Nicolas Dickner's Playlist

We asked Nicolas Dickner what music makes the perfect accompaniment to Nikolski. Here's what he had to say:

"Among the many albums I listened to during the year I spent in Germany, writing Nikolski, two albums by Leonard Cohen were especially important: I'm Your Man (1988) and The Best of Leonard Cohen (1975). I had bought those albums in a second-hand shop, thinking I was grown up enough to appreciate Cohen.

"The song Famous Blue Raincoat was a shock to me. I remember feeling hazy, thinking, 'Wow! This man can fit a whole novel in 20 verses!' All of a sudden, Nikolski's manuscript looked long and bloated. I threw it into the wastebasket, rushed out to the movie theatre, hit my head on a heavy glass door somewhere on the way, ended up at the hospital, and came back home with four stitches running through the ridge of my brow. I dug my manuscript out of the wastebasket and told myself to be a man and finish the book — but honestly, I don't think I have ever recovered from listening to Cohen's music."