Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Soundtrack For a Story: The Summer Country

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I finished my second round of edits on The Summer Country the other day! To celebrate, I’m dusting off another old post from the archives: my musical playlist for this book. I’d forgotten, this was actually the very first time I made a playlist to go along with a story in progress, almost exactly nine (!) years ago. Here’s what I wrote back then:

Music and writing have a kind of odd relationship for me. I adore music, and it definitely inspires my writing, but unlike a lot of people, I can’t listen to it while I write. Either I get too focused on the writing and wake up to find I’ve missed my favorite part of the music, or I listen to the music and can’t concentrate on writing. I guess it’s because when I listen to music I like to savor it; to listen closely to every note, to wait for those favorite moments and relish them when they arrive.

But as I said, music still definitely inspires me. Mostly instrumental music. Some people draw inspiration from song lyrics that tie into the themes of their story; while that does happen to me occasionally, I get a lot more from listening to classical music and film scores. They become the soundtrack to my story. I imagine certain scenes playing out to them, or link particular musical themes with characters. My favorite time to listen to music like this is late at night, when it’s dark and quiet and I can pay full attention to it and let my imagination spin. And then eventually the things I dream up work their way into my daytime writing sessions.

The playlist itself has undergone some slight changes since then; a couple tracks have dropped off and a few new ones have been added. But the core of it is essentially the same:

  • The “Mississippi Suite” by Ferde Grofé. As usual, there’s often little to no thematic connection between the original intent of the music and my story. I have no idea how music inspired by the Mississippi River fits The Summer Country, which is set entirely in turn-of-the-century New York and—well, in dreamland—so well, but it just absolutely is the soundtrack for this story. Three of the four movements (“Huckleberry Finn,” “Father of Waters,” and “Mardi Gras”) are so closely linked to specific scenes in the story they seem to have been written especially for them, and the fourth, “Old Creole Days,” does fit the mood of certain parts.
  • Suite from The Heiress by Aaron Copland. Here I think there is a subconscious mental link, with the film being set in old-world New York City, albeit several decades earlier. It sets the mood nicely for the city scenes in The Summer Country, and some of the more dramatic moments later in the story.
  • “Allfriars” from the score to The Buccaneers by Colin Towns. Another piece, from a Gilded Age period drama that I haven’t seen, which just seems to fit the old-world historical side of the setting. Other tracks from the same score didn’t strike me the same way, which shows you just how random a process this playlist business can be!
  • “Toyland” by Victor Herbert, performed by the Capitol Symphony Orchestra. Fun fact: I actually use lines from this song as a chapter epigraph in the book! The themes of childhood nostalgia and imagination make it a thematic fit, and this lush instrumental arrangement fits in perfectly with the other orchestral pieces in my playlist.
  • “Lullaby for Pegi” by John Rutter. I can’t remember whether I heard this on the radio first, or stumbled across it on YouTube—but it’s amazing to me how perfect a companion it is to my central character, a young girl named Peggy, who spends much of the story telling bedtime stories.
  • “Waltz” from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky. A waltz plays a rather key part in The Summer Country, and when I was first thinking about it, the beginning of this one was what kept running in my head. Most of it’s rather bigger and grander than the one I have in mind, but the rhythm of that first theme definitely inspired it.

image: “Twilight Dancers” by Morgan Weistling

Top Five Movies (and TV) Watched in 2022

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Hamlet (1948)

I’d always been skeptical about this film for a handful of reasons: one, I didn’t see how anything could be good enough to have beaten out The Treasure of the Sierra Madre for best picture; two, I didn’t see how a Shakespeare play cut down to feature-film length, and led by a big-name movie star who’d never made a great impression on me in the few films of his I’d seen, could really be anything special. But when I finally watched it one afternoon on a whim it absolutely wowed me. Read my full review here.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009)

I laughed so, so hard all through this movie. When an estranged married couple, urbanite New Yorkers, accidentally witness a hit job, they’re hustled into a witness protection program—together—in ultra-rural Wyoming. The resulting culture clash is absolutely screamingly funny. The satire on both city and country folk is both on-point and yet hugely good-natured. Caveat: this is definitely an adult movie, in the sense that it deals with mature topics like marital infidelity, fertility struggles, etc., frankly but not explicitly; but there’s also remarkably little actual bad language (maybe two or three instances if I’m remembering correctly). It’s a comedy for grown-ups, but the bulk of the actual humor is clean. And hilarious.

A Letter For Evie (1946)

In this WWII-era take on Cyrano de Bergerac, a diffident soldier begins corresponding with Evie, a pretty girl who’s looking for a soldier pen-pal, but sends her a photo of his big, flashy, womanizing army buddy and embroiders the story of his life to match it. But when his pal sees a picture of Evie and decides to step in and pretend to be the letter-writer she’s fallen in love with, “Cyrano” is left scrambling to protect the girl he loves from a philanderer and trying to unravel the mess he’s created without breaking Evie’s heart. A sweet story that nicely balances being funny and touching, with a lovable unlikely hero.

Gallant Sons (1940)

There’s a lot to like about this snappy little mystery featuring a group of teenagers out to solve a crime. When one boy’s father is wrongfully convicted of murder, the kids join forces to track down the real crooks and clear his name. With an entertaining young ensemble cast (Jackie Cooper, Gene Reynolds, Bonita Granville, William Tracy, Leo Gorcey, and Tommy Kelly), plenty of wisecracking dialogue and smaller touches of drama and action, it’s great lightweight fun. It’s nice to see a story where the kids have healthy relationships with their parents, some of whom not only encourage their detective endeavors but even aid and abet them in their schemes. (It was also striking to consider that this was the entertainment presumably aimed at a teenage audience in 1940—it seems incredibly wholesome and clean-cut compared to what’s put out for kids now.)

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2022)

I hoped, hoped, hoped that this new adaptation by Hugh Laurie would be worth watching, and I was actually very pleasantly surprised. There’s a lot about it that has a “classic” feel harking back to the period adaptations of a few decades ago; plenty of clever, witty dialogue, and some nice chemistry between the lead characters. The mystery plot, admittedly, has a few holes left in it that might leave you puzzled if you haven’t read the book, but if you have, you can just sit back and enjoy the fun. One important suspect character was rather annoyingly miscast, too, but that was my only major criticism. It’s also remarkably and blessedly clean for a new show, with very little onscreen bloodshed and no language at all barring one single random f-word which one feels must have been put in to achieve a certain content rating. I loved the use of old popular music throughout the score, too.

Runners-up: This Beautiful Fantastic (2016), The Remains of the Day (1993), The Vanishing Virginian (1942), The King’s Speech* (2010), The Happy Years (1950).

(*An R-rated film easily transformed into PG with some strategic muting.)

Honorable mentions for best re-watches: Merrily We Live (1938), Gaslight (1944), The Little Foxes (1941).

Top Ten Books Read in 2022

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Journey Into Christmas by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Journey Into Christmas by Bess Streeter Aldrich

I read this last holiday season but finished it in the new year, and it was automatically the first nomination for this list. I’d had it on my to-read list for years, but never got around to tracking down a copy until interlibrary loans became relatively easier to make through my library system. Before I’d finished reading it I knew I’d be adding a copy to my personal library someday. These short stories are exactly what a Christmas story should be: simple, warm, heartfelt, wholesome, nostalgic. The title story “Journey into Christmas” makes me cry (in a good way) every time, and “Star Across the Tracks” and “The Drum Goes Dead” are my other favorites.

Middlemarch by George Eliot

A hefty, multi-threaded story of the lives and loves of a group of people in an English country town in the 1830s, Middlemarch is an example of what a classic is and should be: a book that absorbs you in the story, and also makes you go slowly and think. I thoroughly enjoyed it even as I found some things to differ with and critique. Eliot’s prose can be a touch ponderous in passages where she is discussing ideas, but her delineation of character and interactions between people are wonderful. It was also pretty much the only book I managed to write a lengthy review of this year, which you can read here.

St. Peter’s Fair by Ellis Peters

So far my reactions to the Brother Cadfael books have alternated between “okay, pretty decent” and “wow, BRILLIANT.” I wouldn’t say this one quite matches up to last year’s One Corpse Too Many, but it was excellent. A merchant is murdered at a crowded fair where tensions are already running high, and two plot lines, of a young girl who holds the secret key to the motive but isn’t telling, and a suspect trying to clear his own name, interweave and finally converge at the exciting climax.

Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making by Andrew Peterson

An impulse-buy that turned into my nonfiction read of the year. The way Peterson describes his creative process and struggles, and the tension between innate self-centeredness and the sincere desire to bring glory to God—it was like reading my own mind. There were times when I couldn’t see the words for tears. It forced me to look honestly at the various fears holding me back creatively; and it also gives a glimpse of the glorious possibilities we forfeit if we’re not willing to be brave and work hard, and I think that’s why it resonated so deeply. I read it straight through twice, which is a rare occurrence for me.

Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf

This would have been my top nonfiction read of the year if Adorning the Dark hadn’t bobbed up and taken that spot. It was fascinating to learn how the Founders that it focuses on (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and a slighter role for Franklin) were not only avid gardeners who had tremendous botanical knowledge, delighted in discovering new species and varieties and regularly exchanged seeds with their correspondents, and relished nothing more than being at home working in the gardens on their own land. But even more importantly, how they were passionate about agriculture and farming in general, and how their views on the subject were vital to their vision for the new country they founded. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that made these people and the formative years of the United States so interesting to me. Highly recommended for farmers, gardeners, and history lovers, and especially if you’re all three.

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

This was absolutely perfect summer reading fare: quiet, deceptively simple vignettes of life in a small Maine fishing village, and of the people the nameless narrator meets while spending a summer there. The chapters centering around Mrs. Todd and her mother and brother are so simply sweet and wholesome and poignant, I just wanted to be able to visit that tiny island and know people like them. It’s the perfect kind of book to take you on a a vicarious seaside vacation.

Heroes Without Glory: Some Goodmen of the Old West by Jack Schaefer

That spelling in the subtitle is not a mistake; it is in fact “goodmen” rather than “good men” (a nuance that was missed by University of New Mexico Press in their recent reissue). That’s because the book is a direct response to what Schaefer called the “cult of the badmen,” the obsession with outlaws over and above all the other history of the Old West. His fire-spitting introduction alone is worth the price of admission! But so too are his profiles of ten real men whose courage, resilience, and spirit was demonstrated in far more worthwhile ways than gunfights or robbing banks. This is the real West, where the stories of the doctor and the mailman are *more* thrilling than the stories of the outlaw—a perspective on the subject that’s desperately needed now even more than when Schaefer wrote the book.

Whispering Smith by Frank H. Spearman

I’d have read Whispering Smith sooner if I’d realized it was set in the same “story universe” as Spearman’s railroad short stories that I love. It’s a novel that by no means fits the narrow pop-culture definition of a “Western,” for rather than focusing exclusively on a few cowboys or outlaws, its cast of characters are involved in railroading, ranching, mining, and the town life adjacent to these professions, assisting and clashing with each other in a variety of ways; the antagonists range from run-of-the-mill cattle thieves to a river in flood. The plot, somewhat characteristic of many early-20th-century Westerns, sprawls and rambles a bit, taking a few chapters here and a few there to focus on each of four or five central characters in turn, but it all gradually and purposefully draws together—and I enjoyed every minute of it. Read my slightly fuller review here.

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray

Quite frankly the best thing on prayer I’ve ever read. A study in Jesus’ own teachings on prayer, the overarching theme of the book is what God’s promises regarding prayer truly are, and how a lack of understanding and faith in those promises often limits Christians’ power in prayer. (The chapter on Christ the Intercessor is amazing.) Another one that I plan on re-reading in full.

This Hill, This Valley by Hal Borland

Spending as much time as I do reading books about other parts of the country or world, it was lovely to discover a book that speaks so beautifully and perceptively of the place I’ve always felt most at home: New England farm country. In this informal journal of a year of life on a Connecticut farm, first published in 1957, Borland records descriptions and observations of the land, plants, wildlife, weather, and a farmer’s work and life. I started reading it in the summer, and since it runs from spring to spring, I was able to stretch it out so its changing seasons loosely paralleled whatever season I was in. The gently tangential musings on things as varied as a chickadee’s personality, the mood evoked by a winter night, and the mindsets cultivated by growing a vegetable garden make for both intelligent and quietly comforting reading. (My single criticism would be Borland’s too-frequent harking back to some plant or geographical feature’s supposed emergence from prehistoric ooze, which demonstrates the underlying sense of unease and questioning the evolutionary worldview gives to one’s overall philosophy of life. Nature writing this good which was also grounded in the confidence and awe of regarding creation as an intelligent design, with mankind having a clear purpose in the scheme of things, would be truly brilliant.)

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Six of this year’s list were Kindle purchases (Middlemarch, The Country of the Pointed Firs, and Whispering Smith are public-domain and free, and With Christ in the School of Prayer is also public-domain and inexpensive); Founding Gardeners was a library borrow and St. Peter’s Fair a digital library borrow, and Journey Into Christmas and Heroes Without Glory required interlibrary borrows.

In other trivia, this year’s list ties with 2018 for most nonfiction titles to make the cut (five), and becomes the year with the most-ever books from my summer reading list becoming top-ten picks (four). An Ellis Peters book makes the list for the fifth year in a row (at least one book of hers every year since I began reading them), which also makes her the author with the most overall top-ten appearances through the years!

Previous years’ lists: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011