Gabrielle Korn’s newest novel, “Long Island Girls,” begins in 2005 and ends 20 years later. While remembering the past two decades well, Korn says she’s resistant to falling into the trap of nostalgia.
“One thing that’s been interesting about our current technology is the way the iPhone reminds you of old photos,” the author says. “Every now and then, it’ll be like, ‘Here’s you in New York in 2017,’ and I look so miserable. I’ve had this kind of constant reminder of how hard it was.”
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The protagonist of “Long Island Girls,” Susan, doesn’t have Korn’s perspective — at least not initially. At the beginning of the novel, she is a 17-year-old high schooler on Long Island, spending her time obsessing over indie rock bands and dreaming of a life in the big city. Her dream comes true when she moves to New York to go to college, and she later lands a job working with a record label called Rider Die. But she can’t stop thinking about Eliza, a young woman she met in her high school days, and who awakened romantic feelings in her.
Susan, unable to let go of the past, later matches with Eliza on a dating app, all the while dealing with sexual harassment at the hands of her lecherous boss. She finds herself reckoning with the fact that the future she had imagined for herself might never happen.
Korn, the former editor-in-chief of Nylon Media and author of two previous novels, discussed “Long Island Girls” via Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. This conversation has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
Q: What was the genesis of this book?
I was at this specific moment of my life when I had moved to L.A. for a job that I then got laid off from, and “Yours for the Taking,” my first novel, was done. I was thinking about all the different lives I could have lived. Then my wife and I went to Just Like Heaven, which is a music festival with bands from the early 2000s. I looked around at all of these people who seemed like they were still indie, and I just started thinking about how interesting it is that some people stay the same and some people change. And all at once, I imagined Susan, a character who holds on to the music and people of her youth. I wrote the first chapter as a short story, and by the time I was done, I was like, “Oh, God, it’s a novel.”
Q: Why do you think it is that Susan holds onto the music and friendships of her past while other people are moving on?
For all of her edginess, she is someone who’s afraid of change. Even though being 17 was uncomfortable for her, it was also a time that was filled with this feeling of possibility and this emotional rawness that had such a big impact on her, that it’s almost like she’s forever chasing that feeling.
Q: What was the process like of developing Rider Die, this indie rock label that then transitions into a digital media company?
It’s inspired by a lot of the places that I’ve worked at. When I was in college, I had an internship at a music management company, and then I worked in independent media throughout my twenties. I wanted it to be a place that was a product of the time. In the 2010s, there really could be a record label that turned into a media company if that’s what the advertisers wanted from you. So to me, Rider Die follows the trends of how people use the internet.
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Q: Was it difficult at all to transport yourself back to these various times, 2005, 2010, et cetera, while you were writing the book?
No. It turns out there’s a 17-year-old in my brain who remembers everything. It was honestly harder to recreate moments closer to the present because when you’re worldbuilding in 2005, you do want to plant a lot of specific details that transport you there. But when you’re worldbuilding the present, you don’t want to hit readers over the head with the things that they’re around every day, so that balance was trickier.
Q: When you were writing the book, did you find yourself going back and listening to the music of those respective eras?
Absolutely. I would take breaks to walk around the Silver Lake Reservoir and listen to a full album and just get in the mood. I can’t listen to music while I write. I don’t know how people do that, but I definitely made sure to set the tone of the day with the music.
Q: It’s interesting for me to see young people in their teens and early twenties who are getting into indie rock from that era. What is it about that particular era of indie rock that you think is resonating with younger people today?
I think it’s really interesting, because we know that trends are on a 20-year cycle, so this was always going to happen, but I do think that there’s something really pure in the nostalgia. We were on flip phones; there wasn’t really social media beyond maybe early MySpace and Facebook. It was very community-oriented, and I think aesthetically it had a gaudiness to it that feels very Gen Z. I think millennials have slipped into this boring minimalism, and Gen Z is still doing the most. So it makes sense that they’re gravitating towards the asymmetrical haircuts and all of that. I keep waiting to see gold lamé.
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Q: Do you keep up with any of the new indie rock at all, or do you mostly listen to music from the past?
I’m trying to be better about it. I do feel like there’s some great stuff right now. I was really excited about Geese; I feel like that really scratched an itch. I feel like there are a lot of cool new queer bands, but I’m having this problem where I don’t understand how people are finding new music anymore. I’m doing my best, but I absolutely default to early 2000s indie rock, because there’s nothing better.