A Song for a New Day
Praise for
A SONG FOR A NEW DAY
“A lively and hopeful look at how community and music and life go on even in the middle of dark days and malevolent corporate shenanigans.”
—Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Get In Trouble
“Pinsker has written a wonderful epic about music, community, and rediscovering the things that make us human. Pinsker has an amazing ear for dialogue, a brilliant knack for describing music, and most importantly a profound awareness of silence, in both its positive and negative aspects.”
—Charlie Jane Anders, national bestselling and award-winning author of All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night
“Pinsker has one of the strongest voices for character in fiction today; everything her characters do is compelling. When I put the book down, I actually suffered from FOMO because I felt like the characters were continuing on their stories without me.”
—Mur Lafferty, author of Six Wakes
“A Song for a New Day is a compulsively readable story about music, freedom, taking chances, and living with your past. I meant to read it slowly, savoring Pinsker’s near-future world-building and her perfect descriptions of performance, but I ended up gulping it down, so eager to see what happens.”
—Kij Johnson, author of The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
“A full-throated call to arms in the service of music, creation, and shared experience, A Song for a New Day resists both extremes and easy tropes, offering hope in the face of catastrophe through the engrossing stories of characters you’ll want to spend more time with. Pinsker gives us a future rooted in fully-drawn, believable characters and sensory, unflinching descriptions.”
—Malka Older, author of Infomocracy
“Let freedom ring in the growl of an angry guitar chord! Sarah Pinsker’s A Song for a New Day is an absorbing tale of a quiet, all-too-believable American dystopia in which a passion for music becomes the secretive, surprising seed of rebellion.”
—Linda Nagata, Nebula Award–winning author of The Last Good Man
“Woven through Pinsker’s meticulously crafted future of technology-enabled isolation and corporate-consumerist powerlessness is a stirring anthem against the politics of fear. A dazzling tale told in multiple voices, with not a single note out of place. This is the lyrical protest song that we have always needed, perhaps more so now than ever.”
—Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings
“[A]n unsparing vision of a near-future world only a few degrees removed from our own, but has the nerve and audacity to leaven the darkness with hope. A powerful novel whose unforgettable characters channel humanity’s true superpowers: art and the act of creation.”
—Elizabeth Hand, author of Curious Toy and Generation Loss
“At last, the answer to the question science fiction fans have been asking: YES, Sarah Pinsker can write a novel with all the energy and heart and wonderful wackiness that characterize her magnificent short stories. A Song for a New Day is a must-read from a new voice you won’t forget.”
—Sam J. Miller, author of Blackfish City
“Sarah Pinsker plays genre like a favorite guitar, and I am in awe of her talents. How can a writer so new be so central, so necessary?”
—Andy Duncan, author of An Agent of Utopia
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Pinsker
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pinsker, Sarah, author.
Title: A song for a new day / Sarah Pinsker.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Berkley, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019011852 | ISBN 9781984802583 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781984802590 (ebook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3616.1579 S66 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019011852
First Edition: September 2019
Cover art and design by Jason Booher
Title page art: Music sound waves by Shutterstock/Liubou Yasiukovich
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
CONTENTS
Praise for A Song For a New Day
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part OneChapter 1: 172 Ways
Chapter 2: Another Happy Superwally Employee
Chapter 3: The Peach
Chapter 4: The Crash
Chapter 5: The Last Power Chord
Chapter 6: Career Opportunities
Chapter 7: Something’s Gotta Change
Chapter 8: Little Boxes
Chapter 9: Rip
Chapter 10: Who Can You Trust
Chapter 11: Deep Water
Chapter 12: Never Really Ever Had It
Chapter 13: Adventures Close to Home
Chapter 14: Leather Jacket
Part TwoChapter 15: Baltimore
Chapter 16: 2020
Chapter 17: Shadow on the Wall
Chapter 18: Germfree Adolescence
Chapter 19: Where Is My Mind
Chapter 20: Come See Me for Real
Chapter 21: A Selection
Chapter 22: You’re Only Here to Know
Chapter 23: Hold On, Hold On
Chapter 24: Walk Away
Part ThreeChapter 25: Are You Ready
Chapter 26: Bridge
Chapter 27: Sixteen-Bar Solo
Chapter 28: More Rock, More Talk
Chapter 29: Cool Out
Chapter 30: Badge
Chapter 31: Career Suicide
Chapter 32: Fix My Life
Chapter 33: Pressure Drop
Chapter 34: Free Will Astrology
Chapter 35: Crying in the Wilderness
Chapter 36: Remember Who You Are
Chapter 37: Manifest Independence
Chapter 38: Coda
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For everyone who plays music live and everyone who listens
And for Zu, who inspires all my songs
PART ONE
1
LUCE
172 Ways
There were, to my knowledge, one hundred and seventy-two ways to wreck a hotel room. We had brainstormed them all in the van over the last eight months on the road. As a game, I’d thought: 61, turn all the furniture upside do
wn; 83, release a pack of feral cats; 92, fill all the drawers with beer, or, 93, marbles; 114, line the floor with soapy plastic and turn it into a slip ’n’ slide; etc., etc.
In my absence, my band had come up with the one hundred and seventy-third, and had for the first time added in a test run. I was not proud.
What would Gemma do if she were here? I stepped all the way into their room instead of gawking from the hallway and closed the door before any hotel employees could walk past, pressing the button to illuminate the DO NOT DISTURB sign for good measure. “Dammit, guys. This is a nice hotel. What the hell did you do?”
“We found some paint.” Hewitt’s breath smelled like a distillery’s dumpster. He lingered beside me in the vestibule.
“You’re a master of understatement.”
All their bags and instruments were crammed into the closet by the entrance. The room itself was painted a garish neon pink, which it definitely hadn’t been when I’d left that morning. Not only the walls, either: the headboards, the nightstand, the dresser. The spatter on the carpet suggested somebody had knifed a Muppet and let it crawl away to die. For all the paint, Hewitt’s breath was still the overwhelming odor.
“Even the TV?” I asked. “Really?”
The television, frame and screen. Cable news blared behind a drippy film of pink, discussing the new highway only for self-driving cars. We’d be avoiding that one.
JD lounged on the far bed, holding a glass of something caramel colored. His shoes were pink. The bedspread, the site of another Muppet murder.
“We considered doing an accent wall.” He waved his glass at the wall behind the headboard.
April sat on the desk, sticks in hand, drumming a soundless tattoo in the air. “How was your day?” she asked, as if nothing was wrong.
“Excuse me a second.” I ducked into the hall and fumbled for the keycard to the room I shared with April. Our room was quiet and empty and, most importantly, not pink. I leaned my guitar bag in a corner and let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding, then lay back on the bed and dialed Gemma.
“We’re not supposed to be out here alone,” I said when she picked up. “When are you coming back?”
She sighed. “Hi, Luce. My brother is fine, thanks for asking. The bullet went straight through him without hitting any organs.”
“I heard! I’m glad he’s okay! I’m sorry, I should have asked first. But do you think you’re coming back soon?”
“No, I really don’t. What’s the matter? Do you need something?”
“A tour manager. A babysitter for these giant children you ditched me with, so I can concentrate on music instead of being the adult in the room when I’m younger than all of them. Never mind. I shouldn’t have called, and I’m sorry I bothered you. I hope your brother gets well soon.”
I disconnected. We should have been able to handle a few weeks on the road without a tour manager. Lots of bands did fine without one, but those were probably real bands, where everyone had a vested interest; I’d played solo until the label hired these so-called professionals to back me on tour.
Hewitt let me in again when I knocked. Inside the fridge, two large bottles had been crammed in sideways, gin and tequila. The painted minifridge left my fingertips pink and tacky. My prints made me complicit, I supposed. I pulled out the tequila and took a long slug straight from the bottle. Cheap, astringent stuff. No wonder they were chilling it. The armchair under the window was paint free, so I made my way to it with the tequila, trying not to touch anything else.
“Well, April,” I began, answering her question as if I hadn’t left, “since you asked, my day started at five this morning, with stops at two different TV morning shows. Then I did a radio call-in show. Then I spent two hours on the phone in a station parking lot arguing with the label about why we still don’t have our new T-shirts. Then I did a couple of acoustic songs for a local music podcast, ate a highly mediocre burrito, and came back here to find you’ve been far more productive than me. I mean, why did I waste all that time promoting our show tomorrow night when I could have been helping you redecorate?”
They were all glare resistant; not even April had the decency to look uneasy. They knew I had the power to fire them if I wanted, but I wouldn’t. We got along too well onstage.
It wasn’t in me to maintain stern disinterest. “So where did you get the paint?”
April grinned. “We looked up where the nearest liquor store was, right? We had to run across the highway to get there, and there were, like, six lanes, and it was a little, uh, harrowing. So on the way back, we tried to find a better place to cross, like maybe there was a crosswalk somewhere, and then we passed this Superwally Daycare that had a room being redone and it was completely deserted, right? But the door was open, I guess to air it out.”
A groan escaped me, and I took another chug of tequila. “You stole from a daycare?”
“A Superwally Daycare,” said JD. “They won’t be going broke on our account, I promise you. Anyway, we also went back out again to the actual Superwally and spent some money there that we wouldn’t have spent otherwise, so it cancels out.”
I was almost afraid to ask. “What else did you buy?”
“That’s the best part.” Hewitt flipped the light switch.
The room lit up. The pink television and the wall behind the headboard had been painted over with an alien-green glow-in-the-dark wash only visible with the lights off. On the wall backing the bathroom, our band logo: a sparking cannon. April’s drumsticks glowed, too; if only they’d stuck to painting things they owned.
“I hope one of you pulled a Cheshire Cat, because I need somebody to punch in the teeth.”
JD’s voice came from beside me. “Like I said: we considered an accent wall, but then we decided against it.”
I put the bottle to my mouth to keep myself from saying something I’d regret later. Dozed off for a second in the chair, then started awake when the lights came back on. April had disappeared, probably back to our room; JD was asleep on his bed; Hewitt was singing to himself in the bathroom. I might have rested my eyes for longer than I thought.
The tequila walloped me as I lurched to my feet. I tried to channel Gemma, our absent tour manager. She’d gone home three weeks before, after her brother was shot eating lunch at a mall. The label hadn’t wanted us to keep touring without her, but I had promised we’d be fine. I shouldn’t have called her earlier; this wasn’t her fault. Anyway, even if she’d been here today, she’d have been driving with me, managing the promotional appearances so I could play the pure artist. The band would still have been left to their devices, though they’d probably have thought twice about pulling a stunt like this with her around to ream them out.
What would Gemma say? I channeled her to mutter, “If and when the hotel bills us for damages, it’s coming out of your salaries. You shouldn’t need a babysitter when I leave you alone for one single day. I’m supposed to be the artist here. If anybody is entitled to pull shit, it’s me. You’re supposed to be the professionals, dammit.”
Neither of them responded, if they even heard. That was as far as I needed to take playing grown-up. It was the label’s fault they hadn’t sent a new tour manager, and the label’s fault the band got stuck at a suburban hotel all day while I left with the van to do promotional work solo. My jealousy that they kept bonding and I kept getting left out was best tamped down.
I took their tequila with me and went next door. April lay on the far bed, her back to me, though I had a feeling she was pretending to sleep. The bed looked tempting, but my face broke out if I didn’t scrub off my makeup, and I reeked of the podcaster’s unfiltered cigarettes. I kicked my smoky clothes to the corner and stepped into the shower. Closed my eyes and let the water hit me. Shampooed my hair, eyes still closed.
I didn’t immediately recognize the next sound. Like a school bell, except it kept on signalin
g. My hazy brain took more than a few seconds to declare it a fire alarm.
“Shit,” April said, loud enough for me to hear over the shower. “What is that?”
I shut off the water and regretfully pulled my smoky clothes back onto my wet self. Ditched the underwear, stuffed the bra under my arm. Shoved my feet into my boots, sans socks. “Fire alarm. Though if those yahoos in the next room turn out to be the cause, we’re leaving them here and moving on as a duo.”
My backpack still lay at the foot of the bed. Wallet, phone, van keys, laptop, tour bible were all in there. I dropped the smoky bra into it, then slung backpack and guitar bag over my right shoulder. If we were talking real fire, those were the possessions I meant to keep.
April trailed me down the hallway, where a flashing light joined the clanging bell. We ran into the guys in the stairwell. JD was naked except for his boxer shorts, gig bag, and tattoos. Hewitt wore the hotel bathrobe, covered in paint; he hadn’t grabbed his guitars. One look told me neither of them had pulled the alarm. Other people joined us on the stairs, hurried but not panicked. They gave the guys a wide berth.
The stairs spilled us out into a side parking lot. A crowd already milled on the asphalt, watching the building. A few people sat in their cars, a better idea. A gust of cold wind hit me as I hit the pavement, plastering my wet clothes to my body.
“Get in the van,” JD said. “Can’t let our singer get sick running around with soapy hair.”
“Says the bassist in boxers.”
He shrugged, though goose bumps had risen on his arms and legs.
He, April, and I walked past the crowd to where I had parked the van in the brightest spot available when I got back an hour ago—had it only been an hour ago? I fumbled for the keys in my bag, and we piled in.
“Where’d Hewitt go?” I asked, turning on the van and cranking the heat. My suitcase was still in the room, along with any warm clothes I had with me.
“He hung back to figure out what was going on,” JD said.