Dear Reader,

I hereby present to you my playlist of songs I listened to and was inspired by during the writing of The Boston Revolutionary Art and Teacup Society.

As you will soon discover, the Rats have a specific palate for music: Neo-psychedelic or indie rock music—even better if the band is from before the year 1990. Their preference in music usually has a hazy, dreamy feel to it with distorted vocals and spacy synthesizers.

Some of these songs may become familiar to you because they are referenced in the novel. For example, there is a scene early on in the novel in which Camilla notices the lyrics to the song that’s playing are about the whereabouts of some “wayward vegetable man.” This is referring to the song “Vegetable Man” originally by Pink Floyd, but I (and the Rats) prefer the version by The Soft Boys. There is another point in the novel in which the Rats are listening to the Palma Violets’ album 180.

And then there is “My Little Underground” by The Jesus and Mary Chain, which, if this novel were a movie, absolutely must play during the end credits, and I refuse to accept any argument otherwise.

If you don’t have a Spotify account or otherwise cannot access the playlist, here is a list of the songs should you wish to look them up on your own.

• A Hazy Shade of Winter - Simon & Garfunkel

• A Private Future - Love and Rockets

• Age of Consent - New Order

• Alice - Stevie Nicks

• Amor Fati - Washed Out

• Antidote to Being Bored - Oscar Lang

• Anyone But You - Tashaki Miyaki

• Babies - Pulp

• Blue - Rain Parade

• Blue Thunder - Galaxie 500

• Born Under a Good Sign - The Suburbs

• Bring on the Dancing Horses - Echo & the Bunnymen

• Broken Horse - Rain Parade

• Carry Me - The Rocketboys

• Cat People - David Bowie

• Catch the Breeze - Slowdive

• Chicken Dippers - Palma Violets

• China Girl - David Bowie

• Could it Be Another Change - The Samples

• David’s Last Summer - Pulp

• Did You Ever Look So Nice - The Samples

• Don’t Ask Me - A Flock of Seagulls

• Don’t Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

• Dum Dum Girl - Talk Talk

• End of a Century - Blur

• Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

• Fantasy Island - The Shins

• Femme Fatale - The Velvet Underground

• Flowers - Galaxie 500

• Girlfriend in a Coma - The Smiths

• Half a Million (Flipped) - The Shins

• He’s a Reptile - The Soft Boys

• Heartbreak Beat - The Psychedelic Furs

• Heaven - The Rolling Stones

• Here She Comes Now - The Velvet Underground

• I Only Have Eyes For You - The Flamingos

• I Ran (So Far Away) - A Flock of Seagulls

• I Think I Smell a Rat - The White Stripes

• I Wanna Destroy You - The Soft Boys

• If I Could Write - Sam Phillips

• July - Youth Lagoon

• (Keep Feeling) Fascination - The Human League

• Keep Me in Mind - Tashaki Miyaki

• Killer Queen - Queen

• Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spiritualized

• Last of the Summer Wine - Palma Violets

• Like a Friend - Pulp

• Lipgloss - Pulp

• Losing My Religion - R.E.M.

• Lost - The Church

• Love is Stronger Than Death - The The

• Love is the Law - The Suburbs

• Love Letters - Paper Route

• Lovely to See You - The Moody Blues

• Lucky Man - The Verve

• Machine Gun - Slowdive

• Magic Dance - David Bowie

• Modern Love - David Bowie

• My Little Underground - The Jesus and Mary Chain

• Name For You - The Shins

• New Theory - Washed Out

• Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues

• No Use in Crying - The Rolling Stones

• North, South, East, and West - The Church

• Old England - The Waterboys

• One Summer Night - Ariel Pink

• Only the Stones Remain - The Soft Boys

• Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground

• Parking Lot - Galaxie 500

• Pearle - Trip Shakespeare

• Perfect Day - Lou Reed

• Pictures - Galaxie 500

• Pretty in Pink - Hex Girls

• Radio Free Europe - R.E.M.

• Regret - New Order

• Satellite of Love - Lou Reed

• Send Me No Wine - The Moody Blues

• She Bangs the Drum - The Stone Roses

• She Wears My Hair - The Soft Boys

• She’s So High - Blur

• So Deep Within You - The Moody Blues

• So Now What (Flipped) - The Shins

• Some Girls are Bigger Than Others - The Smiths

• Space Age Love Song - A Flock of Seagulls

• Space Oddity - David Bowie

• Spark - The Church

• Star Roving - Slowdive

• Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before - The Smiths

• Stop! - Erasure

• Strange - Galaxie 500

• Sugar for the Pill - Slowdive

• Sunday Morning - The Velvet Underground

• Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground

• Swingin’ Party - The Replacements

• Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones

• Tell Me - Galaxie 500

• The Boy with the Thorn in His Side - The Smiths

• The Dog-End of a Day Gone By - Love and Rockets

• The Queen is Dead - The Smiths

• There Is a Light that Never Goes Out - The Smiths

• This is the Day - The The

• Tops - The Rolling Stones

• Tugboat - Galaxie 500

• Turn the Radio On - The Suburbs

• Two Hearts - Paper Route

• Under Pressure - Queen, David Bowie

• Under the Milkyway - The Church

• Underground - David Bowie

• Underwater Moonlight - The Soft Boys

• Vegetable Man - The Soft Boys

• Waiting for the Flood - Love and Rockets

• Waterfall - The Stone Roses

• Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole - The Soft Boys

• Wings - Birdy

• You and Everyone Else - The Rocketboys

• You Can Run - A Flock of Seagulls

• Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie

Thank you for allowing me to share my little corner of creativity with you. Let me know what you think of the playlist. Which song is your favorite?

Updates

In the month of April, I finished the first draft of my second book. This will be a standalone novel, not a sequel to The Boston R.A.T.S. Here is the word count for Draft 1:

This book will be much shorter than The Boston R.A.T.S. (which sits at around 106,000 words and approximately 407 pages in a Word document). The minimum word count for a full-length novel is 50,000 words, so I plan to bulk up the novel in subsequent drafts. Ultimately, my goal is for the complete novel to stand between 50,000 and 60,000 words.

Fun fact: A shorter version of this book was actually my undergraduate thesis. It received an Honors Pass, which is the highest level!

What is this new book about? Allow me to explain.

When eighteen-year-old Emma Shepard earns a violin solo for the prestigious concert at Belmont Academy of the Performing Arts, she is ecstatic—especially since she is a freshman chosen over her rival, a senior violin virtuoso named Veronica Costello. But her life takes a dark turn when an encounter with fellow musician Paul Henderson ends with a harrowing result. Emma’s trauma manifests in dreams in which she is a harlequin marionette controlled by a greedy and lustful king who forces her to perform her solo for him. What’s even more disturbing is that her childhood imaginary friends have returned—but now they are tarnished, ugly, and terrifying. As the prestigious concert approaches, Emma must overcome the trauma and vulnerability she associates with her solo before it derails her entire future—if madness doesn’t overcome her first.

What do you think about this new book? Let me know in the comments!

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Tirra Lirra,

A.K. Vande Vorde