"Deep Cuts" Bridges the Gap Between Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z

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When did we become so defined by our assigned generation? Did it start when Gen X joined the Baby Boomers in calling the grown Millennial generation a bunch of soft participation trophy collectors? Or maybe it was when Gen Z found a succinct way to clap back: “OK boomer.” Actually, it was probably when Millennials like myself also found themselves on the receiving end of Gen Z’s TikTok takedowns. That’s when it spiraled out of control.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that these clickbait-fueled intergenerational skirmishes have seeped into just about everything, including the book world. Novels are now sold with descriptors like “Millennial existential dread” or the “very online It Girl[s]” of Gen Z, with marketers zeroing in on age-defined audiences. The development is not so surprising considering the larger movement towards audience fragmentation, and yet this specific framework has made me long for a book that can break us all out of our generational silos, one that can speak to me and my internet-native Gen Z cousins and my cooler-than-thou Gen X friends alike.

A month or so ago, I found that book: Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley, which was released at the end of February. Admittedly, the debut novel is pitched as an ode to the indie sleaze era, taking place as it does between 2000 and 2008, and with Brickley just as concerned with diving into detailed examinations of music (from Interpol to Neutral Milk Hotel) as she is with fleshing out the will-they-or-won’t they relationship between the two main characters, Percy Marks and Joe Morrow. But that’s not what defines it. The indie-sleaze milieu is a compelling backdrop for what is more importantly a portrait of a young woman whose life’s passion wrestles with the insecurities and outside pressures that try to temper, silence and break it. I think we can all identify with that.

The book opens with Percy, a Berkley undergrad who has a million opinions about music but little actual musical ability, and no true friends willing to engage with her fanatical debates, like the difference between a “perfect track” and a “perfect song.” “A perfect song…can be played differently, produced differently, and it will almost always be great,” she says. A perfect track, on the other hand, reaches that zenith in the hands of specific artists. According to her, “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell is a perfect song; “Sara Smile” by Hall and Oates is a perfect track.

She is seen directing that argument at Joe, a classmate she meets for the first time at a bar. Turns out, he’s a wannabe musician with natural talent but unpolished writing chops. They immediately bond, not just over a shared love of music (which spans from indie rock to “the entirety of the ‘60s”), but an obsession with the structural minutiae that makes a great song. Once Percy helps turn Joe’s mediocre tunes into star-making material, that’s when their love affair begins and Deep Cuts kicks into high gear.

My elevator pitch to convince someone to read this would be: a modern High Fidelity with actual cross-generational appeal. Every chapter in Deep Cuts is named after a song, but there’s a musical touchpoint for everyone. Apart from “Sara Smile” (released in 1975), there’s “Hey Ya!” (OutKast, 2003), “Just Like a Woman” (Nina Simone via Bob Dylan, 1971) and “Heartbeats” (The Knife, 2002, from their album Deep Cuts). (You can see others, plus some additional songs discussed in the novel, in a companion Spotify playlist.) If that structure sounds like a gimmick, just know I had that same thought — until I read what Brickley did with it, using it as another way to communicate how Percy sees the world.

In some ways, this is how all of us see the world. The ability of Percy — really, the ability of Brickley — to find deep, personal meaning in songs from multiple generations and genres is how we all operate in real life. None of us actually live in a Beatles or Taylor Swift or Nirvana echo chamber, even if other generations like to label us into those corners.

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Inevitably, Percy will skewer something you love in Deep Cuts. For me, that meant Frank Sinatra (who she describes as “[sounding] like the smug jerk he surely was, showing off over a bunch of blaring, flatulent horns”) and musical theater (“I couldn’t stand those cheesy songs, all that jazz-hands enthusiasm”). But unlike seeing comments of that sort on Instagram, reading these opinions actually endeared me to her character instead of putting me off. This is a part of young adulthood that Brickley communicates so perfectly: the endless well of belief in the correctness of your own opinion. Apart from being something Gen Z will identify with immediately, this element of Percy will send older readers into their own flashbacks of cultural invincibility, which only heighten the stakes on the page.

There’s another crucial element of this novel that will entice Gen Z specifically: It will soon be an A24 movie starring Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler, with Sean Durkin of The Iron Claw tapped to direct and adapt. Maybe that’s a better tagline for all you early 20-somethings: read this book before it becomes the next most-talked-about press tour.

You know what, I take that back. Wanting to be the person who was in the know before everyone and their mother found their way to some piece of culture is a universal desire, just as enticing to a 25-year-old as a 55-year-old.

Whether you feel you slot into the stereotypes of your generation or not, and whether you knew the phrase “indie sleaze” before reading this or not, I have a hunch Deep Cuts will have the same affect on you as it did on me: pulling you away from nights out listening to live music — a hair metal cover band at a brewery; Tate McRae at a stadium — so that you can spend late nights on the couch with the unlikely songwriting duo inhabiting this page-turner. Although, when you close the book, you’ll still leave with music in your ears.