TEETH Teaser, shall we?

how about the first chapter? 

---

At night, the ocean is so loud and so close that I lie awake, sure it's going to beat against the house's supports until we all crumble onto the rocks and break into pieces. Our house is creaky, gray, weather-stained. It's probably held a dozen desperate families who found their cure and left before we'd even heard about this island.

We are a groan away from a watery death, and we'll all drown without even waking up, because we're so used to sleeping through unrelenting noise.

Sometimes I draw. Usually I keep as still as I can. I worry any movement from me will push us over the edge. I don't even want to blink.

I feel the crashing building. I always do. I lie in bed with my eyes open and focus on a peak in my uneven ceiling and pretend I know how to meditate. You are not moving. You are not drowning. It's just rain. It's your imagination. Go to sleep.

That pounding noise is pavement under your feet, is sex, is your mother's hands on your brother's chest, is something that is not water.

It's not working, not tonight. I sit up and grab my pad and pen to sketch myself, standing. Dry.

Sometimes the waves hit the shore so hard that I can't even hear the screaming.

But usually I can. Tonight I can, and it hits me too hard for me to draw. I need to learn how to draw a scream.

I close my eyes and listen. I always do this; I listen like I am trying to desensitize myself, like if I just let the screams fill my ears long enough, I will get bored and I will forget and I will go to sleep.

It doesn't work. I need to calm down.

It's just the wind.

Not water. Not anyone. Go to sleep.

Some nights the screams are louder than others. Some nights they're impossible to explain away, like my mom tries, as really just the wind passing through the cliffs. “Like in an old novel,” she says. “It's romantic.” Her room doesn't face the ocean.

Fiona, down on the south end of the island, says it's the ghost, but Fiona's bag-of-bats crazy and just because we're figuring out some magic is real doesn't mean I'm allowed to skip straight to ghost in an effort to make my life either more simple or more exciting, God, what the fuck do I even want?

I should figure it out and then wish for it and see what happens. Who the hell knows? Magic island, after all.

Magic fish, anyway. They heal.

That's the real story, that's the story everyone believes, but it's hardly the only one that darts around.

There are creatures in the water no one's ever seen except out of the corner of his eyes.

The big house is haunted.

Maybe we're all haunted.

I only take the legends seriously at night. The house is rocking, and the stories are the only thing to keep me company.

Stories, me, and ocean, and however the hell many magic fish while my family sleeps downstairs and my real life sleeps a thousand miles away.

At home, I never would have believed this shit. I used to be a reasonable person. But now we're living on this island that is so small and isolated that it really feels like it's another world, with rules like none I learned growing up. We came here from middle America. We stepped into a fairy tale.

And my brother is better but isn't well, so color me increasingly despondent, magic fish.

Out in the ocean, the shrieks continue, as high and hollow as whistles. I get up and press my face against the window. My room is the highest part of our kneeling house.

The panes on my windows are thick and uneven. Probably the window was made by hand. Even if it weren't so dark, I'd still hardly be able to see. Everything's distorted like I'm looking through glasses that don't belong to me.

But I can just make out the waves, grabbing onto the shore with foamy fingers and sliding back into the surf. I squint long enough and make out white peaks in the dark water.

“Go to sleep,” I say.

I close my eyes and listen to the screams. I pretend it's my brother, my little brother, who has cystic fibrosis and this fucked-up chest and can't scream at all. Pretend this island has done the magic it was supposed to do, and he's okay. And we can go home.

It's Teaser Tuesday!

Apparently I've never shared this excerpt, which surprised me!

From the magic gay fish book! Happy Tuesday, everyone.

--


“So I know where you came from, by the way,” I say.

“Humans and a house and all that. Yeah, I know.” Fishboy isn't even looking at me. His eyes are busy tracking something under the water.

“That house. The big one, right there.”

“You must think I'm an idiot.”

“What are you looking at?”

“I'm--” Then he dives and emerges with a tiny fish in his mouth. He spits it onto the deck. “Look at that! Check that out! Oh, man, Teeth is the king. Teeth is the king. I am the king of the seas. Look at that.”

I squirm away from it. It's flopping around like my brother during a bad night. “What is it?”

“Minnow. Oh, God, look at this minnow. Mmm. It's beautiful.” He kisses it and cuddles it against his cheek, then he neatly slits its head off with his teeth.

“Oh, Jesus, Fishboy.”

He looks up, a laugh, halfway through, frozen on his face. “What did you call me?”

“Fishboy.” But I didn't mean to. Shit. “It's, uh, what I called you in my head before I knew your name.”

He shrugs and nods a little. “Fishboy. Yeah, that's cool.”

Thank God. This would have been such a stupid fucking thing to fight about.

He's really grossing me out with this fish, licking the blood off its neck, so I shake my head quickly and say, “You know how I found out where you're from?”

“I don't care.”

“I made out with your sister.”

“What's made out?” He's looking at me with these huge innocent eyes.

“Kissed.”

“Ew,” he says. “You kissed a fish?” Then he buries his face in the minnow and rips it to pieces.

“This is so gross.”

He comes up with a mouth full of flesh. “Oh my God. Rudy, this is the best minnow in the world. You have to try this.”

“I'll pass.”

“I'll save you the liiiiver.”

At least now I know he's screwing with me. “Do fish even have livers?”

“You're a liver.”

“How do you know that word?”

“I'm very very smart.” He licks the skin clean. “Oh my God. Minnow. You are a beautiful minnow.”

“It's dead.”

“It doesn't speak English anyway. Oh, lovely, lovely minnow.”

“You're disgusting.”

“You're the one kissing a fish. Sicko.”

“Your human sister.”

“I knew what you meant. Seriously. You think I'm an idiot, don't you?”

I lie down on my back, as far as I can get from the remains of the fishboy's lunch. He's chewing on all the little bones.

Eventually he finishes eating, and I don't say anything, and he doesn't say anything. He reaches up to the dock and walks the fish bones back and forth like they're people. I half-watch his hands and half-watch the sky. It's the first time we've been absolutely silent together when it doesn't feel like we're fighting. It almost feels like we're tucked in to go to sleep. The silence must last nearly five minutes before he looks up at and smiles at me.

It doesn't matter what side I'm on and what side I'm on, for a minute. For a minute, it's just me and that smile. It's this kid.

“If you're done telling me my family history,” he says, “I have a mission for us.”

Teaser Tuesday!

Don't forget to vote in that really exciting cover contest, but yesterday I promised a teaser and now, in honor of finishing the 2nd draft of the #sparklyfairyprostitute book (confetti!) I think it's time for an excerpt from said book.

Roughly two-thirds of this book are in the present timeline, and the last third is in the past. This is from that last third.

--

It was amazing how quickly things became normal. Beckan and Josha shared a room, officially, and they tended house while Cricket and Scrap went out and came home with enough food to get them through the day, or fabric for a new shirt for Beckan, or pills for Josha's cold. They got used to chasing the mice around, staying up late singing folk songs their fathers taught them, comparing imperceptible battle scars and finding the bits of them that looked like the other species they all were. Because they were comfortable with that, when it was just the four of them. They could talk about how they were not all fairy. They could talk about anything.

They were just so close and all so crazy about each other, so quickly. Beckan had a space on Cricket's shoulder that she told Josha was only for her, and she would rest her head there when she was tired and kiss it over and over when she wasn't. She had a favorite place on the floor to stretch out with Josha and take a nap. And Scrap. Scrap was giggles through the walls, secret smiles, notes passed back and forth, but they were slow, they were childish about it, they never stepped over any kind of line. For some reason, it felt important to them both that they be careful. Because they would look at Cricket and Josha and see how crazy they were for each other and wake up gasping hard in bed, freezing cold, thinking about how dangerous it was to love someone that much during a war.

Anyway. They had plenty of time.

Gradually, around the time Josha started spending more nights in Cricket's room than Beckan's, they began to live their lives in new pairs. Josha and Beckan were still, in their way, ridiculously in love, but they spent less and less time together as Cricket and Josha threw themselves into shared sweatshirts and last-bite-of-ice cream kisses, and Beckan and Scrap lived like their parents, teasing each other for sleepwalking and flat gnome noses, curling up together with a book after the kids were in bed.

It obviously wasn't long before Beckan knew what Scrap and Cricket did for their living; Cricket had told Josha within days—the kind of indiscretion Cricket grew and died with—and Scrap never made much of an effort to hide it, coming home with half his glitter rubbed off, sometimes drugged and giggly, always in the mood for a kiss on the cheek and a bit of babying before he was sent off to bed. They never talked about it; Beckan washed bloodstains out of his underwear and rubbed his shoulders when he looked tense, and Josha sulked for an hour each of the three days Cricket accompanied Scrap to the mines. “I don't make as much as Scrap does,” Cricket said once to Beckan, explaining his part-time work. “He's the best little whore in Ferrum.”

Scrap scrambled onto Cricket's back and started smacking him on the head with both hands and wouldn't get down, no matter how much Cricket bucked and ran back-first into the wall, and Josha and Beckan laughed and laughed.

There was so much laughing.

A few weeks into the war, the tightropers invaded the mines and took the women captive, and business boomed for Cricket and Scrap. The men had been wanting before, surrounded by women who dreamed about fairy boys and fairy babies instead of another generation in the mines, but now they needed Cricket and Scrap more than ever, and the boys were happy to oblige. During that initial surge, when sex was valuable and food wasn't, quite, they ate and drank like kings.

And somehow, in the war, Scrap came alive. While Josha and Cricket nervously discussed weapons and production, Scrap tried three-ingredient recipes with whatever three ingredients they had left and made Beckan guess what he was trying to make. He invented card games called Treeman and Souffle and lied when he said he would let Beckan win. He once lay half-naked on the kitchen floor and laughed hysterically while the other tree rubbed him as hard as they could to get glitter off him, and he kicked and screamed and alternated between begging them to stop and pulling them on top of him, one by one, and tackling them into a hug.

And one night he and Cricket came home too late and empty-handed for the fourth night in a row and sat in the kitchen and cried, their fingers laced together, and Josha and Beckan sat with them and eventually there was no way to avoid the fact that two prostitutes were no longer enough, in a time when the gnomes were clinging to each bit of meat like it was made of gold, and licking their teeth and smacking their lips whenever Cricket and Scrap came down, to secure food for four mouths.

“Teach me,” Beckan said, and most of her was excited, most of her had been waiting, most of her wanted to feel everything that Scrap had ever felt, because that was where she was then. “I'll go.”

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 18

SONG #18: "Not Just Sometimes But Always" by Idlewild.

Two songs to go.

I'm putting a bit of a spoiler warning on this one. Don't listen if you hate knowing anything (though why would you be following along with these posts, really).

Besides that, I don't know what to say about this one.

It's by far the most important song on the playlist. Or to anything I've ever written. And it still makes me cry.

I should have dedicated the book to it, I'll tell you that.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I tune the radio to drown out these voices I don't know
I'm suddenly an empty house that almost fills up with home
There are days and nights when I don't need to close my eyes
And they feel as real to me
Like an elegy
In disguise

CORRELATING PASSAGE:
note: this is the last passage I'll be posting. The last two songs come naked. Sorry.

“Uncross your arms and put down the fucking Camus! This is our life!”

--p. 262



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey
16) "Little Sparrow" by David Cook
17) "Long Division" by Death Cab for Cutie
18) "Not Just Sometimes But Always" by Idlewild

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 17

SONG #17: "Long Division" by Death Cab for Cutie.

We're four songs from the end, and we've finally hit the first of the VERY IMPORTANT SONGS.

Long Division is one of my favorite songs. I'm sure I'm not the only Death Cab fan who views this as a sequel to "Your Heart is an Empty Room." It's about someone who used to run away all the time who's trying to change. Trying to stay.

This one really could have gone anywhere on the playlist. It's where it is more for mood than anything. It provides a good break between "Little Sparrow" and song #18.

But this song is hugely important, because this song is where Noah came from.

It's no secret that Noah is one of my very favorites of the characters I've written. And that might be because he was the easiest. Being inside Noah's head would have been a nightmare (and a bitch for you to read, because God that kid is angry) but his lines were always the easiest ones to write. I could space out a little while I was writing dialogue with Noah. I would start with one line and then I would just let myself run with it. Noah is smart and poetic and cynical and so incredibly affectionate, and he knows a ton about the outside world and just about nothing about himself.

And in a lot of ways, Invincible Summer is Noah's story. Claudia is the real hero--I will forever maintain that Claudia is the hero--but if the story has a tragic hero, it's absolutely Noah. And the fact that the book is in Chase's head let me have a really fun time writing Noah, because Chase absolutely adores him. I mean, fuck, Chase is sleeping with a girl in attempts to be closer to him. It's fucked-up and crazy and it is all because of this song.

This song is where I got Noah, and Melinda, and the relationship between them. This song is all of that.

So let's have a lot of text today.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

His head was a city of paper buildings
And the echoes that remained
Of old friends and lovers, their features bleeding
Together in his brain

And once it'd start, it was harder to
Tell them apart

He was always distracted
By the very mention
Of an open door
'Cause he had sworn not to be what he'd been before
To be a remain remain remain remainder
To be a remain remain remain remainder

The television was snowing softly
As she hunted for her keys
She said she never envisioned him the type of person
capable of such deceit

And they carried on like long division
And it was clear with every page
That they were further away from a solution that would play
Without a remain remain remain remainder

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

I don't blame Noah for what happened. None of us do. I think, for a while, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for us to lose it and finally scream at him that we were so angry and so disappointed and we wished he'd never come home that night. He used to steal my stuff every time he came over. He wouldn't be sneaky about it, and he always took stuff that I'd be sure to notice, like my favorite shirt or my toothbrush. I confronted him about it once, and he kept saying, “Why don't you tell me what you're really mad about? Why don't you tell me what the real problem is?” until I eventually told him to shut up and just stop stealing my shit. It's not as if we're still fighting about that, but that was when he stopped coming over.

I take a deep breath. I'm feeling okay about going back. Quiet, but okay. I'm feeling ready. After all, as Noah and Camus and probably Melinda—though I don't think of her much anymore—would say, "one always finds one's burden again."

--p. 242-243





PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey
16) "Little Sparrow" by David Cook
17) "Long Division" by Death Cab for Cutie

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 15

SONG #15: "Sorry" by Pushmonkey.

This song. Not only did it appear, like No One's Boy, on my iTunes with no reasonable explanation for its existence, but you can't actually buy it on iTunes. It doesn't have it. When I wanted to get it again for my new computer, I had to jump through all these hoops and get a download of it, which depresses me, because I never pirate music. (Or anything. Seriously.)

While looking for a video of this song, I discovered that a lot of people are saying, "This song just appeared on my computer!" Song. Where are you coming from.

So. This song. No idea how it got there, but it went on the playlist the first time I heard it mostly because it works so well with No One's Boy. You'll see in the excerpt that I very obviously am alluding to No One's Boy in this scene. This is just...an angrier, more final version of it.

We're really getting towards the end of the 3rd summer now. Something's about to happen.

Five songs left.

Also, a nice big excerpt for you today! Right after the--

SAMPLE LYRIC:

So drink your coffee
I made you breakfast
You're wearing my t-shirt for the last time
A revelation, we'll never make it
I'm staring at you for the last time
I'm sorry
You know I'm sorry

You lay in bed next to him at night
Convince yourself that what you did was right
Instead of him, you'll want me back
You can't move on
I know you'll wind up missing me

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

For some reason, my response to this is to take my restless hands and pull my shoes off and throw them toward the bed. Then I'm on my feet, feeling the carpet grain with my toes and wishing I was feeling the sand. Digging in with my toes, I won't get off I won't get off I won't move you can't make me while the ocean wears the sand away.

The bass booms downstairs and I hate it, I hate it. I can't hear the rain anymore. Maybe it stopped.

“I am not your boy,” I'm saying. “I'm not anybody's boy.”

Noah doesn't move.

“Not yours.” My voice is so hoarse and the next thing I know I'm facing Noah and screaming, “Get off the floor! Get off the floor and take me home!”

--p. 225




1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 14

SONG #14: "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie.

I love Death Cab for Cutie very, very dearly. This is the first song on the playlist that comes from the magical album Narrow Stairs, which is really the reason Invincible Summer exists. The album came out on May 18th, 2008, and I still hadn't listened to it a month and a half later, when I started IS. It was just sitting in my iTunes.

(side note: I think at some point in the past I've said that I wrote IS in 2009. That is a lie. I wrote it over summer 2008, and it sold in summer 2009. I have figured this out now. So IS is coming out, same as Break, about 2 years after I wrote it. Zombie Tag will be the quickest, and it's coming out about a year and a half after I wrote it. Publishing is slow! Fun facts.)

So one rainy day I had nothing to do and I wanted to write a book, so I listened to the album. And two songs in particular jumped out and shaped, respectively, the character of Noah and the end of the book.

This isn't either of those songs. This one made it to the playlist after, but it comes first chronologically. But I'm telling you all that stuff about Narrow Stairs because this is the point in the playlist where we get to the songs that directly inspired the book. The others were mostly just ones that worked. From here on out, they really contributed.

So let's do this.

This is a song about a girl.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I'm starting to feel
We stayed together out of fear of dying alone
I've been slipping through the years
My old clothes don't fit like they once did
So they hang like ghosts of the people I've been

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

For the first time in a long time I think she looks beautiful. Not hot and not disgusting. Just beautiful.

--p. 223




PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 13

SONG #13: "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground.

This song is, in a lot of ways--most of which I'll get into in two days--a pair with song #15. Their passages cross-reference each other. I got them both in the same way, meaning...I have no idea.

No One's Boy and song #15 are examples of playlist making at its weirdest and most exciting. When I was working on the first draft of the playlist, when I'd hardly started the first draft of the book, I scrolled through iTunes and chose songs that sounded good and two songs that I didn't know that had interesting titles. "No One's Boy" sounded like it could work.

I have no idea, no idea at all, how this song and #15 got into my iTunes. I have a theory that they were on my computer before I got there (which would be bizarre and likely impossible, but there you go). They didn't come on a soundtrack with anything else. I didn't hear them on TV first. I had no other songs by either band.

I really don't know.

But I love this song. It's raw and it's creepy and it's everything that the next few chapters had to be, and this song gets me right into it. It's mean and it's pleading, but at the same time it's completely adamant. And I always, always picture people on a Ferris Wheel when I hear it. They're sitting in their little cart, having an argument, just about to get off. This isn't a scene in the book.

But it might as well be.

Anyway, we're pretty much full-speed ahead after this point.

This song is so perfect that, sure, what the hell, let's have the whole song here. It's short.

THE WHOLE DAMN THING:

Angel,
You missed your chance to be the prom queen
And so you turned into a wet dream
Star of your own video
Late night show on the floor
A bad girl no one's watching
As you slow move to the rhythm
Of this sweet sound
Booming through the radio
Late night show that they ignore
Are you lonely

'Cause I'm no one's boy
I'm no one's boy
And I'll be all you need
Only if you plead
Pray do
Angel blue

If you'll be my girl
If you'll be my girl
I'm no ones boy
And I'll be all you need
But only if you'll bleed
Pray do

Hey hey, don't walk away from me
I found you
I can find you


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

God, how many times will she have to sleep with one of us before she understands that nobody lives with Noah, Noah just sometimes lives with you.

“He's not your boy,” I say, quietly. “And he's not mine either.”

--p. 196



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 12

SONG #12: "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack.

YEP. Cheating again. A little less this time, since this is faaar from my favorite Motion City Soundtrack song (though I still love it because, I mean...Motion City Soundtrack).

It's hard for a song to fit a mood better than Hello Helicopter fits Chase's 3rd summer. We're talking here about serious existential angst, but there's also the sense that you're sharing this angst with someone. This song is about "us," not "me."

And I think that's appropriate here, because Chase and Noah are, in every sense, with every pun intended, going down together.

The excerpt is from one of my favorite scenes. Noah's just home from, er, visiting Melinda, and he and Chase are standing on the deck, playing guitar, and trying to use her as a metaphor.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Hello helicopter, have you heard the news?
No one gives a shit about the things they do
We all waste and consume, destroy and ruin everything we touch
It's easy not to think when you're not told that much

I'm not saying anything you haven't heard before
I'm just trying to understand the way we are


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

“And she talked about you,” he says.

“God, she always talks about you when I'm with her. Noah kisses me softer than that.”

“Chase is so much more passionate.”

“Noah takes his time.” I play a minor chord.

“Chase doesn't hesitate like you do.” Noah digs an almond out of the ice cream and tosses it off the balcony. “God. Why do we come back to this girl, Chase?”

--p. 180



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 11

SONG #11: "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery.

This is another song I'm not incredibly fond of, but I never mind listening to it because it works so damn well. I know it originally because I heard it in that horrible movie Never Back Down, and I grabbed it because I heard the line about Cherry Valence.

It's one of the first songs that made it onto the playlist that wasn't direct inspiration for the story. We haven't gotten to any of those yet--those are songs 16, 18, and 20.

This is the first song of Chase's 3rd summer, and this is really a turning point in the book, I think, because the third summer is nothing like the other two. Chase has changed because his life has changed. He's not the idealistic, hopeful kid he used to be. In a lot of ways, he's turning into Noah.

He's a little cynical and a little sad and very much angry, but he's still Chase, which means he still keeps this close to him and regards it as some kind of personal failure, and he still holds onto his family harder than anything.

Time Won't Let Me Go is a song about growing up against your will, and about regret and disconnected. And that's kind of what's eating at Chase this summer. Coming back to the beach, this place was supposed to be his childhood forever, doesn't help. He doesn't want to think about college. He doesn't want to see Bella after two years without her. And he definitely doesn't want to hear Noah and Melinda.

But yeah, some things haven't changed so much. There's still Melinda. There's still Camus. And Noah.

In completely unrelated news...this is my 200th post on this blog, and I want to thank you guys so incredibly much for reading the blog, and following me on twitter, and most of all for reading the books, if you do. I don't think you know how much it means to me that you do. I don't think you could possibly know.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I am so homesick now for
Someone that I never knew
I am so homesick now for
Someplace I will never be

Time won't let me go
Time won't let me go
If I could do it all again
I'd go back and change everything
But time won't let me go

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

Bella comes by Shannon's room to ask if a shirt is hers or his. She gives me a polite smile. “Hey, Chase. How've you been?”

“Fine. You?”

She nods.

Shannon says to me, “I have a college book you can borrow, if you want. I can show you around the common application, let you see how it's done.”

Down the hall, I hear Noah and Melinda, laughing.

“I should get going,” I say.

--p. 173



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery.

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 10

SONG #10: "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack.

Remember when I said I don't use Motion City Soundtrack, since I have some crazy obsession with them and know all their songs like they were born from my own brain? I lied! About the first part. Not the brain part. That part's real.

But! I don't use my favorites of their songs (um, #magicgayfish playlist notwithstanding, I guess) and I'm totally right when I say that they don't work as well as other songs. The temptation to rock out to them without listening to the words is totally there and totally a problem. I have to really concentrate if I'm going to think about the song the way I want to.

But! Eventually you get to that place with all the songs, once you've listened through the playlist a zillion times, so you're constantly in that weird interstitial space between trying to concentrate on the writing and reminding yourself waitwait this part is important.

So. The Worst Part. Back in our last song, if you recall, SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED. And after bad things happen, there tends to be aftermath. This is the last song of the second summer, which is appropriate because it is the 10th song on a 20 song playlist. Halfway through the book, halfway through the playlist. Convenient!

(We will finish going through the playlist on April 15th, therefore, meaning giveaways will start on the 16th and continue through the 19th, so be aware of that.)

And so. This song.

The most important thing to know about Invincible Summer is that it is a story about a family.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

All the same sad lives
All the love that disappears
We are aching bones
And wasted years

We have few regrets
Save it for every night alone
In the sinking ship
And haunted home

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

His arm whirlwinds, scattering sand everywhere. “Fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck—”

I can't take it anymore. I stand behind him and put my arms around his waist.

--p. 159



1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 9

SONG #9: "City Hall" by The Fray.

So, full disclosure: I don't like this song very much.

I was a big fan of The Fray when I was in middle school, and I still like some of their songs, but this is not one of them. I'm not exactly sure how it ended up on my iTunes, but I assume I bought it at some point--unlike three of the songs later in the playlist, where I have literally no idea where they came from.

But when I'm making a playlist, the first thing I do is find songs with appropriate titles, then listen through 'em listening to see if the lyrics work.

"City Hall" was a title that immediately jumped out at me for this part of the story, because it's a deliberation scene of sorts. It's a very depressing meeting. The lyrics work, too, to an extent.

It's not a perfect song, and it's not at all my favorite moment in the playlist. And that's probably why I kept it.

This isn't supposed to be a comfortable point in the book. This is SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS, part A. If I liked it, something would be pretty wrong. And of the two SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS, this is the more uncomfortable, less pretty of the two. This is just messy and gross and unfun, and it's supposed to be.

But we have one of my favorite songs right after, so it makes up for itself, I think.

This is also the first passage I've used, so far, that has sign language, though it's just the one word. There's a fair amount of sign language in the book, as one of the characters is Deaf. I made the choice to go with ASL word order for the book, for two main reasons. 1. ASL has its own grammar, and this is correct, and 2. none of the characters in the book are fluent in ASL, least of all our narrator. A lot of it is pidgin signing, and a lot of the translations are way incomplete, as you can see below. There's a whole theme involving lack of communication through the book, so this plays into that.

I also think this is the first passage with Claudia, Chase's sister. And she's pretty badass.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Decision on the dock head
Make up your mind and if you get consensus
Drop me a line

The city hall in my mind, got together last night
Rumors of reelection started to fly

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

“No,” Claudia says. “Just keep trying, okay? Don't give up, what the hell. This isn't like a do-it-yourself project gone wrong or . . . or a game of spider solitaire.” She signs spider.

--p. 153



1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 7

SONG #7: "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris.

Another cover. I grew up with this song--it's one of my mom's favorites--and I remember the first time I heard this cover, and it blew my mind. It's a much younger, much more energetic, much more...well, summery version. And it remains, along with Rufus Wainwright's "Across the Universe," one of my favorite covers of all time.

This is the most recent song to make it onto the playlist. I tweak as I go along, but this song didn't come until this winter. So in a way it's kind of cheating, because it wasn't there when I wrote the book. But I can't believe that it wasn't.

It's a perfect 2nd summer song for Chase, when being infatuated with a girl is still exciting. Especially when she's unobtainable.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I can see you-
Your brown skin shinin' in the sun
You got that hair slicked back and those Wayfarers on, baby
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

Bella never made me feel this way. Bella was just lips. We're talking about whole bodies, now. We're talking about lungs.

--p. 97



PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 6

SONG #6: "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright.

One of my favorite covers. If you haven't heard it, it's really beautiful, and the video (featuring a baby Dakota Fanning!) is amazing as well. I absolutely love the original Beatles song (I have every Beatles song memorized, including the ones in German. Thanks Mom!) and the cover gives it a sunnier feel, which worked well for IS. It's a little more intense but at the same time more joyous. It's definitely a different feel from the original, but the song is strong enough to be able to withstand anything anyone does to it, I'm pretty sure. The version from the movie Across the Universe is also beautiful.

One of the reasons this version really worked for me is the passion and the level of insistence in it. "Nothing's gonna change my world" is an ambiguous statement--is it a peaceful statement, a refusal of something, or a regret?--and this version puts a lot of power behind that line. So I hear a refusal in it. I'm not going to allow anything to change my world. And that works very well for Chase.

The thing is that Chase's world isn't exactly normal, which is why I chose the passage I've chosen for this song.

I mentioned in the last post that there's a turning point here, and it's the shift to the romantic/sexual/whatever part of the book, when things get less simple for Chase. Except that lack of simplicity isn't just about the girl next door.

It's just a little thing. And this whole element is in little things. But it's worth confirming, I think.

Some reviewers have mentioned that there are weird moments between the siblings. That there are times that relationships seem uncomfortably intimate, and almost...incestuous. I picture them kind of whispering this, with a sad little glance my way, like, poor hannah didn't notice this.

So let's just say that yes, I noticed it, and that this isn't the kind of thing I would do accidentally. Full stop.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

We're quiet, lying in the sand, watching the stars, while Lucy crawls slow circles around us. I drop a few more notes.

I say, “Can I ask you something?”

She exhales. “Of course, Chase.”

“What's the deal with you and Noah?”

She laughs. “What's the deal with you and Noah?”

--p. 95



Playlist so far:

PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 5

SONG #5: "New Soul" by Yael Naim.

I'm sure you all know and are sick to death of this song, since it was EVERYWHERE during the summer of 2009. But! I put it on the playlist like four seconds before it was everywhere. I so, so rarely discover any music before it hits big, so I have to brag about it when I can. (I'm looking at you, "How to Save a Life." I was like a year ahead on that one. Still pissed.)

So anyway, like four days before this song was on every commercial in the universe, I stuck it on IS's playlist as the first song of the 2nd summer. The initial reason was pretty basic: We have a new character this summer! As Mama McGill (this is not something she's actually called. I stole this from kids in high school who called my mom Mama Mosk) was super preggo in the last summer, I don't think this is a huge spoiler. Pregnant women have babies fyi.

So yes, on a basic level, this is about this kid experiencing everything for the first time. But it is really, like most of the songs on the playlist, about Chase and his experience in the 2nd summer versus that of the 1st summer. He's 15, almost 16 now. He's in a very different place. Because, you know, some fifteen-year-olds have sex fyi.

So this is a song about being a baby in a new world, literally and otherwise, and about feeling as if you're surrounded by people who are way more experienced than you are. This is also a dividing point in the playlist for me, not only because it's the new summer (because then it would have made more sense to have the dividing point before this song, rather than after) but because it's, in my mind, the end of a certain kind of tone.

This song is more first summer in rhythm and sound, which is how Chase goes in expecting his summer to be. It doesn't work out this way. The playlist changes after this and becomes very...focused on one thing, let's say. It changes again between songs 8 and 9, when SOMETHING BIG HAPPENS.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I'm a young soul
In this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout what is true and fake
But why all this hate?
Try to communicate
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make

This is a happy end
'Cause you don't understand
Everything you have done
Why's everything so wrong?

CORRELATING PASSAGE:
I unlock the front door with my free side while Lucy clings to the other. “Welcome home, Lucy,” I whisper to her.

“Forget something?”

I turn around in the doorway, and there's the college dropout herself, holding Lucy's car seat, that smile on those perfectly glossed lips.

--p. 79




PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 4

SONG #4: "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer.

Okay, yes, John Mayer is a d-bag, but two points are important: 1. I wrote IS in 2009, when he was not quite so much of a d-bag and 2. it's still a good song.

The first time I heard Bigger Than My Body was when I was a kid watching Degrassi, back when they still played music videos in-between all the shows on The N. I hated most of them, so I always looked forward to "Fighter" by Christina Aguilera and Bigger Than My Body.

To me, Bigger Than My Body is a story about coming out of your skin. It's about being trapped, but with the tantalizing possibility, or promise, even, that you won't be trapped forever. There's the idea of escape.

It's a good song for Noah, my favorite character in Invincible Summer, especially during the first summer. While he comes across as overly cynical, there's a definite feel, at least to me, that he's cynical because being cynical is still a safe thing, because he doesn't truly believe it. He can bitch and moan and whine about how he's being pushed into a role he doesn't want to fill and nothing is in his control, but he still believes that he can rise above all the bullshit. He still sees himself outside of the context of the bullshit. He's a kid playing a cynic.

Also he looks kind of like a more funny-looking John Mayer in my head.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Why is it not my time?
What is there more to learn?
Shed this skin I've been tripping in
Never to quite return

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

“Look. Listen to my words of wisdom. College's only role these days, for an upper-middle-class kid going in for a fucking liberal arts degree, is very simple. Do you know what that is?”

“A diploma. A good job. Yay.”

“No. College exists only because it thrives on the hopes and dreams of the young and innocent. College is a hungry zombie here to eat your brains. It wants to remind you that your naivete is impermanent and someday, English major or no, you'll wear a suit and hate the feeling of sand between your toes.”

--p. 53




PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 3

SONG #3: "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream.

Yes! Before you can get riled up, yes, this is a cover!

This is a good time to mention that I am a HUGE fan of using covers in playlists. It's a great solution for songs that you're too familiar with but still want to use. Put a different band and a different tempo behind it, and you're forced to listen to the words in a way you ordinarily wouldn't. Plus, sometimes a cover has a more necessary vibe than an original.

But this doesn't mean that I don't know/love the originals. I promise that I am fully aware that every cover I use is a cover. The Cure yaaaay. I know what's up.

Also, how great is the name Gatsby's American Dream? For Real.

So. Just Like Heaven for me is a carnival and kissing song. This is possibly due to the scene in Adventureland. It's a song about first love.

And carnivals. Also there's a ton of ocean imagery.

How convenient.

This is the first example of a song directly influencing the book. This song is the reason this scene is set at a carnival. Later, the songs become way more blatant in their relationship to the plot. Yeah, I make songs do my work for me sometimes.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

"Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream" she said
"The one that makes me laugh" she said
And threw her arms around my neck
"Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I'll run away with you
I'll run away with you"

CORRELATING PASSAGE:


There's no one else under the pavilion, and with the amusement park bouncing off Bella's eyes and the dusty pink of her skirt, I can almost pretend we are a hundred years old and we know everything. When, really, the only thing I know is that I'm going to kiss her, but I'm not going to try anything more. And she's smiling because she knows it too.

--p. 48




PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 2

SONG #2: "Island in the Sun" by Weezer.

A lot of the appeal of this song is the image that flashes in my head when I hear it. Though it was by no means the first time I heard the song, the most memorable time was at my very first concert, when I was fourteen.

The lights went off all of a sudden, and when they came up, Rivers Cuomo, Weezer's lead singer, was standing on a platform in the middle of the audience. He played this song alone, with one spotlight on him and his acoustic guitar. Around him, everyone was screaming, cheering, singing along, but Rivers was quiet the whole time. For him, it was him and his guitar.

It's one of the most peaceful songs I know, which made it ideal for following "Turn Up The Sun." Because the gritty grungy rock feel of "Turn Up The Sun" is the tone of the entire book, but Chase's first summer is notably more peaceful.

There's an idyllic feel to "Island in the Sun." This is a song without any obvious conflict, but there's a strange undercurrent of unease throughout the entire song. There's something there that isn't quite right.

It's a song about pretending things are okay. About standing in a platform in the middle of a crazy audience.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain

We'll run away together
We'll spend some time forever
We'll never feel bad anymore

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

"You don't want your new sister to be born on the beach, do you?"

I look at Mom, practically bursting through her maternity swimsuit, chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway, sipping a Diet Coke. By the ocean, Shannon's holding Gid by his waist, twirling him around, and Claudia's crying, "He'll get dizzy! He'll get dizzy!"

I kind of can't think of a better place for her to be born than right here on the beach, but I know that's stupid. I know babies need hospitals, but right now I can't imagine anyone needing anything more than this.

Dad kisses the top of my head. "Where do you think Noah goes?"

"Anywhere. He sits in bookstores or sleeps on people's couches or something. He doesn't care where he goes. I get that part."

"You get that part?"

I nod, tracing my initials in the sand.

"Which part don't you get, Chase?"

I clear my throat. "Why he goes."

--p. 36




PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer

Sparkly!Fairy!Prostitute!

Time for a teaser!

--

“So,” Josha said, his feet up on the railing of Beckan's balcony, his ass on the porch swing. They were watching the tightropers continue stringing their lines, and watching the fairies on the streets rushing around with their heads covered, like they were expecting rain. A news report blared from inside, where Beckan had left her father in front of the TV.

She knew what Josha was going to say, but she gave him nothing. She almost always knew what Josha was going to say. She loved him very much but had long ago given up hope.

“So,” Josha said. “Scrap?”

“He's teaching me to read.”

“How charitable.”

“Not really. Selfish. He wants someone to read his stupid stories. He's desperate.”

“Cricket won't read them?”

“Who?”

“His cousin,” Josha said. “They live together."

“I didn't know his name.” She had only seen him a few times. He was usually walking from room to room, usually with headphones jammed over his ears.

Josha said, “So you're really not crazy about him.”

“Scrap?”

“Either.”

“I told you.”

“Since you don't know his family or anything. Don't know anything about him.” He gave her a sloppy grin. “After all, you know me. So.”

She watched the trightropers instead of responding. Josha said “Cricket” quietly to himself a few times. “Must be a genius if he avoids the stories,” he mused.

“Cold-hearted genius, maybe.”

“A genius is a genius. I don't need another heart, anyway.”

Then the first bombs went off, and they sprang towards each other as if they had previously been stretched apart. Beckan felt some heat on her cheek, like the city was breathing on her, but she couldn't see where the bomb fell or detect any damage. From the porch of Beckan's house, at the bottom of the hill, it was hard to see much of anything.

Picking Off Right Where We Left Off

The excerpt two posts down is the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo project. Here's the beginning of chapter 2. Because I like how the bits fit together.


--

A few months ago, Micah started fucking my boyfriend. I'm secretary of the student government, and that plus lacrosse team meant I only had time for a date with Jackson once or twice a month. Meanwhile, we're turning eighteen in three weeks and Micah was still a virgin, so I figured pairing him and Jackson up was such a charitable act that I could practically put it on my resume.

It's worked out well. Micah's had a crush on Jackson for years, so he's as close as he ever gets to happy. And Jackson puts up with him, which is as close as anyone's ever come to liking him. He's known Micah and I since we were kids, so he knows enough about CIPA that nothing surprises him anymore, but it's still not his reality, so he can still laugh when Micah's watch timer tells him to use the bathroom and think of my brother, at least some of the time, as a superhero. To Micah and me, it's all just bullshit routine. So it's good that he has Jackson to be amazed.

And I'm not threatened. I know Jackson likes me more, and Micah would never, ever let himself love anyone.

It's the first Friday of the month, which is one of Micah's days with Jackson, but he comes up to me after school and says he's foisting Jack off on me tonight.

I haul my backpack out of my locker. “I thought you finished Hudson's paper.” It's a very easy paper, but most everything is now. We're in the same class as the fourteen-year-olds. Younger than that, there are hordes of them, but there just aren't that many kids our age left, and we all have this skinny desperate look of survived prisoners. The little kids only know the plague as the newest pages in their history books.

He says, “It took me five minutes.”

“Took me nine. I must be off my game.”

“I fell.”

I look at him.

He shrugs his backpack strap up his arm.“Before Science.”

“How'd you fall?”

“Tripped.”

“Someone tripped you?” I'll fucking kill them.

“Tripped on my shoelace, Gwen, Jesus Christ. Ask Jackson, he was there.”

“He saw you fall?”

Micah says, “He said the fall was uncanny. That was the word he used. Uncanny.”

“That's not a good word.”

“Not for a fall, yeah.”

I reach out and touch his arm, and he lets me for maybe a second before he rolls his shoulders back to squirm away. He always does that—waits just long enough to flinch away that he can deny it was a flinch. It was just a shift in weight. A trick of the light. Something. It's never made sense to me. Touch is the only thing he can feel, and he does, as acutely as anyone else. And he squirms away from it. I guess that's Micah in a nutshell.

He clears his throat and says, “So I'm going to go to the hospital after school, I guess, just to make sure.”

I should probably offer to go with him. But I don't go back to the hospital, ever. When I need shots or antibiotics, I go to the adult hospital, even though it's two buses and half an hour. I don't think Micah's ever gone, even though he hardly needs this fall as an excuse to visit the children's hospital; he's there ever week, convinced he's dislocated a joint or contracted meningitis. Our uncle's mansion is next door. There's no reason for Micah not to know, every second, that he's safe. It's an addiction he never tries to fight. And I'm not going to be the one to encourage him to fight.

“Be safe,” I tell him.

“Yeah. Look, I got to go.” He backs away for a few steps, then turns around walks out of the school. I guess I should be happy. That's the longest conversation we've had in weeks. Really, fucking the same guy is the closest we come to communicating.