Rainbow Rowell's Blog, page 7

Is Eleanor fat? Or does Eleanor just THINK she’s fat?

Eleanor is fat.

Eleanor also thinks she’s fat.

She probably isn’t as fat as she thinks she is …

And she definitely isn’t as disgusting as she thinks she is. She isn’t disgusting at all.

This question —Eleanor isn’t really fat, is she?— comes up fairly regularly for me. And sometimes (not always!), I feel like people expect me to reassure them:

“Don’t worry. Eleanor isn’treally fat. You weren’t imagining a fat person making out in the back of a car; that would be gross. She’s actually just curvy. L...

New book coming next year — LANDLINE!

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 S...

Win a copy of the ‘Eleanor & Park’ audiobook.

I didn’t plan to listen theEleanor & Parkaudiobook.

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 theAttachments 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 Malhot...

Why is Park Korean?

“Why is Park Korean?”

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...

Why is Park Korean?

“Why is Park Korean?”

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.

Eleanor & Park — All the playlists! All the music!

So, when I start a new book, I start a new playlist, too, and I work on them concurrently. With Eleanor & Park,  the playlists took the shape of mixed tapes for each character. (Because 1986.) (And because I like to overdo things.) So I ended up with four playlists — two mixed tapes with two sides each.

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

All my other playlists are on Spotify, 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.)

Okay, that’s it for now. Next time, I’ll do Park, Side A. And it will be a lot more upbeat than this.

UPDATE: Park, Side A is posted.

And also Eleanor, Side B.  With Beatles songs and reluctant spoilers!

And finally Park, Side B. Which includes Reflections from the Author

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 fairlyharrowing.

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.”

Park, Side B

I end the book with Park.

Writing Park (whom I was more than half in love with) always felt lighter and more hopeful than writing Eleanor (whom I was also half in love with). So it’s fitting to let him have the last note, too.

I’m past being able to talk about these playlists without spoiling the story. So consider this your MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT.

The Cave, Mumford and Sons

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.”

Kiss of Life, Friendly Fires

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

So, yeah, I only know this song because Pacey and Joey danced to it at prom (AND OH MY  GOD, BEST FICTIONAL PROM DANCE).

Eleanor and Park. Still in the truck. Parked somewhere. Possibly Albert Lea, Minnesota. How do you tell someone that you love them? And how do you tell them good-bye?

Every single word of this song is worth writing on your algebra book, but especially:

“You are what they call the human season,
You are all the alphabet in one,
You are every colour of confusion,
You are all the silence I’ve become.”

Falling Slowly, The Swell Season

What do you mean this song has become a total cliché? And that of course I’m using it on my playlist because everybody uses it on their playlists?

Eleanor and Park in a truck, heading north from Albert Lea, Minnesota. And there’s nothing worth saying anymore.

“Take this sinking boat, and point it home,
We’ve still got time.
Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice
You’ll make it now.”

Once I Was, Tim Buckley

So now we’re getting to the point in the book where it’s all-Park, all-time. As Eleanor leaves his life, she leaves the book, too.

There’s this idea that women don’t need men to save them. That it’s anti-feminist to want to be rescued . . . but I think people who love each other rescue each other over and over again. I think that Park saves Eleanor’s life — and that Eleanor makes Park’s life worth living. And that it’s OKAY to want to be a knight in shining armor. Because sometimes we need that guy. (Or girl.)

There’s no such thing as handsome princes, she told herself.

There’s no such thing as happily ever after.

She looked up at Park. Into his golden green eyes.

You saved my life, she tried to tell him. Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I’m yours. The me that’s me right now is yours. Always.

This song is Park’s song, on the way back to Omaha. He wants to be everything for Eleanor. But everything he’s tried to be has already been.

“Once I was a soldier, 
And I fought on foreign sands for you. 
Once I was a hunter, 
And I brought home fresh meat for you. 
Once I was a lover,
And I searched behind your eyes for you.”

(P.S. Tim Buckley is Jeff Buckley’s dad. They both died tragically young. If this cover by Jeff Buckley doesn’t break your heart, it’s the proof you’ve been waiting for that you are indeed a robot.)

Wichita Lineman, Glen Campbell

And now we arrive at the best love song ever written.

Park, waiting in Omaha for a letter. For a phone call. For something.

“And I need you more than want you.
And I want you for all time.”

Roslyn, Bon Iver & St. Vincent

But Eleanor doesn’t write. And Eleanor doesn’t call.

WTF, ELEANOR.

This song makes me feel like my skin is stretched too thin and too tight. The lyrics, like most Bon Iver lyrics, are a big ball of ? for me. But THE WAY IT FEELS.

He kept writing her letters months after he stopped sending them. On New Year’s Day, he wrote that he hoped she’d get everything she ever wished for. Then he tossed the letter into a box under his bed.

“Wings wouldn’t help you . . .
Wings wouldn’t help you down.”

I’m a Better Man, David McAlmont

Probably the worst thing anyone ever said to me about this book is: “I get why Eleanor loves Park. But what’s in it for Park? What does he get out of this relationship?”

First, I took off my rings.

Then I shouted, “LOVE!”

You don’t love someone because there’s something in it for you. You love someone because you can’t help it. And because of who you are when you’re with that person. Love is transformational. Park is more Park with Eleanor. Loving her brushes the earth off his bones.

If you’ve read this far into this post, I hope you’ve read the book. (Because spoilers.) And if you’ve read the book, you know that the ending isn’t clean and neat and wholly happy. But Eleanor and Park are both transformed by their love for each other. They are saved. They are new.

What does Park get out of loving Eleanor?

EVERYTHING.

“If I could catch a star before it touched the ground,
I’d place it in a box, tie ribbons all around – 
And then I’d offer it to you, 
A token of my love and deep devotion.
The world’s a better place,
With you to turn to.
I’m a better man,
For having loved you.

And now, at last, I face the future unafraid, 
With you here by my side, how fast the shadows fade – 
And there is hope inside my heart,
Cause I have something wonderful to live for.
The world’s a better place,
With you to turn to.
I’m a better man,
For having loved you.

And as I am today,
That’s how I’ll always stay.
A better man for having loved you,
A better man for having loved you.”

Eleanor & Park — All the playlists! All the music!

So, when I start a new book, I start a new playlist, too, and I work on them concurrently. WithEleanor & Park,the playlists took the shape of mixed tapes for each character. (Because 1986.) (And because I like to overdo things.) So I ended up with four playlists — two mixed tapes with two sides each.

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

Eleano...

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