"My Name is Lakhan"

Considering the importance of music to my creative and personal life I should write about it a lot more than I do. Now that I’m deadlining on DEAD END BOYS, trying to get a decent draft finished by the end of the year, I’ve started getting up earlier—Kechi rises at six most weekdays, since even when her classes start later, the total clusterfuck that is parking on the LSU campus requires her to be there bright and early. The lockdown had me waking up between eleven and twelve, but that’s no good now that the world has returned (not that Covid has gone anywhere.) Another reason I rise early is that this health journey I’m on has me drinking an entire gallon of water most days that don’t require long car rides. So I have to start early if I don’t want to be up all night letting the water out of my knee. Anyway, you’ll be forgiven if you’re wondering by now whatinhell this has to do with music. It’s this: I like to listen to music pretty loudly while I clean, while I shower and perform my ablutions, and especially when I write.

            I always thought of The Ballad of Perilous Graves as a musical novel. When I sold it, it was full of popular New Orleans songs, only a few of which were in the public domain. It wasn’t until after I had signed the contract that Nivia Evans, my editor at the time, pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to use any of those songs without paying exhorbitant fees. I had to rip out almost all the songs and write my own lyrics that evoked the same sensibilities. I ashy-knuckled my way through the entire process, hoping against hope that I wasn’t ruining the entire feel of the book. It seems to have worked out pretty well.

            Anyway, when I listen to music, I usually put my library of 10,000ish songs on shuffle, with little regard to continuity of feeling—that is, unless I’m targeting a specific mood or feeling. Earlier today, I was reading R. R. Virdi’s The Doors of Midnight in my office, and the theme to Ram Lakhan, the old 90s Bollywood movie came on. Now, I’ve never seen the film (I should) but I first heard the song when it was used for a promo on MTV2 in the early 2000s. I fell in love with it right away, and while I go through long periods between listens, I’d say it happens once a year that I put it back on heavy rotation and listen to the damn thing over and over for a couple weeks before I’m able to let go of it again.

            The story I’m working on is tied to another song I love because of the theme of the anthology that will hopefully be its home. I’ve always loved “We’ve Been Had” by The Walkman, back from that same period when I first heard “My Name is Lakhan.” There is something wistful and dark in it, and I’m interested to see how readers receive a story informed by the emotional pain I felt when I discovered it, and the sharper, more immediate pain of recent grief. I feel like this story is also linked to some of the themes of the last short story I published, “Fat Kids,” which appeared in Bourbon Penn this summer.

            That story and this new one—I’m not ready to discuss it by name because I’m hoping I’ll find a better title once it’s drafted—offer a little preview of what DEAD END BOYS will be like, but I can promise that the novel will be a lot crazier. Let’s work work work!