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largehearted boy: a literature & music blog About LHB Largehearted Boy is a literature and music website that explores that spot in the Venn diagram where the two arts overlap. Support Largehearted Boy Regular features include: Antiheroines Atomic Books Comics Preview Book Notes (2018- ) Book Notes (2015- 2017) Book Notes (2012-2014) Book Notes (2005-2011) Flash Dancers: Ekphrastic Singles Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week Lists musician/author Interviews Note Books Soundtracked Spread the Word About about largehearted boy Contact e-mail twitter facebook Mailing Address my wishlist Syndicate RSS feed Search Search Largehearted Boy On The Turntable Largehearted Lists Favorite Novels of 2019 Favorite Short Story Collections of 2019 Favorite Baseball Books Favorite Graphic Novels Favorite Hockey Books Favorite Xmas Albums Participatory Goodreads LHB Erector Set Logo: Philip Szostak Privacy Policy Archives Select a Month... 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October 9, 2020 Christiane Vadnais's Playlist for Her Novel "Fauna" 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. Christiane Vadnais's novel Fauna is a dazzling collection of linked stories. An auspicious debut. Publishers Weekly wrote of the book: "Vadnais’s exciting debut immerses the reader into the dreamy and menacing near-future world of Shivering Heights, a flooded wilderness in the twilight of the human race. ... The sumptuous imagery and limpid atmosphere forms a dizzying picture of a world after human existence. This dark, sensual novel invites the reader to imagine nature thriving in the toxic aftermath of human domination, and makes for an essential addition to the recent crop of eco-fiction." In her own words, here is Christiane Vadnais's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Fauna : In Fauna , we follow a biologist, Laura, through a world thrown off-kilter by environmental crisis. The feel is gothic, between fairy tales and anthropocene imaginary. As Laura pursues scientific experiments to understand a mysterious parasite, our point of view shifts, lingering on humans and animals and the landscape itself. Nothing is immune from the violent transformations or the unnerving power of nature. Writing Fauna was a cinematic experience. I could see the action unfolding as I wrote. That’s likely why this playlist skews toward instrumental pieces. The book is not just Laura’s story: it encompasses an entire world, alive and writhing in its organic splendor and climactic shifts, a pendulum swinging between birth and devouring that will come to rest in a new balance between humanity and nature. Fauna is a set of ten linked fictions. I’ve chosen a song for each that I feel represents its spirit. DILUVIUM / Riders on the storm, The Doors Like the song, Fauna opens with a storm. It is haunted by water and a character with obscure intentions. In the Doors song, a killer is driving through the rain. We feel a dark, ironic joy in in the chord changes and the rhythm – an ambiance that, like certain passages of “Diluvium,” sets the tone for a pre-apocalyptic story to come. CREATURAE / I got the juice, Janelle Monáe feat. Pharell Williams Okay, maybe I just love Janelle Monáe too much to leave her off my playlist. I can’t get enough of her energy, her eclecticism. But the funk stylings on this track are also a perfect fit for the unfettered, unconventional love scene that awaits Laura when she visits a village built from flotsam and jetsam in the middle of a lake. Here she meets Thomas, a man adapting to his lacustrine environment in surprising ways. PANTHERA LEO / Koyaanisqatsi, Philip Glass This tone poem was composed for Godfrey Reggio’s 1982 experimental film, Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance , which depicts the astounding variety and amplitude of our physical world. I feel affinities with the film’s formal approach, and its ambition to recast the spatio-temporal perspective and see the inhabited world in one large sweep. The shivering pulse of the organ and choir would not be out of place in a lion’s den, which as it happens is where the story finds Laura, working as a zookeeper when she is visited by a strange couple who have set out on an ill-advised mission. VIVARIUM / Fleuve No. 1, Flore laurentienne This piece’s wavelike movement and tidal rhythms convey nostalgia for the submarine world that has engulfed Thomas, Laura’s erstwhile lover, in her absence. I see swaying seaweed, currents, the shimmer of sunlight on water. (The group’s name, “Flore laurentienne,” is taken from a seminal work of botany by Marie Victorin, who surveyed the flora of the St. Lawrence River Valley.) IN VIVO / Eternal Return, Sunn O))) + Ulver My boyfriend took me to a Sun O))) show in Montreal, and it was a revelation. I could feel the music thrumming in my...