In an email interview, the singer-songwriter, who often records as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, shared his affection for Barbara Kingsolver and books about Hawaii. SCOTT HELLER
Are there any classic novels that you recently read for the first time?
“Cassandra at the Wedding,” by Dorothy Baker. Unbelievable.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t?
Who’s got time to hate?
Describe your ideal reading experience.
I like to read first thing every morning in the attic, on a built-in daybed, so that the book’s words are the first things to replace the night’s dreams. There’s a stackable turntable a few feet away, and I usually read for the length of two LPs, one side each. Music without words. Coffee is part of this ritual.
What books are on your night stand?
On the for-real night stand we find “Volcano Manifesto,” by Cauleen Smith (found at Basket Books in Houston, Texas); “Transcendent Waves,” by Lavender Suarez (discovered on the shelves of End of an Ear recording studio in Louisville, Ky.); “A Woman Is a School,” by Céline Semaan; and our daughter’s first favorite book, “Mexican Art II: Teotihuacan — Tajin — Monte Alban.” Each of these is a dense wonderworld, and even a few pages can send the mind reeling for hours or days. Ultimately, though, bed is for sleeping and the rest of the world is for reading.
How have your reading tastes changed over time?
I’ll bet my tastes have got more rarefied. I always celebrate the discovery of a book or record that I think someone else actually would appreciate, because too often I find that there’s nobody to talk with about my best reads.
What’s the last great book you read?
“Waterlog,” by Roger Deakin. It is essentially a long-form nonfiction prose poem about swimming everything swimmable in Britain, inspired by John Cheever’s story “The Swimmer.” Other recent books that astound me are the Kentucky writer Richard Taylor’s biographies of Abraham Lincoln (“Railsplitter”), John James Audubon (“Rare Bird”) and Cassius M. Clay (“Bull’s Hell”), all in sonnet form.
What’s the last book you recommended to a member of your family?
Probably “Demon Copperhead.”
What book, if any, most influenced your decision to become a songwriter?
I was born to make up songs and sing them. A couple of books aided me in sorting through some of the mess in my head: the first novels of workers-in-song Nick Cave (“And the Ass Saw the Angel”) and Jimmy Buffett (“Where Is Joe Merchant?”). Each heavily referenced the writers’ songbooks, and functioned as primers for exploring the basic idea that a song is this itty-bitty thing hinting at entire worlds of image and emotion.
Do you have a favorite memoir by a musician?
Undeniably, Art Pepper’s “Straight Life.” My friend T.R. Johnson first showed me the book about a quarter of a century ago. I got a copy and kept it in sight for 20 years, knowing/hoping it was gonna be as good as T.R. promised. It’s better.
How did you come across Charles Neider’s 1956 novel “The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones”?
Through the work of Sam Peckinpah. “Authentic Death” was the basis for Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.” Rudy Wurlitzer wrote a beautiful screenplay, but the structure is clearly Neider’s.
How did you come to write the foreword?
I got asked.
Tell someone who knows nothing about it why they should read it.
Neider does some minimally experimental and maximally effective explorations in style, which can gently massage the momentum of the reader’s psyche into wildly and necessary new directions.
If they read and love it, what should they read next?
If we stick with westerns, they could look to “Butcher’s Crossing,” by John Williams; “Warlock,” by Oakley Hall; and “The Difference,” by Charles Willeford.
What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?
That Paul Gauguin saw the traveling extravaganza overseen by Buffalo Bill Cody in Paris in 1889 and was so inspired that he bought himself a 10-gallon hat and wore it as his trademark headgear for years. (Learned from “Wild Thing,” by Sue Prideaux.)
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
I have a thing for accounts of lives lived in Hawaii. Some of my very favorite books are “Waimea Summer,” by John Dominis Holt; “The Red Wind,” by Ian MacMillan; “Life Is for a Long Time,” by Li Ling Ai; and “Paddling My Own Canoe,” by Audrey Sutherland.
What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?
“Demon Copperhead.”
The last book you read that made you furious?
“Demon Copperhead.”
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Hugh Nissenson, Sélim Nassib and Barbara Kingsolver. We can call Nissenson a Jewish writer, Nassib an Arab writer and Kingsolver a writer from the same basic culture as mine. I have lived in the words of all three and am desperate to hear a discussion of the nightmare of our present time by sane and thoughtful humanist artists.
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