The Wire | Melanie Finn's playlist for The Gloaming
Melanie Finn contributed a playlist to Largehearted Boy's "Book Notes" series, where authors write playlists to accompany their books. Here is Finn's explanation for a song on her playlist:
"In 2000, traveling through the highlands of Ethiopia, I was stranded in a crumby little town for two days. It was raining, the streets turned to knee-high mud, I had food-poisoning and was covered in flea bites, there was nothing to eat but curd and xxxx. However, there was a bar, and I would nurse a beer through the afternoon, watching the rain, waiting to hear news of the bus. The theme song from The Titantic was playing over and over again, each hour like a musical Groundhog Day – only nothing changed. I had nothing to read, I was watching mold grow slowly up the walls. Then, the bartender put on Fast Car, and Chapman's strong, clear voice commandeered the molecules in the air. In The Gloaming I had originally written that this was often playing in the bar of the Goodnight Bar ad Inn; I saw the yearning of those trapped in Magulu, their belief that somewhere, anywhere, was better than here. Drinking in a bar is a way to be elsewhere, to be someone else. I saw Gladness's customers telling themselves stories of the alternate universe they may inhabit, while knowing, in the marrow of their bones, they would never get out."
The Gloaming, Finn's second and newest novel, is now available.
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