In an email interview, the author and critic talked about her affection for ’70s-era troubled-teen novels, and why her scorching read of John Updike hasn’t stopped her from reading his work. SCOTT HELLER
What books are on your night stand?
Jami Attenberg’s “The Amnesiac,” John Darnielle’s “This Year,” Mattia Filice’s “Driver,” the collected poems and prose of Elizabeth Bishop (as well as the biography by Thomas Travisano), Wallace Stevens’s Library of America collection.
How do you organize your books?
My books are organized according to a principle known as Rat Pile. Towering, precarious, overbalanced stacks, because I need these! I’m working on these! In a classic Rat Pile all the books want to be touching each other simultaneously, sometimes for reasons that will not become clear until later.
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
OK it’s the morning, so the light is just that flat slap of total clarity on the page, and I have coffee, and my phone is just out of reach of my fingertips, and Miette is on my lap, disproving the claim that cats can’t sweat. As to the what: anything in real print, anything on paper. Also, here’s something I’m going to ask God for someday: a way to eat while reading without having to mechanically raise the food to my mouth. A pulley system, or crumbs brought to me by little doves, or something.
Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Favorite antihero or villain?
I love a Mrs. Danvers. Anyone who can stare evilly from the wainscoting or behind the breakfast tray with murky motives.
How have your reading tastes changed over time?
I like a little more space on the page now. When I think back to all that trouble I was having with reading back in 2020, I realize I should have been reading plays, poetry, things with air in them and ragged margins.
What’s the last great book you read?
Roger Shattuck’s “The Forbidden Experiment,” about the wild boy of Aveyron. (Improbably it gave me the structure for a poem I was writing called “Party in the USA.”) Also, Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony.”
Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?
I really cherish those problem books from the ’70s and ’80s, where it’s like you’ve got scoliosis, or your friend ran you over with their car and you can’t tell anyone, or you’re psychic and have purple eyes and it’s too much responsibility. “Steffie Can’t Come Out to Play” is the probable apotheosis of these. A teen runaway, in gritty ’70s New York, falls into the clutches of an evil pimp named Favor who only eats steak. His clothes are described in incredible detail. She escapes eventually, but not before pretty much all of her family has died.
How do you know when a reading or a public talk goes well?
Something in the room relaxes and it becomes a circuit — not just something you’re sending out to the audience, but something it is giving back to you. In my experience it’s never when you’re feeling like a racehorse, in tiptop physical or mental form. It’s when you’re a little quieter, more thoughtful, even when you’re limping a little.
Have you read any John Updike since writing your much-discussed London Review of Books piece on his work?
Of course. “The Witches of Eastwick” is a perennial fall read, and I can go back and graze on the short stories anytime I remember them, like potato chips. The discouraging thing about writing criticism sometimes is the response: Now I never have to read anything by this person. With relief, understandably, since there is so much reading to be done. But I don’t write about writers who aren’t worth my attention. I’ve never done it yet.
Have you ever read “Anna Karenina” while tripping on mushrooms, as the narrator does in your new book?
Oh yes. I mean, it was a period when I was microdosing minuscule amounts. Dollhouse cups of this tea. Everyone who reads “Anna Karenina” is on mushrooms, a bit. The windowpanes we look through in this novel are so absolutely warm and clear, the scenes are so spotlit, the perceptive hairs so raised, the colors and music so seeable and hearable — not exaggerated but more themselves.
You’ve mentioned that you were working on a historical fantasy novel. Say more.
NO!
Can a great book be badly written? What other criteria can overcome bad prose?
Everyone always says Dostoyevsky in this context but I think it’s just because they see other people doing it. Leave Dostoyevsky alone!
What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
I was reading Ange Mlinko’s “Difficult Ornaments” in Key West, and she sets forth a theory that the bight referred to in Elizabeth Bishop’s great poem “The Bight” was actually Garrison Bight. It’s older, more dilapidated, cheerfully disreputable, rather than the more picturesque one that most readers have linked to the poem. That’s the sort of thing I like.
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
It’s not exactly unheard-of but I did think the recent rerelease of Alison Mills Newman’s “Francisco” should have gotten more attention.
What’s the last book you recommended to a member of your family?
My sister asked for a book in which terrible things happen to people — worse things, she clarified, unimaginable things. So I recommended “In the Eye of the Wild,” where a bear tears off a woman’s face.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
This question stresses me out so bad because what are we serving for food? Obviously I’m only inviting dead people, but is this a situation where they enter the full flower of life again for one evening, or is the casserole going to fall through them into the chair? In any event, I do want Sappho. She gets to finish, and whatever falls out of her butt, I’m interested.
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