It’s no secret that The Sword-Edged Blonde, the first Eddie LaCrosse novel (and my first novel, period), was inspired in part by the Fleetwood Mac song “Rhiannon.” I was twelve when the song was released, and since I grew up in the era of rock-oriented FM radio, I heard it a lot. And it never failed to captivate me. Remember, this was the time of John Denver, the Captain and Tennille and the first stirrings of disco-era Bee Gees. In that crowd, “Rhiannon” was the perfect storm of things to get a teenage nerd’s attention: a mysterious lyric (based on Celtic lore, about which a small-town Southern boy like me was totally ignorant), a guitar lick that sounded like an invocation to sorcery, and a singer who embodied (again, to a small-town Southern boy) California sophistication, sexuality and, okay, magic. If ever a song cast a legitimate spell, this one did on me.
For over twenty years, as I wrestled various drafts of the novel and searched for just the right way to tell the story, this song was my touchstone. I might have ignored the manuscript for months, but if “Rhiannon” came on the radio it caused a whole new surge of inspiration. In the song, in Stevie Nicks’ voice and Lindsey Buckingham’s haunting arrangement, I heard the magic I sought. I wanted my book, in other words, to feel like the song.
Stevie Nicks’ painting of Rhiannon.