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Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader? I think that the sense one develops of sound and pace in sentences has a great deal to do with how much one reads as well as what, and the sort of writer or reader one becomes. If a person is a great listener, a close follower of stories as they are told, I imagine that the beginnings of a sense of the order and construction of language is imprinted on the imagination. My own children have listened to books read aloud first by me but also continue to listen every night to spoken books as they fall asleep (they’ve done this for years and continue as teenagers). A response to the visual order of text on the page is crucial to writing, I think, but so is an awareness and an appreciation for sound, free from seeing words as they appear on the page. According to a report of the Independent Book Publishing Association, over five million American adults belong to reading groups. What, do you believe, is the basis for this country's love for literature and books? It’s wonderful to know that there are 5 million book club members, but the population is 300 million—there could always be more readers, more bookstore frequenters, more book buyers. I think Americans value stories told all sorts of ways and I don’t particularly see Americans as distinct from other cultures in valuing books. There is a long tradition of books (education really) as a means of changing the circumstances of one’s life and I think America has always valued and rewarded the “self-made” quality of that change. Have you ever belonged to a reading group? No, but I am one of a small group of three writers who meet once a month and more often than not we talk about what we’ve read and what we hope to read. It is a crucial touchstone for me. What advice do you have for reading group members when it comes to selecting books for discussion? It’s always good for discussions if one person absolutely LOVED a book, even if there isn’t consensus on the book’s general impact. Books and book discussions benefit from passionate responses—either way, loved or hated. What books are you reading now or do you plan to read? I’m researching the next novel so I’ve been reading a lot of 19th-century women writers again, or for the first time—the Brontes, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson. Also, Peter Ackroyd’s wonderful biography of Shakespeare, and Henry James’ strange novel, The Sacred Fount. If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why? Well, I guess Moby Dick because I’d love to memorize passages. If you could have dinner with three writers (dead or alive) who would they be and why? Henry James, Emily Dickinson, and Herman Melville—because their lives, their personalities, appear as compelling as their work. Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)? No, and I love to look at catalogs in bed. Favorite book when you were a child? Well, as a bit older child, Jane Eyre. But I treasure memories of reading the early Harry Potter books to my children, until they wanted to read the last two themselves. I remember a particularly wonderful evening when a blackout had me reading to them by candlelight, I think the second book, and sitting on either side of me they hung on every word. Favorite heroine in literature and why? Rosalind in As You Like It, because she’s a smart-alec who is overcome by love. Favorite hero in literature and why? Sidney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities—my first fictional crush. Favorite first line from a book? “I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.” —from Tillie Olsen’s Tell Me A Riddle. Favorite last line from a book? “The beats of her heart lessened one by one, vaguer each time and softer, as a fountain sinks, an echo disappears; and when she sighed her last breath she thought she saw an opening in the heavens, and a gigantic parrot hovering above her head.” —A Simple Heart, Flaubert. Book that changed your life? The True Story of the Novel by Margaret Ann Doody Words to live by? “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
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