It’s common to say music has healing qualities, and maybe that’s what got me through my 80s/90s childhood. As much as I remember my mother’s alcoholism, my father’s absenteeism, and my sister’s drug addiction, I remember the soundtrack playing in the background.
My sister and I kept cassette tapes everywhere. The boombox sat on the bathroom counter like an altar we worshipped before school. The moment we got in the car—before the ignition even turned—we blasted Don McLean’s “American Pie” to carry us through the ten-minute drive. When I needed to disappear, I put on my yellow Sony Walkman and played U2’s The Unforgettable Fire on repeat. My GE digital clock radio (Model 7-4612B, red display, AM/FM, black) woke me every morning at 7 a.m., and whatever song came on lodged itself in my head for the rest of the day.
Through my novel TINY LITTLE EARTHQUAKES, I thread the music that was playing—or the songs that mattered—to a young girl named Elliot. A story set in that era wouldn’t be honest without it. This was, hands down, the hardest list I’ve ever had to make. It should be a hundred songs. I narrowed it to eleven—because those are the ones Elliot mentions.
1. “Saturday in The Park” by Chicago: This was the favorite song of Elliot’s mother, Francie.
2. “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from Evita:Elliot and her older sister, Poppy, would sing it and pretend they were stars. “Poppy was very famous in her room.”
3. “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles: Elliot kicks Poppy’s boom box in frustration with her sister’s drinking one night. It went flying while shrieking, “oh-way…oooohh.”
4. “I Would Die For You” by Prince: Poppy and her best friend, Connie, endlessly played Purple Rain for an entire summer while getting high.
5. “With Or Without You” by U2: When the album Joshua Tree came out, Elliot and her friends were determined to go to the concert.
6. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan: Elliot loved Bob Dylan and put in her mix tapes.
7. “Sister Golden Hair” by America: Elliot trapped at boarding school, gets drunk with her best friend B and loves it.
8. “Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds: When Elliot discovers John Hughes movies it’s life changing.
9. “Pale Blue Eyes” by The Velvet Underground: The first time Elliot gets a boyfriend, he sings this to her because like all eighties kids- he was in a band.
10. “Suicide is Painless” by Johnny Mandel: From a young age, Elliot watches the TV show M-A-S-H religiously.
11. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana: The song dropped the same year Elliot went to college where she finally realizes how badly her childhood affected her. “The song echoed my feelings; how low would I go?”
TINY LITTLE EARTHQUAKES by Hays Blinckmann
Tiny Little Earthquakes
Elliot Hase is a sharp, observant nine-year-old girl growing up on a horse farm in 1980s North Carolina, where the adults are far less stable than the barn animals. Her mother, a charismatic alcoholic with a flair for drama and denial, careens through life in a haze of wine and self-pity. Her father, a distant doctor with a new family and a wife who rewrites history, offers more guilt than guidance. Caught between the two is Poppy-Elliot’s older sister, partner-in-crime, and cautionary tale-whose battles with addiction and self-destruction echo through Elliot’s own attempts to break the cycle.
As Elliot navigates funerals, failed interventions, AA and Al Anon meetings, and an elite boarding school that teaches more about co-dependency than calculus, she slowly begins to question not just the people raising her, but the identity she’s been forced to adopt to survive them. Her coming-of-age is shaped by secrets she didn’t ask for, betrayals she doesn’t deserve, and moments of brutal clarity that land like aftershocks.
The central conflict is Elliot’s internal struggle to define herself apart from the chaos of her family-trying to reconcile loyalty to her mother and sister with self-preservation, and survival with healing. Through humor, heartbreak, and sheer stubbornness, she learns that resilience isn’t about being unbreakable-it’s about breaking and rebuilding, again and again.
Women’s Fiction | Fiction Literary [ Independently Published, On Sale: February 17, 2026, e-Book / audiobook, / eISBN: 9798993429205 ]
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About Hays Blinckmann
Hays Blinckmann is an author, journalist, and artist who has called Key West home for more than two decades. Known for both her fine arts career and her work as a journalist with The Keys Weekly, she made her literary debut with In The Salt (2015), which garnered widespread attention. Her second novel, Where I Can Breathe, continues to resonate with readers, while Here, Kitty—her third book—showcases her sharpest humor yet. She is also the author of the young adult novel Yell Out Loud.
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