Interview with faculty member Caitlin Horrocks
An excerpt from an interview with faculty member Caitlin Horrocks on her debut novel, The Vexations, featured on NPR.
Author Caitlin Horrocks Explores Brilliance of Composer Erik Satie In The Vexations
SIMON: What makes someone from Grand Rapids want to write about Erik Satie?
HORROCKS: As a piano student, my teacher assigned me one of the “Gymnopedies.” And as a kid, I just immediately loved it. I thought, I have a new favorite piece. I have a new favorite composer. I really loved that elegant melancholy that you just heard. But when I looked at more pieces, I – very quickly I was running into things like “Flabby Preludes (For A Dog)” or “Dried Embryos,” one of which contains essentially lines of dialogue from the point of view of a sea cucumber. And as an aspiring pianist, I was annoyed. (Laughter) I was disappointed.
SIMON: Yeah.
HORROCKS: And it raised the question, though, of who was this person who had created this handful of very beautiful pieces and then this other more playful, more experimental work? And I just held onto that question for a long time.
[… continue reading at NPR.]
