I gave my heart to books at age 5 in New Castle, Delaware, walking from my house on 5th Street to the little library on . . . 3rd? 2nd? I moved away when I was 8 and accidentally took a library book with me—Wilbur and the Blue Dog. Every year that we went back to visit my grandmother, I lived in fear that I would be in very big trouble. I didn’t dare tell my mother what I had done and hid it amongst my other books.
Lately I’ve been falling in love with books and short stories all over again. Alice Munro, who I’ve always liked but who has written many, many more short stories than I’ve taken the time to read. Deep, complex, stories, always located with precision in place and time. Edith Pearlman, who reminds me of Alice Munro, so crisp and understated. William Trevor, an Irish short story writer who I’ve just discovered for the first time, and who, luckily for me, was also an amazingly prolific writer.
And the novels. Sally Rooney, such a young and talented Irish writer. I started with Conversations with Friends, went right away to Normal People and then to Beautiful World, Where Are You? Rooney is not everyone’s favorite, but for me, she has completely captured a certain cultural moment for Ireland’s young people-and I’m assuming that it has some accuracy, but whether it does or not, I was thoroughly engaged. And that’s the trouble with novels . . . I’m left waiting for the next one.
For Ann Patchett too . . . I’ll re-read any one of her novels, but I think The Dutch House is my favorite. And her book of essays, The Story of a Happy Marriage. I liked that so much that I had it sent to two of my sisters so that they could enjoy it.
I’m more than halfway through an MFA program in Creative Writing, and one of my mentors assured me that becoming a writer was going to destroy reading for me. But I’ve found the opposite to be true. The more that I study writers, the more fascinated I am with how we put language together for storytelling. And the more that I want to tantalize and engage readers in falling in love--the way that my favorite authors have done for me.
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