Good to Know
Many-if not most-of my ancestors are Mennonite or Amish, all Pennsylvania Dutch-my grandfather still can speak Pennsylvania Dutch, and there's a Groffdale in Lancaster County filled with people who look curiously like me.
I spent a year between high school and college as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student in Nantes, France-mostly in the house of a family with a catering business (when I returned from France, I'd gained so much weight that my parents didn't recognize me at first in the airport).
My sister Sarah is an elite triathlete, fourth in the US, trying to make the an Olympic berth for Beijing this summer. She's definitely my hero.
Feature Interview
What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer -- and why? My absolute favorite book is
Middlemarch, which I first read in high school, and have read again nearly every year since. George Eliot is the most intelligent of writers, capable of a breathtaking empathy, and able to write prose that pierces you. I love her panoramic take of a single town in this book: Middlemarch the town is whole and imperfect and beautiful, just like real life. It hovers before me as the ideal of a great book.
What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?
In no particular order (it's so hard for me to list these!):
Middlemarch, George Eliot-Please see above
Paradise Lost, John Milton-Milton's use of language in this book is so spectacular, it haunts me. And Satan is perhaps the most perfect villan ever created, utterly attractive and far more interesting than any other character in this book.
The Lover, Marguerite Duras-Duras's elliptical, postmodern style perfectly matches this love story, and makes it somehow even more shattering.
The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard. Every line is poetry, and the book as a whole is so perfectly executed that when I finished it I reread it again and again to try to figure out how she did it. Hazzard is maybe the most graceful living writer.
Moby Dick, Melville. This book is a revelation-so imperfect it somehow becomes perfect, a revelation, the most amazing book about America ever written.
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy. A stylist of the finest order, McCarthy invokes a King James incantatory style that invests each scene with an immense weight-this is, in my opinion, his best book.
Portrait of a Lady, Henry James. Nobody is better than James at subtlety and psychological acuity-Isabel is so wonderful that her downfall is truly tragic.
The Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor. Wry, savage, wonderful-each story is perfect in itself.
Paris Stories, Mavis Gallant. Gallant's a new discovery for me-she writes like an angel, and every story has the scope of a novel. I had to read it like a collection of novels, savoring each one and stopping after-this book contains multiple worlds. She's also ridiculously flexible as a writer, each story attacked in a different way. Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson. A short book, but far from slight-her grasp of imagery and nostalgia makes me return again and again to this magnificent novel.
What are some of your favorite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
I'm all over the board with movies-since I don't own a television, essentially any unbroken narrative will suck me in. Like books, though, a movies has got to engage my mind as well as my heart for it to be a favorite. Some of my best are:
The Philadelphia Story-I love Hepburn in this movie-she's so cold and aristocratic and yet compelling and, well, yar.
The Royal Tannenbaums-Wes Anderson has precisely my sense of humor-I found this movie endlessly watchable and rich.
The Dark Crystal-Some people love Labrynth (I do, too, though the headless muppets freak me out)-The Dark Crystal is tighter and more epic.
Amelie-What can I say? Sometimes you're in the mood for adorableness on the cusp of cloying.
Planet Earth-I LOVE Attenborough's voiceover in this magnificent film, love marveling at the variety and majesty of the earth we generally see so little of. The Big Lebowski-A near-perfect movie about a slacker. Plus, bowling!
Pan's Labyrinth-I have yet to see a recent American movie that was so literary and atmospheric.
What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like to listen to when you're writing?
I can't listen to music with words, though I once wrote a short story to the Bruce Springsteen album Nebraska (odd, because he was said to have written it under the influence of Flannery O'Connor). Mostly I listen to what matches the mood of the piece I'm writing-for uplifting, lovely, light-filled passages, I try Sigur Ros; for dark, cold, pulsing I try Shostakovich; for complexity, I try Bach, mostly the Goldberg Variations. I wrote a story of mine that was in Best American Short Stories under the hypnotic spell of this marvelous folk song called Polegnala E Todora (Theodora is Sleeping), sung a cappella by the Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic, which worked because I don't understand Bulgarian. Beyond that, I'm eclectic and fall heavily and hard, playing one album or song for months at a time. Most recent loves are Imogen Heap, Andrew Bird, Regina Spektor, Kanye West, and Justin Timberlake who is, despite what people say, a phenomenal songwriter-the moment where he switches.
What are your favorite kinds of books to give -- and get -- as gifts?
I love all books as gifts. Because I buy so many for myself every month, I mostly love to get books that I'd never buy myself-huge, fat art books, coffee-table books, offbeat reference guides. I mostly love to give people my favorite recent fiction or nonfiction-I think I bought ten copies of The Omnivore's Dilemma to give to people this past holiday season.
Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
I'm so massively superstitious that if I were to tell on myself, the rituals wouldn't work any more. Suffice it to say that it involves coffee, yoga, naps, and sometimes weeping, though not that often.
Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
From the outside, it probably does look like I was an overnight success-I sold my first big story while still an MFA, and my first book shortly after graduating. But my husband can attest to the fact that I have suffered long and hard-I've written every single day since I was fourteen and only had the courage to tell my family I was a writer by vocation until just after I graduated from college. There were some incredibly tough years while I struggled-I was a bartender in Philadelphia (the first night I worked at my bar, there was a homicide), a measly temp, a freezing canvasser for a PIRG, a case-worker in a Department of Human Services, a lonely office mule, and-until the night I put all the applications in the mail-was going to go back to get a PhD in Comp Lit, which I'm so very thankful I never did, as I'd be a miserable though esoteric person today. Every writer gets rejection letters, stacks of them-the best advice I got was to throw them out immediately and not worry about them-don't fetishize-and to know that I would be published when my work was good enough to be published.
What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
The old Latin phrase "Poeta Nascitur, Non Fit," (A Poet is Born, not Made), may be jolly good if one is a poet, but I think it's probably utter bunk. A poet, a writer-any artist-is made, and painstakingly. One can't teach subtlety or sensitivity-those maybe are what one must be born with-but with reading and hard work, a writer is made. It takes daily attention to your craft, resilience, and love. The secret is simple, and yet incredibly hard to do-put bluntly, it's "Derriere in the Chair." Every day. No excuses.
What else would you like your readers to know? Consider here your likes and dislikes, your interests and hobbies, your favorite ways to unwind -- whatever comes to mind.
I love all food, and sometimes love to cook it: love to garden, read, sail, run, play soccer, swim, paint very, very poorly. And then eat again.
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