Megan Howell‘s debut collection Softie is filled with fantastical stories that both have a sheen to them and a gloom hanging over them. She balances melancholy and the preposterous extremely well. Howell’s website says she “writes stories for sad ppl” — and this collection proves it.
We wanted to get some recommendations from the writer and see what books shaped her childhood, got her through puberty, and helped her write this book. Welcome to the new, recurring My Reading Life questionnaire.
What was the first book you were obsessed with as a child?
An embarrassing confession: my love of reading was much less intense when I was a little kid. However, I didn’t hate books. I just preferred having someone else—preferably an adult with a strong voice—read them to me. Storytime was actually my favorite part of school. I loved listening to my teachers act out the voices of all the different characters. My favorite book in elementary school was The Daydreamer by Iwan McEwan. It’s about a ten-year-old British boy with an overactive imagination. The most memorable scene for me is when he’s imagining himself swapping bodies with the family cat. When the cat unzips his skin, McEwan describes what emerges as this brilliant, indescribably pure essence of cat-ness. It’s such a philosophical moment. You can really tell that McEwan views children as intelligent and empathetic. His prose is neither patronizingly simplistic nor completely inaccessible to the average kid.
I didn’t fully fall in love with reading until I discovered Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale at fifteen. This Japanese dystopian YA novel deals with school children being made to kill each other (think Lord of the Flies or The Hunger Games). Despite the large cast of characters, the fast-paced narrative and compelling characters kept me hooked for all five-hundred-plus pages. I read alone in my room for many, many hours.
What book helped you through puberty?
Literally, all the books I read and still remember. I’ve never been a stan for anyone except for maybe Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison. Part of the allure of reading is that I don’t have to tie myself down to any one author, genre, setting, etc. Despite seeing myself as this super highbrow literati in high school, I didn’t feel embarrassed at all reading YA (Pretty Little Liars was my addiction, problematic teacher-student relationships be damned). But I also read literary fiction. Lolita, Blonde, The Lover, The Stranger. I was especially interested in Japanese contemporary novels, everything from Kafka on the Shore to The Makioka Sisters.
What book do you think all teenagers should be assigned in school?
I think that the current discourse about this very question focuses too much on what kids shouldn’t be reading, mostly because of anti-intellectual groups like Moms for Liberty. Just to be petty, I’ll say that kids should be assigned pretty much anything that conservatives want to remove from classrooms. Their shitlists have a lot of great titles: The Bluest Eye, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Lawn Boy. Even if a kid gets caught reading A Court of Thorns and Roses, who cares? The internet has already exposed them to content that’s much more harmful than anything in a library book. It’s depressing how the same people harassing the author of Gender Queer are letting Andrew Tate and 4Chan raise their children.
If you were to teach a class on Damn Good Writing, what books would make the syllabus?
There’s so many options—too many to choose from. A good syllabus would need a throughline. Lately, I’ve been really into books about women giving up on their old lives in favor of chasing after a fleeting ideal of happiness, so the theme of my Damn Good Writing class would probably be that. I’d include a lot of my recent favorites: The Most by Jessica Anthony, Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, Tampa by Alyssa Nutting, When Trying to Return Home: Stories by Jennifer Maritza McCauley, The Guest by Emma Cline, and What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez.
What books helped guide you while writing your book?
When I’m deep in the throes of a project, I tend to read more non-fiction. I think I do this for two reasons. First, because, as a fiction writer, I need a break from fiction from time to time. And second, because stress makes me compare my work to other people’s. Non-fiction is nice because, if it’s well-written with a popular audience in mind, it carries all the structural trappings of good fiction: compelling narrative, interesting characters, appropriate pacing.
I honestly don’t remember the books I read while coming up with Softie, but I know the number must’ve been high because of how long the writing process took. Right now, I’m reading Very Important People by Ashley Mears, probably because I’m working on a second short story collection and a YA novel. It deals with the VIP party circuit and the wealthy male clientele it caters to. Mears, a retired model, goes undercover as a “party girl,” which is a young model or attractive “civilian” (i.e. non-model) whom these clubs pay—with food and/or housing, almost never money—to entertain men. Desirability politics and lookism are very popular topics online right now, but I’ve found most of those discussions overly simplistic and often straight-up incel-ish compared to Mears’s analysis. Mears acknowledges the power of physical beauty under capitalism but also its limitations and nebulous definition. The points that she brings up have definitely influenced the sexual politics in my books.
What books are on your nightstand now that you’re looking forward to reading next?
I just started No One Gets to Fall Apart by Sarah LaBrie, a TV writer. It’s a memoir about the author’s relationship with her mentally ill mother. So far, I’m enjoying it, though the subject matter is a bit grim. I love reading books by screenwriters. They tend to be more efficient with their prose; their pacing is very tight and their prose accessible. Those of us who just do literary fiction can write the same way, of course, but sometimes I feel like we experiment with structure at the expense of telling a good story.