In “Nobody’s Empire,” the debut novel from Belle and Sebastian singer and songwriter Stuart Murdoch, a young Scottish man named Stephen sees his life change radically with the onset of chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The condition confounds the medical professionals he encounters, but also brings him together with a group of similarly challenged young people and leads him on a journey to California and an eventual pivot to songwriting.
“Broadly speaking, what happened to Stephen happened to me,” says Murdoch on a video call from his home in Glasgow.
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More than 30 years ago, Murdoch and a friend, both of whom have ME, traveled together to California in search of a warmer winter. “The part in the book about arriving in San Francisco, lying on park benches and being taken for homeless people because we must have seemed so down-and-out at that point, that was all true,” he says.
Murdoch didn’t keep a diary of his early 1990s California trip, but the memories remain strong. “There’s no way that I wouldn’t remember a lot about that trip,” he says. “It was the first time I really left Glasgow and also there was a sense of jeopardy and excitement. So I remember so much of it.”
A touching story of self-discovery and friendship under difficult circumstances, “Nobody’s Empire” delves into a condition for which there still aren’t many answers. Murdoch notes that little has changed in understanding ME since the events of the novel. “I think people with ME have had a rough ride because: 1) They’re sick; 2) It’s not recognized in society; and 3) There’s no official help or cure,” he says. “But I must say that I feel that there’s a groundswell of new ideas, new approaches, to chronic fatigue syndrome that are coming through.”
The novel is also a vivid, if fictional, account of the intersection of the 1980s and 1990s. From the late ‘80s Glaswegian indie scene where Stephen is an active participant to the protagonist’s introduction to California’s early ‘90s alternative subcultures, the story comes alive with details of the fashion and music that evolve over the course of the book.
Similarly, Murdoch was a DJ and roadie in late-’80s Glasgow. “In those late ’80s, there wasn’t much going on in the music scene that I didn’t know about,” he says. “I was completely absorbing, actually, the whole British indie scene. All the bands would come to Glasgow and I would see them all. I would see them from a distance of about two meters because I would actually be sitting on the stage when the Pixies first came to Glasgow, when Throwing Muses first came to Glasgow, when Galaxie 500 first came to Glasgow, because I was in charge of keeping the crowd and the bands separate.”
A decade later, Murdoch himself had become something of an indie sensation. Belle and Sebastian, who released their debut album in 1996, snagged a Brit Award for Best British Newcomer in 1999. To date, they have released 12 full-length albums, the most recent of which, “Late Developers,” dropped two years ago, plus a number of EPs and singles.
Not so coincidentally, “Nobody’s Empire” shares its title with a 2015 Belle and Sebastian song, which contains the poignant lyrics, “We are out of practice/We’re out of sight/On the edge of nobody’s empire.”
“I didn’t know what it was going to be called,” says Murdoch of the book, which he began writing in 2019. “Then I realized that the theme from the book and the time period, particularly the relationship between the two main protagonists, Stephen and Carrie in the book, was very much the same way that I wrote about my friend Kira in the song.”
Moreover, when the book was still untitled, Murdoch read portions online and someone asked if “Nobody’s Empire” would be the title. “And I can’t remember who that person was, but I thought to myself that’s probably a pretty accurate title,” he adds.
Across Murdoch’s body of work, certain themes emerge. One is spirituality. “Not only do I feel that music, in a sense, flows from a different dimension, I feel like music itself is spiritual,” he says. “I feel like it comes from somewhere else, from a spirit and it comes through you, the good stuff anyway.”
That Murdoch has written songs about religion and songs with characters who struggle with spiritual questions is an extension of his own journey. “All of these things I’ve been interested in, they’ve been part of my honest exploration of my spirituality,” he says.
Murdoch mentions seeing a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” just before Christmas last year. “When I went to see it, it was such a spiritual experience for me; it was almost ecstatic,” he says. “I’m kind of unapologetic. I like art and I like God and I think they go together.”
In fact, Murdoch adds he has recently been considering writing music that could be performed in a church. “But,” he adds, “I’m just at the beginning stage with that.”
Another prevalent theme in Murdoch’s work, which includes the 2014 film “God Help the Girl,” is finding a sense of healing or respite through music. That’s part of Stephen’s journey in “Nobody’s Empire” as well. “I put it in my work and I’m unapologetic because that’s the way I live my life,” he says.
“I feel like art and music is the great consolation in my life,” Murdoch adds. “My life completely changed when I got ill and I’ve had ME for 30 years, but from the set of ashes of the previous life, I was given this gift to be able to write songs and be creative.”
Stuart Murdoch’s Nobody’s Empire book tour w/ Hrishikesh Hirway
When: 7 p.m. Feb. 12
Where: Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, 4814 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles
Tickets and iInformation: https://dice.fm/event/2w9lw6-stuart-murdoch-nobodys-empire-book-tour-12th-feb-barnsdall-gallery-theatre-los-angeles-tickets