Simple Songs for the End of the World

Simple Songs for the End of the World is a remarkable odyssey navigating the turbulent waters of dread and despair and regret while discovering that dignity and hope are resilient and the best medicine of them all.

-Michael Loyd Gray, author of the story collection The Space Between Now and Then, and the novel The Writer in Residence

The world is ending. Gus is dying. So he does what he's always done: he writes songs.

When a satellite collision destroys global communications, Gus-a thirty-six-year-old singer-songwriter running a scrappy indie label in Yellow Springs, Ohio-is sitting in a doctor's office, awaiting a diagnosis that will change his life. Now the satellites are falling, the old world is gone for good, and his own body is betraying him in the most humiliating way possible.

Simple Songs for the End of the World is a story about mortality, community, and the stubborn joy of making art when everything is falling apart. It's about the people who carry us through-a foul-mouthed German mother who refuses to leave her son's side, bandmates who show up when it matters, an ex-girlfriend who still knows all the words.

Tender, funny, and defiantly hopeful, this is a story for every musician who kept playing when no one was listening. For anyone who ever leaned on their people to get through the unthinkable. And for anyone who's ever believed that the right song at the right moment can save your life.