Entry #1-Fahad Tahir

Amanda Petrusich’s novel, It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music demonstrates the writing style the author has and the message she is trying to portray to readers about Americana music. She is very descriptive and gives readers a lot of detail in her writing and explains to them what her journey is going to be about in the novel. In this novel, the journey she goes on is to learn how Americana music came to be and what it is all about being the broad genre it is. Petrusich sets the readers up with much detail describing her observations painting a picture in our minds of what she is going through.

As a writer, Petrusich asks many questions so far in her book. She asks questions about Americana in general, and where it came from. These questions she ask is a good thing for the readers because it gets them thinking about questions they would not have thought of and also it gets them thinking the same way Petrusich is thinking on her journey. Questions like, “where did Americana music come from?” and “what makes up this style of music?” helps me as a reader relate to her which is important early in the novel so I stay interested in what she is doing. Another thing that she does well is giving a good amount of background information to the reader at the beginning for example, telling us about where she lived and what got her interested and passionate about Americana music.

Finally, Petrusich’s writing in the novel locks on readers and keeps them fascinated, which makes her such a good writer. Her ability to connect with her readers and writing openly and being flexible to different topics is huge and supports her statements. The readers are only at the beginning of the novel so I expect a great amount of more detail, questions and opinions of her and others in the novel as time goes on and as we move on with her journey. With the combination of being detailed, relating to writers, and being a flexible writer is what makes Amanda Petrusich successful as a writer and eventually in her journey about American music.