The Ink in the Grooves

Conversations on Literature and Rock 'n' Roll

Florence Dore

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781501766206
• eBook ISBN: 9781501766251
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Drop the record needle on any vinyl album in your collection, then read the first pages of that novel you've been meaning to pick up—the reverberations between them will be impossible to miss. Since Dylan went electric, listening to rock 'n' roll has often been a surprisingly literary experience, and contemporary literature is curiously attuned to the history and beat of popular music. In The Ink in the Grooves, Florence Dore brings together a remarkable array of acclaimed novelists, musicians, and music writers to explore the provocatively creative relationship between musical and literary inspiration: the vitality that writers draw from a three-minute blast of guitars and the poetic insights that musicians find in literary works from Shakespeare to Southern Gothic. Together, the essays and interviews in The Ink in the Grooves provide a backstage pass to the creative processes behind some of the most exciting and influential albums and novels of our time.

Contributors: Laura Cantrell, Michael Chabon, Roddy Doyle, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, William Ferris, Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Dave Grohl, Peter Guralnick, Amy Helm, Randall Kenan, Jonathan Lethem, Greil Marcus, Rick Moody, Lorrie Moore, the John Prine band (Dave Jacques, Fats Kaplin, Pat McLaughlin, Jason Wilber), Dana Spiotta, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Richard Thompson, Scott Timberg, Daniel Wallace, Colson Whitehead, Lucinda Williams, Warren Zanes.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. The Inescapable Dylan
• Part II. Rock ’N’ Roll Saved My Life
• Part III. Rock’s Literary Identity
• Part IV. Don’t Let Anyone write your Story
• Part V. Losses and Erasures
• Afterword
• Notes on Contributors