It may pre-date the timeframe of the main era of the novel a bit (post 9-11, mid-late 2000s) but its energy and spirit is so representative to me of what it felt like to be in high school in the years described, hoping for plans to materialize, driving around with nowhere really to go. In the “Sophomore” section of the Great Disasters, the narrator recalls wearing his dad’s old Grateful Dead t-shirt while roaming through Chicago on a freezing day in February on his way to the March against the War in Iraq (there’s a lot going in that sentence). I wanted to include this song because the Handsome Furs’ three albums, all released between 2007 and 2011, are incredible, and I want to spread the gospel, but also because those albums came out in a four-year period that is part of the novel’s timeline as well, and really calls that period back for me: The Bush era ended.
Author: largeheartedboy
Published at: 2025-09-30 21:13:33
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