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Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader? It’s highly unlikely, if not impossible. 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? This is such a wonderful piece of news. I don’t really know how to explain it except to say that it points to something terrific about our culture. Perhaps it is the long running American interest in self-improvement. That is something very enduring and special about us. Have you ever belonged to a reading group? Yes, I started a reading group once long ago for writers who wanted to read more classics. I still reflect from time to time on particularly profound comments made by some people that were in this group. It was a short lived but terrific experience, because I decided to go to graduate school shortly after. There was a period also when I had a reading group of two with a dear friend of mine. I recall we read Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, and I was so overwhelmed and brokenhearted by the end of that novel that I left her a long, passionate voice mail because I was so carried away. She got a big kick out of that. I was swept away, and it’s wonderful to share that sort of rapture with others. What advice do you have for reading group members when it comes to selecting books for discussion? I think it’s great to do a range of classics and contemporary books over the course of time. But really it’s just important to read great writers that you can get passionate about. What books are you reading now or do you plan to read? As usual, I’m all over the map: Presently I’m reading (and loving) Irish playwright John Synge. Next is Water for Elephants. Orhan Pamuk’s Black Book is in the near future. I’ve also been reading the old new age classic Creative Visualization bit by bit for months. If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why? Hmmm. Not sure. Perhaps some big religious text that would help me achieve enlightenment in my solitude. Or maybe just Wuthering Heights, because it is just so great. If you could have dinner with three writers (dead or alive) who would they be and why? Perhaps I’d put together a girls’ night out, in which case, I’d invite Virginia Woolf, Louise Erdrich, and Zora Neale Hurston. I’d have so many things to ask them. On the other hand, if I were to put together a group of men, I’d go for poetic greatness: William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Chekhov. This would be a very different sort of evening. Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)? Nope. Favorite book when you were a child? Certainly it was The Diary of Anne Frank. My runner up would be Little Women. If you have children, is this the same book you read to them? If not, what is your favorite book for your children? I loved reading the My Father’s Books to each of my sons when they were about four years old. I also loved reading, and rereading with my oldest, the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Favorite first line from a book? From Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Favorite last line from a book? “Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.” —Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse Book that changed your life? Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Words to live by? “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not
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