One wedding is fake, ending in a three-way kiss. Another unfolds in the shadow of a secret cancer diagnosis, and one ends with a sung ode “to whatever fate may bring.”
In all there are 10 ceremonies in the new novel “Songs for Other People’s Weddings,” about a wedding singer named J who composes original songs for celebrating couples. J is also negotiating a complication-strewn relationship with his girlfriend V, who moves to New York from their home city of Gothenburg, Sweden, to pursue her career. As J agonizes over their future, he also interrogates the true — and healthiest — meanings of love.
What makes the book unique is signaled by a QR code at its beginning, which gives the reader access to the 10 songs that J sings. They were composed by the acclaimed Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman, who, while releasing five wry, melancholy albums and many EPs, has had a longtime side gig as a wedding singer. His co-author, the award-winning Y.A. novelist David Levithan, has written the book’s main narrative.
Lekman dedicates the novel to “the 132 couples whose weddings I’ve played at over the years,” adding, “I hope my presence turned out to be a blessing and not a curse.”
The pair first communicated in 2005 when Levithan — who co-wrote “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” which was adapted into a 2008 movie — was writing his novel “Wide Awake.”
“I was listening to a lot of Jens’s music — there is a certain bookish quality to his songs,” he said. Though largely a cult figure in the United States, Lekman has his devotees; in 2019 The Guardian named his album “Night Falls Over Kortedala” one of the best of the 21st century, sandwiched between music by Kanye West and Janelle Monáe.
Levithan wrote Lekman a note of appreciation; they met for the first time in 2011. While Lekman had long mulled a story about a wedding singer, inspired by what he had been doing since 2004, it wasn’t until he read Levithan’s “19 Love Songs” in 2021 that the idea fully took shape.
The writers began work on the book that spring and finished it last summer. To get started, Lekman would write a song, and Levithan would construct a chapter around it. Later, Levithan — a publishing heavy-hitter who oversaw the “Hunger Games” series as the editorial director at Scholastic — “turned the tables” and sent Lekman chapters for which the singer would create songs.
“Not knowing a single thing about Jens’s personal life was freeing,” Levithan said, adding that disagreements were minor. “I wasn’t trying to mine Jens’s life for J’s story. I didn’t want the book to be voyeuristic, or trespass on anything personal.”
Lekman smiled: “I think of it sometimes as counterfactual history. In the first chapter J has written a song I have written in real life. I think we have been the same person at one point, but this book is a parallel dimension where J becomes something else.”
Promoting the novel recently at the Strand bookstore in New York City, Levithan would read a passage, then Lekman would sing a corresponding song — the most plaintive being the number J composes for the fake wedding of Skye and Detroit, two polyamorous performance artists. (Levithan said he was especially proud to have inserted, for those who know, a nod to “Guys and Dolls” in the characters’ names.)
Jamison Stoltz, the editorial director of Abrams Press, said the company acquired the title on the recommendation of Zack Knoll, a senior editor there at the time and a big Lekman fan. “There’s something magical to the book as a kind of record of creativity in progress — the inspiration from the couples, then the songs that come from it,” Stoltz said.
In many ways, music was the point of connection for the two writers. In 9th grade, whenever Levithan was upset, “I would press play and listen to ‘Nobody’s Side’ from ‘Chess’ by Elaine Paige. It’s a song about a geopolitical chess match — they weren’t thinking about proto-queer kids in New Jersey. But that’s the crazy thing about music. Songs can unlock something.”
For Lekman, playing the guitar had first been “procrastination” to divert him from student art assignments. In a roundabout way, he started performing at weddings thanks to the filmmaker John Waters, who, while hitchhiking, was picked up by fellow musicians on his record label.
“That’s why I play weddings,” said Lekman. “You put yourself in these very weird situations when anything can happen. You can get punched in the face or have the best night of your life. You can end up crying with the bride.”
Lekman, who lives in Gothenburg (“it’s big enough for things to happen and small enough to feel calm”), said his presence at some celebrations can draw stares. “At billionaire weddings they’re really confused,” he said, “because the hosts could have booked Adele. The guests are like, ‘Who’s that guy from Sweden?’”
Lekman himself is single; a three-year relationship ended as he and Levithan reached the halfway point of the book. “That was hard,” he said. “I was always in long relationships through my 30s. Coming out of the last one made me think, ‘Maybe I’m not supposed to meet anyone.’”
Levithan, too, is contentedly single: “I’m happier alone with my friends and projects than putting all my energy into one person.”
He particularly relishes professional collaborations. His next book — coauthored with Gabriel Duckels, titled “The Fight of Our Lives” — is a history of AIDS in America aimed at young adults.
On Sept. 12, Lekman will release an album called “Songs for Other People’s Weddings,” which will include more than a dozen original songs. (Sample titles: “You Have One New Message,” “Candy From a Stranger,” “Wedding in Leipzig.”)
He still sings at weddings. “I like the personal connection to the couples and the honor of being invited on their big day,” he said. “But also, it’s hard to get by financially in the Spotify economy, and weddings pay well.
“When I started this project, singing at weddings was a funny story, a source of craziness and weird tales,” he added. “Now I feel a sense of pride and identity in it all.”
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