I’m working on the second Coventry book now, and it’s been really hard to let go of TJB5 When You Don’t See Me, just as I predicted would happen. I think I had mentioned that, similarly to the way I listened to George Michael during the writing of I’m Your Man and R.E.M. and U2 when we were working on Three Fortunes in One Cookie, my part of this newest novel was written to the tunes of the Pet Shop Boys. I ended up with a LOT of PSB in my iTunes library (thanks, Tim!), and now, whenever one of the songs plays, I find that my hands get still on the keyboard, my eyes glaze over, and those characters come back to reenact scenes on my monitor like I’ve got a camera pointed at their lives. I miss them.
We used Pet Shop Boys’ song titles for the chapter titles in the new novel. Not all of them are available on iTunes, but maybe Tim can do one of those groovy playlists (I can’t figure out how). But these are the titles, if you’re interested. The songs themselves will always evoke (for me) the many emotions our narrator experiences over the course of the novel.
Chapter 1 New York City Boy
Chapter 2 A Man Could Get Arrested
Chapter 3 The Sodom and Gomorrah Show
Chapter 4 Nervously
Chapter 5 It Always Comes as a Surprise
Chapter 6 Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)
Chapter 7 Do I Have To?
Chapter 8 Bet She’s Not Your Girlfriend
Chapter 9 Only the Wind
Chapter 10 Young Offender
Chapter 11 It Couldn’t Happen Here
Chapter 12 Tonight Is Forever
Chapter 13 We All Feel Better in the Dark
Chapter 14 My October Symphony
Chapter 15 It’s a Sin
Chapter 16 Happiness Is an Option
Chapter 17 A New Life
Chapter 18 Here
