The Creepy, Beautiful Saxophone: 5 Questions for Mollie Hawkins MFA '23
Hawkins’ first book, Saxophone, about the secret history of the iconic instrument, was just released. We talked to her about her relationship to the horn and got some research pro tips.
Why the sax?
I grew up in a little house in the rural South where the only sounds were the neighbor’s cows, my dad practicing saxophone, and jazz music blaring on these huge speakers (Magnepans) that grazed the ceiling. As an adult I learned that was a bit weird—a childhood totally shaped by one instrument. After my dad died in 2021, I started to think about what it meant to live your whole life in service to an object, specifically one with such a quirky history in music and pop culture. The more I read about its origins, the more I wanted to write about it. That’s what drew me to pitch an open call for Object Lessons—a cool series by Bloomsbury about the hidden lives of ordinary things.
Did you make any surprising discoveries in your research?
One of the weirdest things I learned about the sax is that it’s still banned by the Catholic church! Orchestras also hate it. And there’s lore about the sax carrying the soul of its player, which is a bit creepy, but also very beautiful. It’s the only musical instrument capable of sounding like the human voice (also creepy/beautiful). Basically it is creepy and it is very beautiful.
Any advice about doing this kind of research?
It’s easy to never stop researching a topic that interests you. For me, that meant buying jazz records and books about musicians. I could have done that forever. When in doubt, break the research down chronologically. Think about your word count as guardrails—how much information do you need before you have too much, and it has nowhere to go? Wander into dark corners and find the stuff that interests you the most, and leave the rest.
What advice would you offer other writers at the start of their career? 
Lean on your community of fellow writers—share your work and read generously. Share your successes and failures! Don’t put yourself in a rejection silo. Those are the worst. Don’t take yourself too seriously, but do take the work seriously. Read your work out loud, even if it’s only to the dog.
Are you surprised that your first book is nonfiction? Are you working on fiction now? What’s next?
It was a surprise to publish a nonfiction book first. I was working on a novel at the time—my thesis project for Bennington—and it got sidetracked by life and by Saxophone. Now I’ve picked the novel back up, and am working with my agent to get it ready to go out on submission. Thank goodness I have all those jazz records to listen to while I write.