The author of “The People We Hate at the Wedding” shared some other favorites, by email: Solvej Balle, “Cloud Atlas” and one page of “Catch-22.” SCOTT HELLER
Describe your ideal reading experience.
Once I visited my brother in Denver and sat on his porch for three hours reading “Pnin.” It was summer, I’d taken a gummy and at some point it started raining, so I sat there a little stoned, alternating between watching the rain and giggling at Nabokov. Tough to beat.
Describe your ideal writing experience.
Coffee, quiet, comfortable socks. Also: no gummies.
Describe your ideal way to procrastinate from writing.
Oh, man. Googling celebrities to see if I’m older than they are, researching rare illnesses and convincing myself for an hour or two that I have them, stalking the comments on New York Times Cooking recipes, harassing my dog … the list is endless.
What books are on your night stand?
James Salter’s “Light Years,” one of the most incisive novels about the passing of time, which I read seven times while writing “So Old, So Young”; Sayaka Murata’s delightful “Convenience Store Woman,” which I’m revisiting after a trip to Japan; and Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit,” which is indispensable for teaching undergraduate writing at N.Y.U. in the age of A.I.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
I have four copies of David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas,” which is probably obsessive. I’m also a Dan Brown nut.
What’s the last great book you read?
Solvej Balle’s “On the Calculation of Volume” series is blowing my mind!
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
Wilson Rawls’s “Where the Red Fern Grows,” when I was 10. It was the first book to utterly destroy me.
What’s your go-to classic?
Page 39 of “Catch-22.”
“I think I hide behind humor a lot,” you once said of your writing. When did that start?
I can tell you exactly. As a kid, I was part of a youth theater repertory in Southern California. One day this intense acting coach came to class, and after I performed a scene she told me with this terrible sneer that all I’d ever be was funny and charming. It took me until I was 35 to realize that: (1) I wasn’t that charming; (2) I was also a whole lot more than charming; and (3) it takes an especially miserable adult to tell a child what he can and cannot be.
Do you distinguish between “commercial” and “literary” fiction?
I try not to. I think those categories are mostly for marketers and people who like to flaunt their tastes. Does a book help you feel less alone? I don’t care if it’s dragon porn or “Middlemarch,” for me that’s what matters.
Can you pinpoint where you were when you first saw “The Big Chill”?
I’ve never seen it! My parents used to play the soundtrack during long car trips, but I’ve never actually seen the movie. That said, as a fan of ensemble dramedies and Glenn Close, I’m flattered by people comparing it to “So Old, So Young.”
In interviews you said your next book was going to be a first-person novel called “Beefcake.” What happened to it?
I will say only this: For me, 85 percent of being a writer is learning the hard way that the great idea I had after two glasses of wine is not, in fact, a great idea.
What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
I’m listening to Stacy Schiff’s fascinating “The Witches: Salem, 1692,” and last week I got to a part where she discussed how European witches were thought to ride hyenas to parties in the forest, while American witches were thought to cause minor domestic disturbances. That’s so typical, right? Of course American witches are boring.
Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?
Queer characters who don’t have to meet any cultural obligations. Characters who aren’t required to experience “queer joy” or endure profound suffering, but can instead just be screwed-up, complicated people. Also: fun American witches.
Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?
Not unless you count the International Male catalogs I hoarded under my bed when I was 13. And when my mother found them, it was less of “you’re in trouble” and more of “we should probably talk.”
What book would you recommend for America’s current political moment?
Anything by M. Gessen to learn where we’re headed; anything by Jill Lepore to learn where we’ve been. If it’s Lepore, do the audio because her voice is like A.S.M.R.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
I’m supposed to say Jane Austen, Sophocles and a Finnish novelist no one’s heard of, but actually the literary dinner party I want to attend already happened. It’s the one mentioned in a recent Times article where Joan Didion refused to give Nora Ephron her recipe for Mexican Chicken. I’d die to see that.
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