“Each of my novels has been unlocked by a song. Early on in the first draft I’ll hear a song—often one I’ve already known for a while—and there’ll be a sort of clicking into place, a physical sensation, and just like that I’ll have a much deeper understanding of a character or of the book as a whole.

For The Revolution of Every Day it was ‘Stevie Nix’ by The Hold Steady. For my new one, it’s ‘This Tornado Loves You’ by Neko Case. I love that, the way art feeds art. A conversation, all of us in it together.”
—Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day (Tin House Books, 2013)