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Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader? Absolutely not. I teach writing, and I will occasionally run into a student who claims to want to write but who doesn’t like to read. My sense is that this person doesn’t really want to write either; s/he just wants to be a writer, which is something else entirely—borrowed from the idea that the life of the writer is romantic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The life of the writer is deeply unromantic. I know it; I live it every day. Writing is about sweat, and a writer, in any case, has to be passionate about books. If you don’t love books, you won’t have the endurance, much less the ability, to write one. 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? Well, I wish I were as optimistic about this country and its love for literature as some people are. Every day, we hear about how people are reading less and less. The one exception is book groups. Thanks to Oprah, and to the many thousands of book groups that have sprouted across the country, writers like me are finding readers. It’s what keeping me off the streets. Have you ever belonged to a reading group? I haven’t, mostly because between writing and teaching writing, my life is a book group. But now, having participated in more than fifty book group discussions of Matrimony, I can say I’ve become an honorary member. What advice do you have for reading group members when it comes to selecting books for discussion? I recently wrote an essay about my experience visiting book groups that has made its way around the blogosphere. I have various bits of advice, but perhaps above all else, I would encourage book groups to read widely. My sense is that most book groups are reading the same ten books. One way to combat this problem would be for the group to estabilish a rule that they would only discuss books that at least half the members haven’t heard of. What books are you reading now or do you plan to read? I recently read Netherland by Jospeh O’Neill, The Great Man by Kate Christensen, The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter, The Master Bedroom by Tessa Hadley, and Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett, I’ve also been re-reading The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald and Empire Falls by Richard Russo. By my bedside are A Person of Interest by Susan Choi, Lush Life by Richard Price, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why? Lolita by Nabokov. Because it’s probably the best , most beautifully written novel I’ve ever read. If you could have dinner with three writers (dead or alive) who would they be and why? Certainly no writer I admire. Writers are by and large much less interesting than their books. So I’d choose to have dinner with three writers whose work I don’t like. That way I wouldn’t be disappointed. Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)? Forever, by Judy Blume. Or at least page 85 of it. I believe that was the page that got passed around my seventh-grade classroom. Favorite book when you were a child? Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Except for the summer when it gave me nightmares. If you have children, is this the same book you read to them? If not, what is your favorite book for your children? I think children’s literature should be like adult literature in that it shouldn’t reduce a story to an easy moral lesson. I can’t stand the Berenstain Bears, though my older daughter (age 4) can’t get enough of them. Literature that’s meant to teach an easy lesson always falls flat. Case in point: after I read my daughter The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food, she asks me for more junk food. I like children’s books that are surprising and take character seriously, and that have a sense of humor. The Kevin Henkes books are good—Chrysanthemum, for instance, as well as Julius, the Baby of the World. I like Mo Willens’s Knuffle Bunny. It captures something essential about the parenting experience—and it’s set in my neighorhood in Brooklyn. Favorite heroine in literature and why? Oh, god. I know I’m supposed to say something wise and earnest like Emma Bovary. For my money, I really like Dulcie, the smart, troubled, hilariious teenage daughter in Robert Boswell’s novel Mystery Ride. My wife and I named our golden retriever after Dulcie. Favorite hero in literature and why? Gatsby. He’s mysterious, and I like mysterious people. Favorite first line from a book? One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Favorite last line from a book? Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. OK, it’s not the last line but it’s close enough—the first line of the last chapter: “Reader, I married him.” Book that changed your life? A question that always stumps me. I’m assuming there must have been one, but for me it’s more the accumulation of books that changed my life as opposed to a single one. Words to live by? Read, read, read.
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