Largehearted Boy is 22

Plus new albums from Faye Webster & Sheer Mag, interviews with Kelly Link & St. Vincent, an excerpt from Tommy Orange's new novel, new music from Mdou Moctar & Lykke Li, and more

In late January, Largehearted Boy turned 22-years old.

This past year has brought much change into my life. I started teaching, the first full-time job other than writing I have had in 20 years, began the last year of my MFA program, and found my time limited for almost everything outside of these two pursuits. Largehearted Boy had to change, too.

The author playlists are still being posted, and I posted a collection of essential & interesting year-end book lists instead of the usual gathering of every list I could find. I had to put the daily book & music news & links on hold (at least until grad school is finished). I do aim to post more features this year, more musician/author interviews and literary pieces by musicians in particular.

Largehearted Boy might be changing, but it is very alive.

This newsletter, with its weekly collection of book & music links and new music releases has become an integral component of Largehearted Boy.

A special thanks to every contributor to the site over the years. Authors who have shared playlists for their book. Musicians who have discussed literature. Musicians who have interviewed authors (and vice versa). Filmmakers who have discussed their soundtracks. Cartoonists interviewed by Jami Attenberg. I love all of you and what you do.

Thank you for reading both the newsletter and the website. Thank you for supporting Largehearted Boy through subscriptions to the newsletter and donations through the site.

I look forward to spreading the good word about books and music for years to come.

A Playlist of the Week’s Best New Music (15 albums, 171 songs, 10 hours and 19 minutes)

This week’s new music releases include a new albums by Faye Webster, Sheer Mag, Yard Act, Footballhead, Nils Frahm, Coco, Gwendoline, Amaro Freitas, Hannah Frances, Uranium Club, Pissed Jeans, Everything Everything, Ben Frost, Punchlove, and a 35th anniversary remastered & expanded edition of De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising.

Largehearted Likes:

1. Grimm Onement imperial stout aged in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels
   Onement is our series of minimalist BA imperial stouts: nothing but stout aged in barrels from a single whiskey producer. If what you like is potent, robust, oaky complexity in your bourbon barrel stout, Heaven Hill barrels are THE BEST. In order to stand up to this massive barrel character, we selected a base stout with ample sweetness and fullness. HUGE chocolate, bourbon, oak, and dried fruit make this a concentrated sipper you won’t want to miss.

2. Screen Door Press, a new imprint at the University Press of Kentucky, edited by the ever-talented Crystal Wilkinson
   Dedicated to discovering unique, exceptional, and varied voices within Black literary traditions, the Screen Door Press Imprint will celebrate the very best in fiction across a broad range of categories. Its goal is to publish thought-provoking books that use relatable characters, strong narratives, and beautiful language to champion diverse views from throughout the Black diaspora.

3. The Brooklyn Book Bodega
   The mission of Brooklyn Book Bodega is to increase the number of 100+ book homes for kids 0-18 in NYC. Brooklyn Book Bodega provides access to and ownership of books, builds community, and creates a passion for learning through free events and literacy-based community programming.
   
   

Largehearted Book & Music Links:

1. An interview with Leslie Jamison about her new book
   This book really began with a particular moment in my life, which was moving into this dark railroad sublet right next to a firehouse with my daughter after the end of my divorce. It was such a tender, exhilarating, terrifying, grief-stricken time. It was all those things at once. I wanted to write into those bare nerve ending days and nights, and that simultaneity of feeling such grief and such love at the same time.

2. Lykke Li’s cover of “Ring of Fire”

3. Kelly Link interviewed about her new novel
   If I'm going to care about the things that happen to somebody, I need to care about how they see the world in granular detail. The job of the writer is to make those details as interesting as possible, or as propulsive and connected to the events in the book as possible. I'm not going to succeed at doing that for every reader, but I have to feel I’ve at least made them connective and interesting to me and the readers who are willing to go along with it.

4. illuminati hotties’ Sarah Tudzin on How Her Ska Past Manifests in Her New Music

5. Gabino Iglesias
   on asking for blurbs

   Asking for blurbs is weird

6. Flop rock: inside the underground floppy disk music scene
   Floppy disk music arguably peaked in the 2010s, but in the 2020s, it’s still going strong; Discogs.com shows a healthy 500-plus floppy releases in the 2020 category, which is more than the documented number of floppy music releases in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s altogether.

7. The New Book Club: Meet Online, but Party in Person
   Many people, especially women, who joined online book clubs are looking to turn those connections into real-life friendships.

8. New music from Mdou Moctar

9. ‘We’re Going to Stand Up’: Queer Literature is Booming in Africa
   Ifeakandu’s work is part of a boom in books by L.G.B.T.Q. writers across Africa. Long obscured in literature and public life, their stories are taking center stage in works that are pushing boundaries across the continent — and winning rave reviews.

10. ‘I‘d rather people scratch their heads than yawn’: St Vincent on death, Dave Grohl and dividing her fans
    “To do interviews and to do press is a construct,” she says in her glaringly white LA office (she splits her time between there and New York), looking like “goth Grey Gardens” in black silk headscarf, thick-framed sunglasses and a vintage Maison Margiela trenchcoat I initially mistake for a dressing gown. “Like I’m playing a role of this person and you’re playing a role of that person and wouldn’t it be interesting if we both acknowledge it was a construct and went from there.”

11. Read an excerpt from Tommy Orange’s new novel
    
    

Last Week’s LHB Feature Posts:

Bradley Sides’s playlist for his story collection Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood

Daniel Lefferts’s playlist for his novel Ways and Means

Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s playlist for his novel The American Daughters

Terese Svoboda’s playlist for her books The Long Swim and Roxy and Coco