"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
Like Pride and Prejudice, this book opens with a lie. It says, “This is the story of Bob Burgess.” The truth is that it’s the story of Bob, Lucy, Olive, Margaret, William, Jim, and Pam and the stories … Read More
As a writer, few things give me more pleasure than discovering an excellent writer. Kate Roberts wrote her novels, short stories, and autobiography in Welsh, which meant that most of the English-speaking world didn’t know of … Read More
This sentence comes at the end of the first paragraph. We see that while everything seems okay, it’s not. Something has ended, and the protagonist is upset. Keegan is reluctant to spell it out for us. … Read More
The title of this novel comes from a gut-wrenching scene in Macbeth, where the central character mourns his wife’s death and wants his now-meaningless existence to come to an end. (And it does. Violently.) Is … Read More
Eva Gayle Six is an American author of historical fiction that few have heard of. Her novel, Jennie’s Tiger: A woman’s pioneering stand in an untamed corner of Washington state, is based on the life of Jennie Wooding, born … Read More
This quote expresses the tension in Small Things Like These, which is about the terrible choice the Irish coal merchant, Furlong, must make between self-preservation and self-respect. Either way, he stands a chance to lose something … Read More
This is one of my favorite lines in American literature. It’s blunt and clear, even though it’s from a book that is neither blunt nor clear. Reading Requiem for a Nun requires participating in an experiment. It … Read More
In the weeks since Alice Munro’s death, I’ve been thinking about this paradox: While she won the Nobel Prize and the highest respect of reviewers, she never won the hearts of the mass market audience. Why? Hmmm . . . should we start by thinking about the reasons we are … Read More
Here is what I love about the pieces in this book: they are designed to surprise the reader. The stories build to not just one revelation, but often several. And they are sneaky. The last sentence of the last story made me gasp out loud. Because it was written with … Read More
In 1978, the BBC invited Barbara Pym to be a guest on its program where well-known writers discussed their work. Her views on the “distinctive voice” of a writer was of particular interest: in the 1960s, her publisher declined her seventh novel because he said her style was “old fashioned.” … Read More
What’s the hardest book to write successfully? For me, it would be a novel about teenagers who have cancer, fall in love, and then die. The challenges include: creating a page-turner (even though the readers know how it will end), having the characters be interesting but not unrealistically heroic, using … Read More
Fiction is the wildest form of writing. It attracts explorers, artists, and fighters. Their goals might be to punch a hole in the wall between the writer and the reader (Knausgaard), or tell us how the idea of equality fell short (Whitehead), or show us how … Read More
This novel makes us ask: which versions of our memories are to be believed? Is it really true that the protagonist has all that she’s ever wanted? Is she hiding something? From whom? I disagree with the reviewer who described this novel as “bucolically simple.” What about the reference to … Read More
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is written as a recovery journal by a young man in Appalachia who was born to a single mother experiencing addiction. It’s the story that author Barbara Kingsolver wanted to write for years because every family she knows in her part of Appalachia has lost … Read More
Because we all make questionable decisions from time to time, it’s only natural to wonder if we are our own worst enemy, or if we are the hero in our life, or something in between. Many memoirs begin with this question. However, this book is not a memoir: it’s a … Read More