Kathryn has taken my own embryonic lyrics, composed in response to Cass’s feelings and experiences—her attempts to make some sort of sense of her life, as all artists, in their various ways, try to do—and turned them into songs. We’ve cried together, drunk wine together, and laughed a lot. And, bit by bit, we’ve come up with a body of music that sits somewhere between the songs that Cass Wheeler, in my imagination, actually produced, and Kathryn’s own interpretation of them: for Kathryn’s own experiences as a musician, as an artist, and as a mother, wife, and daughter, have of course also been brought to bear.
In October 2016, Kathryn and I spent several days holed up together in a house in Durham with a group of other novelists, poets, and musicians: a retreat, organised by the Durham Book Festival, aimed at sparking more of the crossover collaborations Kathryn and I had already embarked on. As a writer accustomed to sitting alone in my study rather than to working creatively with others, it was, without exaggeration, a life-changing experience for me. I felt vulnerable, I felt raw, I felt exposed—and I have rarely felt more alive. That description could stand, too, for the whole experience of working with Kathryn.
Kathryn’s album, Songs from the Novel Greatest Hits, is, then, both for those who have read, or would like to read, this novel; and for those who know Kathryn’s music, or would like to know it; and for anyone who is interested in music, or in literature, or in the rarely-explored borderlands between the two.
It is produced by Romeo Stodart, of the band The Magic Numbers—a man of great charm and astonishing musicianship. Romeo has also, along with singer-songwriters Michele Stodart and Polly Paulusma, contributed lyrics to several songs. I am grateful to everyone for their belief in this project, and above all to Kathryn, who provided a soundtrack to my life all those years ago—and has now done so again, both for me and for my character, Cass Wheeler.
LB
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Barnett is an author, arts journalist, and theater critic. Her first book, Versions of Us, was a number-one best seller, and her award-winning short stories have been published in The Guardian, S (The Sunday Express), Stylist, and Read It Forward, and performed on BBC Radio 4. In 2017 she gave a Ted Talk on Originality in Fiction. She lives in London.
Greatest Hits Page 43