Making music out of books

Songwriter Ben de la Cour serves up a gritty Southern Gothic Americana in his eerie songs, and so it seems natural that he might be drawn to the themes of my novel "Appalachian Book of the Dead."
   The Nashville-based musician has just released his new album "Sweet Anehedonia" with the hit single "Appalachian Book of the Dead."
   Let me let Ben explain in an interview with the British website Folk Radio:    
     "I remember first hearing the phrase "Appalachian Book of the Dead" a long time ago in reference to a poem that I later found out was written by Charles Wright. I think I had it filed away subconsciously for years until Shari Smith at Working Title Farm contacted me with this idea she had about pairing authors and songwriters together on a project and somehow I ended up being paired with Dale Neal who wrote a novel called... "Appalachian Book of the Dead". So I started working on the song before reading the book, then I read the book and loved it and as soon as I finished it I was able to fill in the few blanks left in the song and it kind of came together in full.
​     "The song is definitely inspired in part by the book but it's mostly my attempt at capturing the feeling I always get driving through North Carolina and East Tennessee late at night.
    "I always loved the quote by Poe, "The best stories are an arabesque of supernatural menace and wry jesting". This is my feeble attempt at doing justice to that."     

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