My latest young adult novel, NIGHT SWIMMING, takes readers back to 1994 and follows two teenagers (Trevor and Sarah) whose summer romance blooms when they decide to swim in every pool in their small New York town. Such an endeavor certainly deserves a soundtrack. So the book is organized as a mix tape, featuring two distinct parts/sides, each one containing nine chapters named after songs that the characters might’ve been listening to at the time. Here are five of the most notable tracks.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7pVFYUNkPREOvKa33qzdN5
Apple Music Playlist: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/night-swimming/pl.u-pRqRs57e7e
Nightswimming by REM
The most obvious influence on the book, REM’s ode to moonlit dips is connected in so many ways beyond just the title. Tonally, lyrically, and personally, it’s entirely infused in the narrative. So it will be no surprise to hear that I first got the idea for writing this story over thirty years ago, when I was a teenager listening to this song, and occasionally trespassing in my town’s unguarded pools. While I knew I could never capture the perfect melancholy and instant nostalgia of Michael Stipe’s masterpiece, I still gave it a shot a few decades later.
*Without revealing any spoilers, I’d also like to note there’s another song that appears in the story with an extremely similar (though not identical) title, and it reveals a lot about what happens in the somewhat elusive ending.
Cannonball by the Breeders
Imagine this. Your hair is wet and you’re running through the dark, a towel over your shoulder. You’re pool hopping and you almost got caught, but you’re not ready to quit quite yet. You’re terrified… but you’re having the best time of your life. When I imagine such a scenario, I imagine this song playing in the background. Why? Because, 1: It’s cool and fun, the slightly dangerous (and let’s be honest, entirely unattainable) variety of cool and fun that the Breeders’ twin sister team of Kim and Kelley Deal personified in 1993 when this alt-rock hit was ubiquitous on MTV. Also because, 2: “Cannonball!”
Fade Into You by Mazzy Star
This song enjoys a cultural resurgence every seven or eight years, providing the score to an iconic moment in a TV show or, these days, serving as the soundtrack to a viral fan edit on TikTok. And boy does it deserve to resurge! You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t simply, well, fade into this dream pop classic. It embodies the lazy and lovely vibe of falling for someone, of kissing under the stars, of nights that linger. And that’s exactly the vibe I needed at a pivotal turning point in my story.
Waiting Room by Fugazi
A lot of songs that I feature are tied to certain characters, and this one is no exception. I wasn’t really into post-hardcore legends Fugazi as a teenager, but I knew some skateboarders and young activists who were. Their righteous anger, paired with their struggles with identity, informed a character named Jared, and this song, with its unmistakable bass line and anarchic energy, is his anthem. It represents a moment when he has to make some big decisions about himself and what he wants out of love and the rest of his life.
Good Morning, Captain by Slint
As the plot progresses, the song choices get more frantic and esoteric, and the chapter named after this track serves as the novel’s slightly weird and wild climax. To put it bluntly, this song isn’t necessarily for everyone. It maybe even wasn’t for me when I was seventeen, because I certainly wasn’t dialed in enough to know about pioneering post-rock bands like Slint back then. I didn’t discover them until my late twenties, but from the moment I did, their songs immediately brought me back to my high school days, to late nights sitting in the dark, listening to music and contemplating loneliness. This particular song is one of the best slow-burn depictions of teenage heartbreak on record. Not to mention the fact that the image on the cover of its album (Spiderland) looks like it could be lifted directly from my book. Just one of the many musical Easter eggs that are sprinkled throughout…
From the author of Spontaneous comes a '90s mixtape of a young adult novel that delivers a summer romance with an unearthly twist.
One final swim of the summer. Let’s make it last all night…
Summer, 1994. Trevor can barely wrap his mind around the fact that he and his friends have graduated high school. And yet there’s no rush to get to college. He’s determined to live one night at a time. Riding shotgun from party to party, windows down, music up, his focus is entirely on his crush, the enigmatic girl in the driver’s seat. Will things ever go anywhere with Sarah?
Maybe? Because Sarah has proposed a mission: They’re going to swim all the pools in town. Before long, they’re sneaking into backyards every night, splashing, floating, and loving every minute of it. But it’s still not enough for Trevor. He yearns for Sarah, despite her college boyfriend, despite her “not yet”s, despite the way she keeps pulling away the moment it starts to feel truly magical.
Things finally change when they learn about a natural pool hidden deep in the woods. It seems like just another spot to check off their summer bucket list. But once they get there, they realize that this place has a curious hold on them, and something very strange is happening…
Young Adult [Penguin Workshop, On Sale: April 29, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780525555643 / eISBN: 9780525555650]
Aaron Starmer was born in northern California and raised in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York. Before pursuing writing full-time, he worked in New York City for over ten years as an editor for a travel bookseller and as an operations director for an African safari company. His middle grade and young adult novels have been translated into multiple foreign languages and have appeared on best of the year lists from Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, New York Public Library, YALSA, Bank Street College of Education, Chicago Public Library and School Library Journal. He lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters.
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