What books are on your night stand?
I have a virtual night stand on Libby, for audiobooks. Right now, inspired by your recent list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, there are two I (shamefully) have never read: “The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones, and “Veronica,” by Mary Gaitskill. Meanwhile, my non-virtual bookstack is mainly comprised of upcoming books in my Book the Writer series: “The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club,” by Helen Simonson; “Bear,” by Julia Phillips; “The Friday Afternoon Club,” by Griffin Dunne; and “Long Island Compromise,” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. I’m also dipping into a book called “Dime Novel Mormons,” about Mormon characters in popular fiction of the late 19th/early 20th century.
What book would people be surprised to find on your shelves?
“Myths and Legends of the Swahili,” by Jan Knappert. I’m sorry to say that I swiped it off a hotel bookshelf in Kenya when I was 11. The depiction of hell’s torments was skin-crawling and indelible. Imprisonment in individual casks of scorpions? Demons who beat you with your own hair?
What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?
It pains me to say this, but “Middlemarch.” I’ll get to it! I will!
Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?
I almost came to blows in a bar in Alice Springs, Australia, about Nevil Shute’s “A Town Like Alice,” one of my six favorite novels of all time. The bartender called it “a woman’s novel.” Excuse me? The only reason I was even in his stupid bar was “A Town Like Alice”!
As a young writer did you imagine or hope to be (for lack of a better word) popular?
All we want are readers. Ask any writer: Would you rather your book had a buyer or a reader? We’ll all choose the latter. Of course, it’s always nice to be able to pay the rent, but there are other ways to earn a living. We write books because we want them to be read. One benefit of having acquired more readers rather late in my career is that I truly appreciate them!
What’s the last great book you read?
Marie Brenner’s “The Desperate Hours: One Hospital’s Fight to Save a City on the Pandemic’s Front Lines” takes you right to the heart of the terror so many of us were running from in 2020. Brenner’s great bravery in embedding herself with NewYork-Presbyterian is matched only by that of the doctors themselves.
The last book that made you laugh?
No book has ever been as funny as Gail Parent’s “Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York.” That’s just a fact.
The best sequel you’ve ever read?
I read Erica Jong’s “How to Save Your Own Life” at 17, and I had no idea it was a sequel (to “Fear of Flying”). It was hilarious, wicked smart and beautifully written. A few months after I read it, I was in Bloomingdale’s with my mother to buy sheets for college, and I recited some lines from the novel (about Bloomingdale’s!) as we rode up the escalator. When we reached the second floor my mother said, “Look, there’s Erica Jong.” I went up to her and sputtered something about how I was about to leave for college, and I wanted to be a writer, and how much I loved her novel. When we met again, years later, she didn’t remember it. Probably for the best!
How did you keep straight the novel-within-the-novel, both in “The Plot” and as it opens up further in “The Sequel”?
I cannot tell a lie: I gave my Google spreadsheets quite a workout. Readers who don’t have access to my Google account would be wise to remember that just because a character has read (or even written) a fictional account of supposedly true events, that doesn’t mean they are in possession of the facts.
Have you ever seen yourself or aspects of your life reflected in other people’s fiction?
I never have! At least, not that I’m aware. And if they’re there, don’t tell me, please.
In your husband’s poetry?
According to him, I’m there all the time.
Vermont doesn’t come off well in these two books. What do you have against Vermont?
Whatever do you mean? I love Vermont! Several of my novels were written there. My kids went to camp there. My mother attended Goddard College, which may or may not be the inspiration for Ripley College in “The Plot” and “The Sequel.” My favorite restaurant is Burlington’s A Single Pebble. Of course, bad things can happen anywhere, even in Vermont.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
I have incredible women friends, but that hasn’t stopped me from coveting more of them. Three I’d have loved to know (or know better, in the case of the two I actually got to meet) were Sylvia Plath, Wendy Wasserstein and Nora Ephron. I would try not to waste my precious time with them in pointless fawning.
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