Brodie Crellin is a London-based editor at Granta Magazine. In their debut novel, A Sense of Occasion, a fractured family reunited in a small English village after the sudden death of their matriarch, Mary. Over the course of a sweltering funeral weekend, long-buried resentments, secrets, and desires resurface as each family member grapples with grief in their own messy and often self-destructive way. Darkly funny and sharply observed, the novel explores the tangled dynamics of family, sex, and loss, revealing the chaos that lurks beneath even the most ordinary occasions.
We asked Crelling to answer our My Reading Life Q&A so readers can get to know the books that shaped their life and influenced their writing.
What was the first book you were obsessed with as a child?
The Hobbit. The obsession began at seven and lasted for two years. I remember thinking that the dragon was very interesting and clever, more charming than the dwarves, and I really enjoyed the chapter where Bilbo and Gollum swap riddles. I thought these riddles were very impressive. At seven I asked everyone I knew what has roots as nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up it goes, and yet never grows, and was shocked when anyone correctly guessed the answer.
What book helped you through puberty?
No book will actually help with this. But there are probably some that help less than others. At thirteen I picked up a copy of Lolita because I thought that the girl lying on the cover of the Penguin Classics edition had a beautiful dress and hairstyle, read the whole thing without really understanding it, and came away wondering if Humbert Humbert was a victim. The dangers of an unreliable narrator! Around the same time, I saw the trailer for Prozac Nation and sought out the book. A terrible idea. Very depressing. And not long after I encountered What I Was by Meg Rosoff. This one was age appropriate, but still troubling. There is a moment where it transpires that the handsome and enigmatic boy (Finn) who lives alone in a hut on the beach is actually a girl, but this only comes about because Finn gets her period. From memory, the descriptions of Finn’s period are not dissimilar to scenes from Annie Ernaux’s Happening. There was a lot of blood and it was unclear whether Finn was dying. Extremely disturbing scene to read when on the cusp of puberty.
What book do you wish 16-year-old you had read?
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Friendship, agony and ambition! What a book to get to read at sixteen!
If you were to teach a class on Damn Good Writing, what books would make the syllabus?
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, Magda Szabó’s The Door, Ágota Kristóf’s The Notebook.
What books helped guide you while writing your book?
So many! Ivy Compton-Burnett’s Daughters and Sons for the dialogue, especially the conversations around the dinner table; Jean Stafford’s exploration of an uncomfortably close pair of siblings in The Mountain Lion was useful in reflecting on a familial fall out; Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose books showed me what could be gained by holding the narrative within a single day; while Ursula Parrott’s Ex-Wife reminded me that humor is often the most effective way to communicate sadness.
What books are on your nightstand now?
I am in a book club where we read around two hundred pages of In Search of Lost Time at a time so at the moment there is always a volume of Proust, and this will probably be the case until the end of next year. The Gift by Barbara Browning because all of my friends keep telling me I will love and I am sure they are right. And Balzac’s Cousin Bette because it sounds like the older, French cousin of A Sense of Occasion. I’m excited.