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Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader? I think it’s possible to be a good storyteller without having read a book at all. When my children were little, they were terrific storytellers. They didn’t have to go to school to know about conflict and thwarted desire. But a novel is a complex beast. So many nuances of language, psychology, and society come into play at once. You have to be a student of the conventions of the form, a performer who can both thwart and satisfy the reader’s expectations in a way that keeps him or her engaged, and you have to say something intuitively true about human experience. That’s a pretty tall order. I don’t think it would be even remotely possible, for me at least, to write a novel without having read a great many of them first. Have you ever belonged to a reading group? No, and I don’t think I could. I’m too passionate. I would talk too much! What advice do you have for reading group members when it comes to selecting books for discussion? In fiction, look for interesting themes as well as sympathetic characters and appealing plots. Is there a complex moral choice to be made? Dilemmas that are difficult to resolve? Do characters struggle internally? The themes are what make a novel worth reading, in my opinion. What books are you reading now or do you plan to read? I just finished Richard Russo’s Empire Falls and loved it. I am presently reading Inside the Kingdom by Carmen Bin Laden, a fascinating look at Saudi society by a woman who was both an insider and a westerner. Please buy it and read it. You won’t be sorry. If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why? The Collected Works of William Shakespeare If you could have dinner with three writers (dead or alive) who would they be and why? William Shakespeare, for saying everything that’s worth saying. Edna O’Brien, for the beauty of her language. Any one of my friends who write because they’re friends who write. Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)? Where do I start? I’ve read anything and everything, and much of it has been an education in bad writing, poor taste, and the worst of human nature. But how do you know what’s good and worthy if you don’t know what’s not? I would never want to be the kind of person who read only what’s on the teacher’s summer reading list. Favorite book when you were a child? Harriet the Spy. I actually got a notebook and went around trying to spy on people. Looking back, I wonder whether I wasn’t in training to be a writer! Favorite heroine in literature and why? Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, because of her dignity, artistry, and vision for the future. Favorite hero in literature and why? Huckleberry Finn for being the best character ever created. So believably specific to his time and yet as universal as a hero from legend or fairy tale. An innocent seeker, a tart observer, and a pragmatist. Favorite first line from a book? I can’t think of one, but I’m sure there are many. Favorite last line from a book? Who remembers these things? Book that changed your life? The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud. Also Sisterhood is Powerful. When I was sixteen, I bought about a dozen copies and gave them to my friends for Christmas. Words to live by? Living well is the best revenge.
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