This post originally was published on Audible.com.
The cover of Holly Brickley's debut, Deep Cuts, is adorned with a playlist of songs ranging from Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" to Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill," tracks that are not so much musical interludes as they are pillars of the novel's narrative in their own right. As so much changes in the lives of Brickley's cast of twentysomething characters, music remains a constant: There's Percy, a music obsessive who listens with a keen analytical eye; Joe, a rising musician whose best work is dependent on Percy's critiques; and Zoe, a big-hearted punk who runs a local zine. The trio initially bond over their shared love of music and their desire to think, talk, and debate about art and sound, but before long, their lives are intertwined in a messy, wondrous way that cuts deeper than any B-Side.
Brickley's much-talked-about debut deftly dissects art and talent, meditating on the fateful magnetism between two people and examining the roles of creation and criticism. In this conversation, the author pulls at those threads further, sharing her own thoughts on music, collaboration, and the appeal of stories set in the early aughts.
Alanna McAuliffe: Deep Cuts is your debut novel. What inspired you to tell this story now?
Holly Brickley: I set out to explore this thing that has always bugged me about myself, which is my jealousy of musicians. I wanted to do it in the context of a love story, where I suspected this envy could be richly complicating. And I wanted to do it with a feminist lens, because as I got older that’s how I was starting to understand my envy of music—as a longing to be in this boys club; to have had, as a young girl, the carefree confidence that a young boy is so much more likely to have when he first picks up a guitar. I didn’t know where any of it was going to go, but those were my starting points.
One thing that really stood out about the three main characters in Deep Cuts is how complicated and layered they are. Percy, Joe, and Zoe really capture all the heart and messiness of youth, and their lives intertwine in this unflinching coming-of-age, coming-into-identity story. How did you go about bringing these characters to life?
Percy was born from the things I hated most about myself—the aforementioned envy of people with musical talent, and my somewhat critical nature—though she quickly became her own person. And Joe emerged as a sort of counterpoint to her: someone who is bursting with natural talent, and whose experience with trauma gives him more perspective on life, a willingness to try things and mess up. With Zoe I was trying to create a fierce, political mind who could keep my two main characters at least somewhat plugged into the world around them.
