Yrsa Daley-Ward is the esteemed poet of The How, bone, and The Terrible and now her debut novel The Catch is one of the best books of the year so far. In it, estranged twin sisters are forced back into each other’s lives when a woman who looks exactly like their vanished mother appears in London, unchanged by time. As they clash over the woman’s identity, they must confront buried truths about their past and the cost of choosing oneself.
We asked Daley-Ward to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know her and the books that shaped her life.
What was the first book you were obsessed with as a child?
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. The mix of poems and prose, the wild tragedy and humour, the strangeness of it. A band of misfits inside a giant peach, trying to survive the world. I related!
What book helped you through puberty?
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. A haunting, necessary text. It cracked me open. I learned about shame, longing and beauty myths and also about writing the hard, honest thing.
What book do you think all teenagers should be assigned in school?
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. Because it shows you that you can question what you’ve been taught. That you can come from one story and write another. That love, identity, family – none of it is fixed. That language can unmake and remake a life.
If you were to teach a class on Damn Good Writing, what books would make the syllabus?
Beloved by Toni Morrison. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. Bluets by Maggie Nelson. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: Economy, rhythm, gut-punch. Language that moves the body as well as the mind.
What books helped guide you while writing your book?
None, really. I wasn’t looking outwards. I was listening to the body, the pulse, the old ghosts. I wrote from what was asking to be written, not from what anyone else had done.
What books are on your nightstand now?
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, and also whichever poetry collection is closest to hand that day.