I had my first inklings of the novel that eventually became
Flux about a year after I was laid off from my first job after college, the result of a corporate takeover of my company that eliminated my entire department. While a tough hurdle to overcome at twenty-one years old, I learned a lot about self-sufficiency, and, once I was ready, decided this episode of my life would make for a fantastic opening chapter. Which it eventually became.
I made this playlist in simple terms: I imagined
Flux as a television show and scored the scenes that I found to be most interesting or would play out in the best way on-screen. Most of these songs bring to mind the sterilized grimness of prestige science-fiction television —
Severance,
Westworld,
Black Mirror, etc. There is also an element of postmodern 80s nostalgia, which figures in the book as a fictional television show obsessed over by the main characters.
L’enfer by Stromae
I’m in love with the distorted chorus that rings out between Stromae’s verses on this song, off his first album in almost ten years. It’s all at once haunting, revelatory, yet strangely peaceful.
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Asking for a Friend by CHVRCHES
The title of CHVRCHES’ new album,
Screen Violence, seems apt to describe the moody atmosphere of the world of
Raider, the fictional 80s detective noir that features heavily within
Flux.
Time (feat. Ariana Grande) by Childish Gambino
I’m struck by how hopeful this song sounds, despite Donald Glover’s lyrics detailing the end of times. It manages to strike the perfect balance between beauty and dread.
Sims by Lauv
I populated this novel with lonely people, each seeking connections that they are starved for. In a few choice instances, they receive it. Those scenes are the most tender in the novel, and also some of my favorites to work with.
Moon River by Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean’s version of this classic from
Breakfast at Tiffany’s was released on Valentine’s Day some years back. When I listen to it, I imagine falling snow and yellow streetlamps, a scene that plays out quietly in one of the first chapters of the novel, where a young boy named Bo is driven home by his father.
Different Skies by Shoffy
Filling out the little romantic trilogy in this playlist is a small and feisty single by Shoffy that recalls a long car ride in the night.
Beyond Monday by Glitch Mob
I admire the scenes in
Flux that plunge into an otherworldly kind of office setting, an office being the most artificial, unnatural place I can imagine. This song makes me think of the mystery at the core of the novel, told through a series of hallucinogenic do-overs of a single Monday morning — getting up, getting to work, clocking in.
Instant Crush (feat. Julian Casablancas) by Daft Punk
A lifelong Daft Punk fan, I reached peak fandom with the release of
Random Access Memories, which captured a timelessness with its hybrid traditional/electronic sound. This song in particular creates for me a funny form of nostalgia, for things I haven’t experienced.
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Jinwoo Chong received an MFA from Columbia University. His short stories have appeared in
The Southern Review,
Chicago Quarterly Review, and
Salamander.
Flux is his first novel. He lives in New York.