Writer In The Dark – Lorde
An obvious first pick, perhaps, but it’s obvious for a reason; this song perfectly encapsulates so much of Kate and Finn’s story and was on my mind ever since I wrote about their first kiss in the dark.
Listening back to it now, I realize that it describes so much more than just her relationship with him; every single line says something about who she is, how she loves, how she creates, how she heals. The line, “but in my darkest hour, I stumble on my secret power, I find a way to be without you,” is almost a synopsis for the whole book. And an answer to one of the questions I brought into this process, which was, what is the relationship between trauma and art? Can it be learned? Can it be inherited? Can it be the thing that saves us?
This song is an anthem for artists everywhere, the ones who take their pain and transmute it into something beautiful in an attempt to understand themselves and the world around them. The more I listen, too, the more I realize she’s saying all this to Finn, knowing he’ll never truly understand. There’s something both freeing and heartbreaking about that.
Last Goodbye – Jeff Buckley
It’s so hard to discuss what this one means to me in terms of this story without giving too much away, but every beat of it feels as though it’s pouring out of Kate at various points along her journey. Especially the rawness with which Jeff Buckley belts “Kiss me, please kiss me.” We all know that moment, when your mind knows it’s ending but your body is crying out for one last kiss.
There are also lines that could be directed to Finn, and others that she could be saying to her mother, which ties into the messiness of her grieving and healing process – how one loss bleeds into the next and how she finds herself talking to them both and even crying out for them both at different times. The first two stanzas read to me like a message to Kate’s mother, then the perspective shifts to Finn until the very end of the song when she’s addressing her mam again.
Keening of The Three Marys – Mary McLaughlin
I made a playlist of traditional Irish music to listen to while writing Better by Far and this instrumental track on Mary McLaughlin’s album, Celtic Requiem, happened to be on it. I hadn’t heard the song before, but I felt drawn to it and at certain points in the story I would play it on repeat to evoke a very particular feeling. What that feeling was, I didn’t have words for, until I learned about the Celtic practice of keening (from the Gaelic caoineadh – crying). In ancient Ireland, the bean caointe (keening women) would sing over the bodies of the dead, but it was more than singing, it was mourning in motion. Most of those songs were lost to us as they were never recorded, and usually improvised, but some have survived and The Keening of The Three Marys is one of them.
In the book, Kate recalls her Aunt Kathy keening at her mothers funeral and tries to describe how it felt to witness the ritual. But I had never actually been present for a keening and had to piece the details together from sparse historic records and my own imagination.
Last Halloween, exactly a year after my own break up, and several months after submitting the book to my publisher, I attended a Samhain ceremony where a woman named Aine Walsh sang this song. We had never spoken. She knew nothing about me or my book and here she was singing an ancient Irish keen. What’s more is, she learned it from Mary McLaughlin herself! Aine and I have since become friends and I even got to learn this song from her. Her version is available on spotify and it’s absolutely haunting.
Both Sides Now – Joni Mitchell
There’s a chapter called Life’s Illusions, in which Kate describes the day of her mother’s funeral, and how this song played as the coffin was carried from the church. I borrowed the title from the line “It’s life’s illusions I recall”, which is a repeated refrain throughout the song, and mirrors a repeated theme in Kate’s own life; she is at once hopeful and curious and desperate to see the good in the world, but constantly disillusioned, unsure of the truth of things, marred by memory, and let down by the people she loves most.
The more we get to know Kate’s mother, Abigail, the more we understand why this was one of her favorite songs, and why Joni Mitchell was one of her favorite artists, alongside Karen Carpenter and the painter Hilma af Klint. Their art spoke to her. And it speaks to Kate too in similar ways.
I Kissed Someone (It Wasn’t You) – dodie
The lore behind this song is honestly so dense, I’m not sure it will ever fully see the light of day. Suffice to say that I Kissed Someone (It Wasn’t You) has been passed back and forth between myself and dodie, my best friend and the woman who wrote it, in numerous tragic and hilarious ways over the years. I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you that it was inspired by an experience I had following a break up – a very universal experience that you’ve probably had too, and which I loaned to Kate in Better by Far.
It is such a rare and unique honor to get to pay tribute to dodie’s art in my own art. So much of this book is a love letter to great female artists and dodie is, in my opinion, one of the greatest.
BETTER BY FAR by Hazel Hayes
A Novel
A genre-bending story about love and loss, hope and heartbreak, and the healing to be found in life’s little limbos, those in-between spaces where you’re no longer who you were and not yet the person you will be
About her debut, Out of Love, Hazel Hayes said, “The journey from writing horror to writing love stories was a short one. There is nothing more horrific than love.” In her new novel, she sets out to prove it.
This genre-defying, meta-modern novel is unlike anything you have ever read, and yet at its core it is a story we all deeply understand. A story of love and liminality, and the ways in which grief grips us all. Prepare to laugh and cry; Hazel Hayes will break your heart, but then she’ll mend it for you.
Following a breakup, Kate and Finn decide to keep sharing their house until the lease runs out in twelve weeks’ time, alternating week by week so that they are occupying the same space but never at the same time.
Practically, the plan makes sense, but coming back each Sunday to a home where Finn has been and gone feels far too much like living with a ghost. Kate lost her mother at a young age and now this fresh grief dredges unhealed sorrows up to the surface, and soon, Kate finds herself adrift in her own subconscious, trapped in the liminal space between loving someone and letting go.
Thriller Psychological [Penguin, On Sale: April 23, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593472958 / eISBN: 9780593472965]
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About Hazel Hayes
Hazel Hayes is an Irish internet personality, filmmaker, presenter and author. She initially gained popularity on YouTube through her interview series called “Tipsy Talk” which she hosted on her self-titled channel (then known as “ChewingSand”). She has also made short films, web series, sketches and vlogs for the channel.
She grew up in Dublin, Ireland with two brothers and a sister. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from Dublin City University. She identifies as bisexual and has been a resident of London since 2012.
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