'So indelibly tied to music are my relationship failures that each time I've lost a beloved, a dear song or record has been sacrificed too. It hit me as I crawled into bed late one night with The National, expecting Matt Berninger's melancholic baritone to lull me quickly off to sleep. Six hours later as dawn broke I was more awake than ever, each loop of the album plunging me deeper into regret about a relationship I'd ended - and thought I'd dealt with - almost two years earlier.' (Publication abstract)