David Greig has a long-storied career on the Scottish stage. His theatre work includes The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Touching the Void, Midsummer, The Events, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Local Hero, and Dunsinane. Now, his debut novel, The Book of I, has now been published. The debut is a historical-philosophical novel set in 825 CE on a remote Scottish isle in the aftermath of a brutal Viking raid.
We asked Greig to answer our recurring My Reading Life questionnaire to give readers insight into the books that shaped the writer throughout his life and the titles that influenced his debut book.
What was the first book you were obsessed with as a child?
I grew up in a small town called Jos in Northern Nigeria. There was very little available to read so I read what I could get from the local store. I remember in particular I loved Ramona The Pest by Beverly Cleary. She was a fellow struggler in a strange world. I adored a strange book about a boy on a farm who adopts a calf called ‘Temba Dawn‘ by Alec Lea, and I remember being deeply moved by a novel of wild horses, Misty of Chincotegue by Marguerite Henry.
What book helped you through puberty?
My first instinct was the schlocky x-rated horror, James Herbert’s Rats which was passed around our school like contraband. In fact my puberty and early life was spent reading a lot of John Irving. I remember living for a long time, especially, with The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meaney.
What book do you think all teenagers should be assigned in school?
I don’t think they should be assigned a book. I think young people should be encouraged to learn poetry, so they can repeat it out loud. This is now a much derided task but in the seventies it was less so. I still hold all those poems and go back to them often. If you can fill a supple, receptive young mind with poetry and prose fragments learned by heart… they will have poetry written on their heart and that will be a wonderful resource for the rest of their life. I would recommend a poetry anthology with works from Benjamin Zephaniah to Emily Dickinson, Homer and Sappho, the Harlem Renaissance and the Cowboy poets, a poem every month. Don’t study it much beyond its direct meaning. Just learn it. Let it belong to the child.
If you were to teach a class on Damn Good Writing, what books would make the syllabus?
I would be reluctant to teach such a class because I very much feel I am still a learner in prose. The writers I most admire and try to copy are Patricia Lockwood, who seems, to me, to capture modern self-consciousness whilst remaining rooted in the real. PG Wodehouse is simply the best comic prose stylist of all time. John Le Carre, for his plotting and the stories within stories. I am also drawn to Naomi Mitchison for her approach to historical work, her simplicity and yet the constantly believable texture of her ancient worlds.
I am also reading a lot of ancient poetry at the moment such as the plays of Aeschylus, the Norse Sagas and the Welsh epic The Goddodin. These works give fascinating clues as to how to arrange words in a simple spoken storytelling form – intended for a wide, popular audience – economical, poetic and strange.
What books helped guide you while writing your book?
Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbo, Viking Women by Dr Judith Jesch, Dominion by Tom Holland, I also read the bible especially Song of Solomon and the Gospel of John.
What books are on your nightstand now?
Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos, James by Perceval Everett, Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, and Naomi Mitchison.