- Olivia Brooks
- Oct 27
- 9 min read
Updated: Oct 31
An Interview with Holly Brickley
Braulio Fonseca
Braulio Fonseca: I have been investigating fiction authors incorporating some forms of non-fiction or at least some elements of truth into their narratives. What is your process? How did this novel come to be?
Holly Brickley: I love your subject here. I’ve always wanted to write a rock novel because I felt that was the one new thing I could bring to the tradition—the talking about the songs. Most rock novels focus on context, lifestyle, industry, or fame. I wasn't interested in that because I don't have much experience. I'm just a fan. I'm just a person who loves music. I've always enjoyed thinking about and analyzing lyrics and song structure.
However, I've never wanted to become a music journalist as I'm only interested in writing about songs I love. I thought fiction could be a way to scratch that itch and bring something new to the tradition. I wanted to write about songs and incorporate music journalism into the context of fiction. That was my goal from the start. I tried it several years ago with another book that was entirely focused on Elvis Costello. It was about a blogger who runs an Elvis Costello fan club. That one didn't work. It was a nice practice run. From there, I figured that if I widen the aperture and discuss all sorts of music I love, it will be much more accessible and give me a lot more to write about, which also means diversity. That was how it started.
BF: I assume that there are details in this novel that contain some personal truth. What was your process in deciding how much truth to put in, how much to leave out, and how much of you might be in each one of these characters—whether it be Zoe, Percy, or Joe?
HB: I think it's less than most people assume. I did start with some core truths of me, which are almost all in Percy. These are the things I hate most about myself; for example, my deep-seated envy of musicians. I wanted to root around in that corner of my brain and explore those things that have always bothered me about myself. I knew that envy, especially of musicians, would make a great complicating factor in a love story.
That's what I started with: a sort of exaggerated version of myself, with a musician who, due to envy, serves as a barrier. Then, I created Joe, who is entirely fictional, in opposition to her. Zoe is mostly fictional. She was the third leg of the triangle who could plug them into the real world a little bit more, because they both are very myopic, and then, in reaction to them, Percy gradually became her own character. Things that happened to Percy didn't happen to me. The story is fictional, and through that, she evolved, and she went places I wouldn't. She does things I can't do and could never do.
I used all my jobs, schools, and cities in the story, mostly because I was having fun. This was purely a labor of love for me. I wasn't sure if anyone would ever read it. I was completely un-agented and just writing for myself. I didn't write about a single song I didn't already love. I didn't write about a single place I hadn't already been. But that wasn't the story; it was just the setting.
BF: Why did you set this novel in the 2000s rather than in modern times? What is it about this time in history that lends itself to Percy, the narrative, and you as a writer?
HB: I was feeling nostalgic for my youth. I wanted my characters to be young. I recall that time vividly in my life. The more I wrote, the more I realized that it was the perfect setting for a story about connection, belonging, and love—because we are so much more present when we are young. I could feel it in the scenes as I wrote. I could sense people making eye contact with strangers on the subway. I could feel those awkward silences that you used to fill by touching each other—like Joe and Zoe in the backyard or Joe with Zoe on the porch. There is so much more intimacy because we don’t have this easy way out all the time.
I wanted to trace that evolution from hauling around CD wallets to the iPod years, which I believe to be the apex of modern technology—when you could have thousands of songs on a device in your pocket, but your boss couldn't email you on it. We really should have stopped there.
I had some ripe cultural events there too, from 9/11 and the blackout in New York to the Obama campaign. These moments felt like people were coming together, which helped me tell this story. That's one of the strongest themes in the novel; it's about outsiders finding a sense of belonging and connecting, really connecting, with people through music.
BF: Jumping off the 911 reference, the song “Bay Window” in the story plays an integral part in this novel. Is this song real?
HB: I wrote all the songs at a piano, which sounds much more impressive than it is, because it was just me, picking out melodies and chords, really rudimentary and whisper-singing over them. I took piano lessons for about four months to get to the point where I could do that. And they still weren't very good. They were just basic. But at least they felt real to me, which was essential to me, because fictional songs in books I have often found don't feel real. They feel like little poems, and we're all pretending they sound like songs. I felt that was the only way I could do into ensure they had a melody and some chords. And then my husband, a musician, took “Bay Window” and made it better. I still don't think of it as existing in any complete form.
BF: Another part of the novel that was creative, and I thought worked well, was the zine writings that Percy was doing at Berkeley. Toward the end of the book, they transitioned to music reviews that were coming in for Joe's band. They reveal character and plot while still investigating these songs. What inspired you to incorporate this as another element of storytelling, and would you like to discuss that creative choice further?
HB: I love artifacts in novels. I enjoy it when we're uncovering the story through found texts or other forms of communication. One of my favorite novels is Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, which is exclusively that; there are dry cleaning receipts and emails. It just feels authentic and concrete, and it's very fun for me as a writer, because I get to do something a little different with the voice.
Part of it is just me, as a fan, getting to geek out and pretend I'm one of those people who can write that kind of journalism. But of course, I'm always doing it with the primary goal of telling this particular story and revealing character and voice in another way, it's another angle on it all. It feels fresh to me to turn the page and see something like that.
I guess the zine that was the first of that kind of an interstitial artifact, and I had fun with it. An interstitial feels like this is something different, and it's just refreshing. I didn't work too hard on that. I remember thinking, she's young. She's not polishing this. I think that's one of the most significant differences between me when I was a 21-year-old writer, and when I was older. I was very much more likely to fall in love with my first drafts when I was young.
BF: Was it something that you had already made, the decision that you would be implementing, or was it something that arrived?
HB: It arrived. It wasn't surprising to me when it happened. I knew that each chapter title would feature or hinge on one particular song, and that some amount of analysis would be woven, I hoped, seamlessly into the fiction. I also hoped that the emotional truth of that song would be part of the character's experience and part of her journey.
BF: Deep Cuts to me is like this living playlist. The novel begs the reader to download it as they're reading. Percy is so passionate about these songs and brilliant as well. I found her knowledge of music incredible. Did you have in mind that we, the readers, would be simultaneously downloading, listening, investigating, and discovering these deep cuts?
MB: I hoped. I also hoped that if you didn't, it would be okay. You know, I didn't want to get so deep into it that it felt like if you didn't have a way to listen to music at this moment, then that section of the chapter wouldn't make sense. But yeah, I hoped.
BF: The dialogue in this is incredible. All these characters are hitting on all cylinders. It keeps the momentum going. Are there any specific writers who inspired you when you read their dialogue? And how do you approach writing dialogue? Each character has a great voice, and it is just so much fun to read.
HB: My ear for dialogue came young. Maybe, from Salinger, whom I read a lot of in high school. I also learned from certain rom coms, like those really good rom coms we had in the 80s and 90s. My favorite is Broadcast News, the movie with Holly Hunter. If you can watch it, you'll see a lot of Percy. I remember watching this and thinking, I want to write this kind of a female character—who's ambitious and says what she's thinking and has her heart on her sleeve, partly because the dialogue in it was so good. And writing a character like that allows you to have so much fun with dialogue.
When I'm writing dialogue, it's very cinematic to me. I wake up early, around five, and I lie there, seeing scenes in my head. Then, when it's time to get to my computer, I transcribe what I saw.
Exposition doesn't work as well for me. That's more of an in-the-moment thing when I'm at the screen, figuring it out. That's why they're telling me that my work will translate well to the screen, which I didn't know would be the case, given all the interstitials and artifacts.
BF: Your characters come alive on the page. And even though Percy is the narrator, I found myself rooting for Joe and connecting with Zoe. Even Raj—because you did an incredible job of building them. Could you talk a little bit about the process of bringing each one of these to life, and maybe what they do for Percy and the narrative in general?
HB: I figure them out as I write, and they inform each other. They bounce off each other. Those moments of dialogue often surprise me, what a character will say, and then that reveals something more profound about this character than I had thought of. And so, I then have to go back and change who they were up until then to reflect this line that just came out of me. It's a very slow building process; it's just me trying to keep myself entertained and make sure that these people are interesting.
This balance needs to be achieved between ensuring that they're always true to themselves and also surprising, which is challenging because if you've created a character with these traits, it can be easy to maintain them throughout the entire narrative. And that can be boring, and I don't think that's how people are. People are so complicated and nuanced. I'm always trying to make sure that they're still surprising me, and even though they're tough, they're also vulnerable. Even if they're super insecure, they also have this weird streak of confidence.
BF: What is Percy's ultimate want?
HB: She has a desire to make music and be in this world that she has always felt locked out of. She wants to make people feel the way that music makes her feel.
BF: What’s next?
HB: I'm writing the last chapter right now. Book Two, and it's not a music book. It is a love story, and it’s about a remarkably outspoken, opinionated, and ambitious woman. But it is not music focused.
Holly Brickley is a Canadian writer living in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their two daughters. She studied English at UC Berkley and received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. Her debut novel Deep Cuts has been translated into fourteen languages and is being adapted into film by A24 Studios.
Braulio Fonseca is the Nonfiction Editor for The Southeast Review. He holds a BA in Screenwriting from Columbia College, an MA in English from Western Carolina University, and is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Florida State University. His work—spanning fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—has appeared in Yonder magazine.