What books are on your nightstand?
Nothing on the bedside table – I keep my pile on the kitchen table. I have a recent reprint of Edith Wharton’s Son of the Front and an edition of The Forsyth Saga as well as some Emile Zola biographies.
What’s the last great book you read?
CV Wedgwood’s The Thirty Years’ War. It’s sprawling and masterful and has the feel of a great novel with so many brilliantly drawn characters. I can’t get enough of him.
Are there any classic novels you’ve read for the first time recently?
Most classic novels are classic novels that I recently read for the first time. But one in particular is “Anna Karenina.”
Can a great book be badly written? What other criteria can trump bad prose?
I find bad prose unforgivable, frankly. Like, bad prose is not the same as prose that is not brilliant or good or whatever. Bad prose to me is bad thinking. This is the result of some critical failure on the part of the writer and cannot be circumvented at all. So if the prose is bad, the book is bad, there’s no way through it for me.
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
All I need is time. Right now it’s the thing I’m craving the most.
What is your favorite book that no one else has heard of?
The Court and the Castle by Rebecca West. It’s this fascinating book of lectures she gave at Yale in the 1950s on the relationship between the individual and power as read in literature from Hamlet to Kafka, I believe. It’s just so funny and exactly even when it’s wrong. If there is any justice in the world, some publisher will reissue it.
Also, Leslie Fiedler’s sublime book series Love and Death in the American Novel, What Was Literature?, and Waiting for the End should be required reading in all serious literature classrooms. Absolutely mind blowing stuff.
Which writers – novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets – working today do you most admire?
Jeremy O. Harris, Jordan Tannahill, Will Arbury, Vinson Cunningham, Jennifer Wilson, Lauren Michelle Jackson, Doreen St. Felix, Derrick Austin, Parul Segal.
What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?
I usually have a big history book on the go when I’m working on a book. Sometimes works of literary or social criticism. I have a hard time absorbing modern fiction as I write, so I reread a lot of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Jane Austen for pleasure.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned from a book recently?
I was reading Claire Dederer’s Monsters and realized that Jenny Diski was Doris Lessing’s adopted daughter! I was so shocked that I stopped reading Monsters and went to look it up. incredible
What topics do you wish more authors would write about?
I wish more people would write about evil people. I understand why many Americans don’t. Toni Morrison said that great thing about good being more interesting and evil being boring, and I respect her enormously, but on this point we disagree sharply.
Or maybe it’s just that when I read modern fiction, I don’t feel like it takes place in a moral universe where evil is even remotely possible, and that makes the books boring. In the absence of evil, good means nothing.
Have you ever changed your mind about a book based on information about the author or something else?
Never not even a little bit.
Learning about the authors mostly means I can’t tell other people publicly that I’m reading them, but that doesn’t change anything about my own ethical stance on the work.
What excites you most about a piece of literature?
Moral depth.
Do you prefer books that reach you emotionally or intellectually?
I don’t know if I can separate the two or want to separate them. Brilliantly argued work excites me. Brilliant emotional work makes me think. The two are matched, always matched.
What genres do you particularly enjoy reading? And what do you avoid?
My two first loves are large books on European history and romance novels. Indeed, the two have a lot in common! The only two things I avoid are military history and American history, which I’m sure are very important, but I find them a total snooze fest.
How do you organize your books?
My best attempt at alphabetical order.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
For some reason people always seem surprised that I (or anyone else) read Sigmund Freud – I don’t understand why this is surprising because everyone should read Freud – so I guess I should say that the whole series of Freud’s writings as reissued by Penguin Modern Classics.
What is the best book you ever received as a gift?
I received a beautiful set of Jane Austen novels from my British publisher when my first book was a finalist for the Booker Prize. They come in this cute little case and have beautiful painted pages. The books themselves are quite small, so sometimes I take them out and pretend I’m in the Regency living room.
What kind of reader were you as a child? Which children’s books and authors do you like the most?
My family didn’t like books or reading. As a result, the only books that were really close at hand were my aunt’s textbooks and home nursing handbook. Then I somehow got hold of a romance novel and taught myself to read using it. As a result, I missed out on the usual price for a children’s book. No one read to anyone in my neighborhood. But I really loved those early romance novels quite a bit, and as a result I have this strong loyalty to Kathleen E. Udiwis.
You are organizing a literary dinner. Which three writers, living or dead, would you invite?
I’d invite Mavis Gallant because she’s my favorite author and I have a feeling she’ll have some really sharp and snarky things to say about the party after everyone leaves. I would also invite Elizabeth Bishop because she will absolutely hate it and I have a feeling it will be funny for her to watch her hate the party I’m throwing. And probably Laurie Colwin, because she’ll probably be funny and nice, and I want to ask her about her opinions on strong coffee.
What books are you embarrassed you haven’t read yet?
Right now, the pile of galleys on my desk is waiting for an entrance. But for the books I can i say I haven’t read Villette or Agnes Grey, which are embarrassing not to read if your friends are mostly homosexual poets.
What do you plan to read next?
I’m in the midst of reading all of Emile Zola’s Rougon-Macard novels, and after I finish La Bête Humane, I’ll read Germinal.