lips.”

Bad, U2

Um, this might be weird . . .

This song isn’t really about Eleanor and Park. It’s about Eleanor and me.

Writing Eleanor & Park was a brutal experience. I’m not even sure why I did it – it’s not like me to do something like this. To write something like this.

Generally, I’m not a big fan of “harrowing.” If something is described as “harrowing,” I am not down with it. I’m not reading it, I’m not watching it, I don’t care if it wins a Pulitzer Prize.

But Eleanor & Park?

Kind of harrowing. A bit harrowing. It would be fair to describe certain chapters as fairly harrowing.

And I was miserable during those chapters.

“Bad” is on this playlist because it’s a song that got me though my own harrowing adolescence. And I needed it to get me through Eleanor’s.

“If I could, through myself, 
Set your spirit free —  
I’d lead your heart away, 
See you break, break away 
Into the light . . .
And to the day.”

Don’t Let Me Down, Bruner

It’s getting impossible not to talk in a spoilery way about these songs. Maybe you should stop reading  . . .

If you haven’t read Eleanor & Park yet, but you’re going to, please stop. Bookmark this page and come back or something.

This song flays me open. It’s completely unguarded. It’s what begging sounds like.

I’m not sure what Eleanor is begging Park for on their drive to St. Paul — understanding, maybe — but this is the noise she’s making.

This song is a Beatles cover, perhaps the best Beatles cover, by a woman named Linda Bruner. (The backstory is totally worth reading.) Her twist on the lyrics here makes all the difference:

“I guess nobody ever really loved me,
The way he done me,
He done me good. 
And if somebody ever really loved me,
Then he does me,
He does me good.” 

St. Swithin’s Day, Billy Bragg

When the movie One Day came out, I was sure this song would be on the soundtrack. (It’s an ’80s story that takes place on St. Swithin’s Day? COME ON.) Anyway, I was all defensive, like, “No, stop, don’t — that song is on Eleanor’s soundtrack.” But it didn’t end up mattering because they didn’t use it. Because they’re dumb.

(While I’m completely off topic, I’d like to observe that Billy Bragg is a stone-cold, weird-looking fox, and I want to make out with his accent here. And his posture. And his shirt.)

Anyway, in their last few scenes together, Eleanor begs Park for understanding — but she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t give enough to get it. (Now that I think about it, maybe this song should be on Park’s playlist . . .)

The album version of “St. Swithin’s Day” is more wistful, less angry, and I kept listening to it because it’s about the aftermath of a terrible good-bye.

“Thanks all the same,
But I just can’t bring myself to answer your letters,
It’s not your fault,
But your honesty touches me like a fire.”

My Love, Sia

One more wide-open, painful love song for Eleanor at the end of the book. Eleanor deciding to be vulnerable. Deciding that it’s better to love and to lose than to press her heart between the pages of a dictionary.

(Yes, I know this song was in the movie Eclipse. It totally worked there, too.)

“My love,
Leave yourself behind
Beat inside me,
Leave you blind.

Blackbird, The Beatles

This was always the last song on this playlist.

This was always the end of the book.

I know that some people think the end of Eleanor & Park is depressing. (And I know it feels a little bit like a truck hitting a brick wall.) But in my head, the ending was always hopeful. It was always about something broken finally breaking free.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”

There’s only one more of these playlists left – Park Side B. Writing about Eleanor, with all of her murk and shadow, always-always makes me look forward to writing about Park.

That’s why he gets the last word.