So far the books I have reviewed for SoundGirls are all non-fiction. While I would love to start the year off with escapism in an idyllic setting filled with joyous music, I must share with you a book that will ignite and inspire. Sarah Pinsker’s debut novel A Song for a New Day is a book written for us, the SoundGirl community. Fittingly, Pinsker herself is also a singer-songwriter with the band Stalking Horses. A Song for a New Day however caught attention for being published at the right time, earning a Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2019. Yes, 2019, the year that the world stood still.
If you look for A Song for a New Day in the bookstore you will find it amongst the Sci-Fi shelves, but that broad genre does it a disservice. This novel fits squarely in the speculative fiction subgenre of science fiction. Speculative fiction is the near future where you will find The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and other martian-less stories. The majority of A Song for a New Day occurs after a pandemic where there are laws against gathering in large groups. Unlike COVID-19, the disease leaves visible scarring and no longer returns as a seasonal illness. It also is not spoken of by name, instead the characters refer to “Before” and “After.” In fact many of the large scale changes and political actors are not the focus, but rather the lives of everyday people.
A Song for a New Day follows 2 women in mismatched timelines as they live during and after a pandemic. Luce Cannon, the first, is a musician on the brink of becoming a big touring star. Rosemary Laws, the other, is stuck in a dead-end service job for a mega-corporation in a rural farm in the middle of the country. It was surreal reading their stories and looking at how the COVID-19 pandemic has played out 5 years in. Luce and Rosemary’s reality took remote work and social distancing more seriously, implementing strict occupancy limits and self-driving cars that are like individual high speed trains with dedicated roads. Constant connectivity is aided by the portable “hoodie,” a garment integrated with a display, speakers and a wide-variety of augmented reality features. Several companies took control of the pandemic-led disruption: Superwally, an amalgamation of Amazon and Walmart making same-day deliveries standard; and StageHoloLive, what Ticketmaster and Spotify wished they could be. It is not a big leap to see our real future as similar, especially if you are tuned into the news.
Pisker keeps the story engaging by switching the two perspectives. Their character growths are different, but related and makes the reader ask difficult questions. What do we do with our knowledge and position? How do we live with the new normal? If we resist, how do we resist? How do we build community when we are isolated? How do we remember the last event before the world changed? Even as we are forced to confront these questions, the story gives brevity with music. The unique background of live music that Pisker brings infuses vibrancy and excitement to each musical performance. What StageHoloLive attempts with the hoodies, Pisker succeeds with words to immerse the reader in all 5 senses.
If you are looking for a live music experience in book format, A Song for a New Day provides. However, you will also hit with reality, dialed up to 11. Fiction is a reflection of our present. As a mirror it can help us look at ourselves as if we are strangers. This perspective informs us on what actions to take. The message from A Song for a New Day is that the show continues. How do we keep the music going in 2025 and beyond?