Dude, that's an awesome book concept. I am officially jealous.

*thinks about it some more*

No, really... it's like song fanfiction, and it actually got published.

*seethes with jealousy that she didn't think of that first*

I had a twelfth grade English teacher who taught this song, which I was the only member of the class who knew and, until she got her hands on it, liked. She turned it from something real and sad to something edgy and full of commentary on how we all might end up if we played our cards wrong.

Now I find it overwrought and a little too concrete for my tastes (I love The Boss' skill with crashpiles of abstraction; mashing together a mood and a feel and even a story from disjointed chunks of thought, sound, and visual obsevation, like he does on "Does This Bus Stop..." or "Jungleland").

But if I was gonna write one of these Springsteen fan-novels, I know exactly what song I'd choose: "Candy's Room."

They ended up as wheelman and getaway van attendant in a successful racetrack robbery that evening, but a few days later, when they went to collect their share of the money, they were both shot through the head, crammed into burlap sacks and tossed into a lake.

How's that?