In an email interview, she shared the book she rereads yearly, and explained why she misses James Baldwin and Dorothy Allison. SCOTT HELLER
Describe your ideal reading experience.
As a child, the oldest of five, with a Swiss-born mother who gave me endless chores, I had to hide in a tree to read. I will read anywhere. I raised three daughters as a single mom. I love to read in the car, in the bleachers, at the doctor’s office, but especially on my porch — behind a hedge so no one can see me.
What books are on your night stand?
“Indian Horse,” by Richard Wagamese; “Nightshade,” by Michael Connelly; “Lila,” by Marilynne Robinson; “Under the Feet of Jesus,” by Helena María Viramontes, because I’m teaching it again and I reread it every year with pleasure.
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
“Of Love and Dust,” by Ernest J. Gaines, checked out from the public library when I was 15. Set in Louisiana in the 1940s, when a young man like thousands of others is incarcerated on a pretext, then leased out to a plantation farm, where he refuses to bow down. The dialogue and sly humor sing exactly the same notes as the older people I grew up around.
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
When I was a 17-year-old college freshman, my English professor was Gloria Watkins, who’d just gotten her Ph.D. She was so kind to me, and in her office, chose two paperbacks from her shelf: “Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus,” from Brazil; and “Nectar in a Sieve,” by Kamala Markandaya, set in India. I have them here on my desk, always. The women portrayed were defiant, badass and resourceful, like Professor Watkins — who soon afterward changed her name to bell hooks.
What’s the last great book you read?
I finished “Indian Horse” last night. Every five pages, I’d become tearful, holding my sleeping newborn grandson while reading, seeing the narrator and other Indigenous children taken forcibly from their families to Indian residential schools.
What’s the most terrifying book you’ve ever read?
“The Killer of Little Shepherds,” by Douglas Starr, a true-crime book about the serial murderer Joseph Vacher, who randomly chose and killed people in the French countryside in the late 1800s.
When did you decide to write about nurses in “Sacrament”?
Late summer of 2020, when the novel takes place. Many of my neighbors are nurses, as the local hospital is a few blocks away, and they’d walk past our fence after their shifts, telling me about the fear and isolation of patients and families, about the body’s response to Covid. Then several traveling nurses, from Texas, Indiana and Georgia, stayed in rented rooms and R.V.s parked nearby. They’d walk to the night shift, stopping by to pick up books, look at the sunflowers and tell me stories. The week I began the novel, a white carriage pulled by four horses, followed by countless lowriders, passed my house, and I was stunned by the casket, and the drivers crying. I stayed up all night writing.
Do you worry that readers won’t want to relive the pandemic in a pandemic novel?
Yes. But it’s still in our souls. Every day I look across the street where my neighbor died in his house, we watched him wheeled away while his wife sobbed. My next-door neighbor almost died — he stood on my sidewalk swaying when the ambulance came for him, and his wife and I stood crying — we couldn’t touch him. Our memories will be indelible, like my father’s stories of the Dust Bowl, and my father-in-law’s stories of his great-grandmother during Reconstruction.
James Baldwin urged you to pay attention to minor characters in your writing, as “they hold a lot of the answers.” Who are your favorite minor literary characters?
Hands down, my favorite is Mouse, the truth-telling sidekick of Easy Rawlins in Walter Mosley’s series. Mouse is my brother, my brother-in-law, all the hard-core loyal enforcers in my life.
Are you still maintaining your “fence library”?
The Fence Library has never been empty since March 17, 2020, the day of Covid lockdown. Twelve bookshelves now, filled by regulars and strangers. Biographies and textbooks are popular for self-taught and homeless people. The children’s section is everyone’s favorite.
How have your reading tastes changed over time?
When I was 3 and my father had left us, my mother with her last quarter bought me a Little Golden Book, “Tawny Scrawny Lion,” to stop me from reading the Quaker Oats box. I will still read anything.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
James Baldwin, because I can’t believe I’ll never hear his beautiful voice again. Dorothy Allison, the only person I could talk to about the losses of our family men, with her inimitable laugh followed by “Oh, honey, can you believe we’re still here?” James Welch — I never met him, but have been immersed in his fictional landscape half my life.
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