Whenever I meet someone for the first time who asks me what the title of my book is I find myself reluctant to tell them.

Cadillac Couches, it’s a bit of a weird one. Nobody gets it. How could they? Don’t get me wrong I love the title and hold it dear to my heart. My heroine Annie Jones loves her couch and calls it The Cadillac. More explanation on page 205:

“The Cadillac Couches. It was the name I had secretly

always thought would be perfect for a band. Everyone spends

all this time with their butts happily planted on their sumptuous

couches dreaming their dreams. Couches can be vehicles

for transcendental visions. Mostly though, in reality, dreamers

drive trusty bangers, not Cadillacs.”

I had the ultimate pleasure the other night watching a DVD episode of David Simon and Eric Overmyer’s wonderful drama Treme about New Orleans and the music culture of the city post-Katrina. First of all, the groovy violinist Annie Talarico names her band Bayou Cadillac, cosmically on the same page as my Annie Jones. Then DJ Davis, one of my favourite on screen characters ever––a grandiose noodler and music fan of the best kind––gets to go visit Blueberry-Hill-singing Fats Domino! And in Fats’ house, Fats sits on a real, honest-to-goodness Cadillac Couch, custom-made for him with the license plate: FATS. Watch the video to hear Fats sing.

If you google Cadillac Couches along with finding links to my book you also get links to many photos of couches made out of Cadillacs…

What larks Annie Jones and Isobel Sparks could conjure on an actual Cadillac Couch.