Sarah Slean On Book Soundtrack

09/05/08 11:18am

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

If you've ever been reading a book and had a song pop into your head that you thought would suit the plot, you're not alone. That's why Winnipeg author Daria Salamon has created a soundtrack to her new novel, The Prairie Bridesmaid.

The soundtrack features music from Sarah Slean, Snailhouse, Jill Barber, Greg MacPherson and others. Salamon came up with the idea while writing the novel and says she tried to listen to music that expressed the ideas she was trying to convey in The Prairie Bridesmaid. With that in mind, Salamon and her husband Rob Krause (who owns Smallman Records) began approaching artists and asking them to appear on the soundtrack. If you buy the book, which is in stores now, you'll find a code inside that will let you download the soundtrack for free from the novel's website.

"I was in awe of musicians because what takes me 300 pages to communicate, a song expresses so succinctly and so powerfully," Salamon says. "I started to wonder why books don't come equipped with music the way that movies do."

The Prairie Bridesmaid's plot revolves around Anna Lasko, a school teacher in an abusive relationship who wants to break up with her boyfriend, but isn't sure how to do it. She begins talking to a backyard squirrel and seeing a therapist in an effort to get her life together.

In addition to being a novelist, Salamon is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in The Globe And Mail, Winnipeg Free Press and Uptown Magazine. She's been shortlisted for the Writers' Union Of Canada's Emerging Writer Short Fiction Award, the Larry Turner Award For Creative Non-Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association's North Of 55 Writing Contest.

Here are the artists and songs they contributed to The Prairie Bridesmaid soundtrack:

Sarah Slean — "No Place At All"
Scott Nolan — "Dutch"
Snailhouse — "Birds And Bees"
Jill Barber — "Hard Line"
Chantal Vitalis — "More Captured Than Released"
Greg MacPherson — "Ukrainians"
Keri Latimer — "Careful Now"