Category: my reading life

Interviews, my reading life

Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count

by Adam1 Comment on Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count
Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count

Hillary Berhman‘s debut short story collection, Lake Effect, was selected by Lauren Groff as the winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. In it, characters move through wild landscapes and emotionally fraught relationships as they struggle with isolation, longing, and the complicated ways people try to care for one another. Spanning settings from Seattle to Istanbul, these stories explore intimacy, family, labor, and dislocation in lives shaped as much by emotional distance as by fierce human connection.

We asked Berhman to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count” →
Interviews, my reading life

Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother

by AdamLeave a Comment on Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother
Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother

Kerri Schlottman is the author of Daytime Moon and Tell Me One Thing. In Daytime Moon, readers meet Isa, an adrift woman who has a gift of premonition and a knack for tarot.

We asked Schlottman to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother” →
Interviews, my reading life

Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism

by AdamLeave a Comment on Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism
Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism

Sarah Wang’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Harper’s Bazaar, n+1, and BOMB, among other publications. Now, her debut novel, New Skin, has hit the shelves at bookstores.

Following a mother and daughter trapped in a toxic cycle of love, resentment, and reinvention, New Skin is a scalding, darkly humorous debut novel about plastic surgery addiction and the false promises of the American Dream. When Linli Feng returns home to care for her estranged mother after another botched procedure, she is pulled into the dangerous world of black-market beauty treatments and exploitative reality television, forcing both women to confront the damage that obsession and survival have inflicted on their lives.

We asked Wang to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism” →
my reading life

Abundance author Hafeez Lakhani wishes he had found The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earlier in life

by AdamLeave a Comment on Abundance author Hafeez Lakhani wishes he had found The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earlier in life
Abundance author Hafeez Lakhani wishes he had found The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earlier in life

In Hafeez Lakhani‘s debut novel, Abundance, readers meet two generations of a Muslim Indian family in suburban Miami as they grapple with ambition, faith, and the limits of control in pursuit of the American dream. When sixty-year-old Sakeena refuses a life-saving organ transplant, her husband and children are forced to confront their own choices, compromises, and beliefs about fate. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Miami and the pressures of immigrant family life, Abundance explores the tension between destiny and self-determination.

Lakhani was born in Hyderabad, India, and raised in suburban South Florida. Since then, his writing has helped him earn fellowships from PEN America and the Center for Fiction, he’s been recognized twice with a Notable Essay in Best American Essays, and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize.

Lakhani answered our My Reading Life Q&A so readers could learn the books that shaped his life and influenced his writing.

Continue reading “Abundance author Hafeez Lakhani wishes he had found The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earlier in life” →
Interviews, my reading life

Mercy Hill author Hannah Thurman wants to read all the Pulitzer fiction winners

by AdamLeave a Comment on Mercy Hill author Hannah Thurman wants to read all the Pulitzer fiction winners
Mercy Hill author Hannah Thurman wants to read all the Pulitzer fiction winners

Set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hannah Thurman‘s debut novel, Mercy Hill, follows four sisters growing up on the campus of the underfunded state mental hospital where their strong-willed mother serves as head of psychiatry. Richard Russo says it “will stay with you long after you put the book down.”

Thurman, who is based in Brooklyn, was the winner of the Florida Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize for Fiction, and her stories have been published in The Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Brooklyn Rail, and Southern Indiana Review, among others. She has been chosen for residencies at Yaddo, Ragdale, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

We asked her to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Mercy Hill author Hannah Thurman wants to read all the Pulitzer fiction winners” →
Interviews, my reading life

Vincent Yu, author of Seek Immediate Shelter, says literary influence has always been inextricably tied to anxiety

by AdamLeave a Comment on Vincent Yu, author of Seek Immediate Shelter, says literary influence has always been inextricably tied to anxiety
Vincent Yu, author of Seek Immediate Shelter, says literary influence has always been inextricably tied to anxiety

Set in a small Massachusetts town, Vincent Yu‘s debut novel, Seek Immediate Shelter, follows a group of residents whose lives fracture in the moments after a false ballistic missile alert forces them to act on their most instinctive impulses. In the aftermath, each must confront the consequences of what they revealed about themselves, as the ripple effects of those choices unfold over years.

We asked Yu to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped his life and influenced his writing.

Continue reading “Vincent Yu, author of Seek Immediate Shelter, says literary influence has always been inextricably tied to anxiety” →
Interviews, my reading life

Good News author Alexa Yasemin Brahme wishes she had read Melissa Broder as a teen

by AdamLeave a Comment on Good News author Alexa Yasemin Brahme wishes she had read Melissa Broder as a teen
Good News author Alexa Yasemin Brahme wishes she had read Melissa Broder as a teen

Alexa Yasemin Brahme‘s writing has earned her nominations for is a Pushcart Prize, the Robert J. Dau PEN Award, and Best of the Net. Originally from Southern California, she received her MFA from the New School and currently lives in Brooklyn, where she works as a bookseller at Books Are Magic (aka Debutiful’s favorite bookstore in America).

Now, her novel Good News has arrived. Set in New York City, Good News follows a young artist whose creative ambitions and personal life begin to unravel as her thesis falters, her relationships strain, and a magnetic ex reenters her orbit. As pressures mount from family, love, and the art world, she is forced to question not just her work but the life she’s been building.

We asked her to answer our My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Good News author Alexa Yasemin Brahme wishes she had read Melissa Broder as a teen” →
Interviews, my reading life

A History of Heartache author Patrick Strickland was inspired by his former teacher, Patricia Lear

by AdamLeave a Comment on A History of Heartache author Patrick Strickland was inspired by his former teacher, Patricia Lear
A History of Heartache author Patrick Strickland was inspired by his former teacher, Patricia Lear

Patrick Strickland is the author of Alerta! Alerta! Snapshots of Europe’s Anti-Fascist Struggle, The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands, and You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave: Refugees, Fascism, and Bloodshed in Greece.

His debut short story collection, A History of Heartache, is filled with fourteen stories that chart the small mercies and big mistakes that make a life.

We asked him to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped his life and influenced his writing.

Continue reading “A History of Heartache author Patrick Strickland was inspired by his former teacher, Patricia Lear” →
Interviews, my reading life

Gabrielle Sher, author of Odessa, is always inspired by Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson

by AdamLeave a Comment on Gabrielle Sher, author of Odessa, is always inspired by Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson
Gabrielle Sher, author of Odessa, is always inspired by Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson

In Odessa, Gabrielle Sher introduces Yetta, a restless teenage girl coming of age in a shtetl shadowed by fear, where disappearances and whispered violence press in on daily life. After a brutal attack leaves her dead, her father turns to forbidden texts and uncertain magic to bring her back, but what returns is not entirely the daughter he lost. As Yetta begins to sense the truth of what she has become, the novel unfolds into a haunting story of grief, identity, and the consequences of trying to reverse the irreversible.

We asked Sher to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Gabrielle Sher, author of Odessa, is always inspired by Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson” →
Interviews, my reading life

Che Yeun, author of Tailbone, wishes she read more 19th and 20th century Korean history as a teen

by AdamLeave a Comment on Che Yeun, author of Tailbone, wishes she read more 19th and 20th century Korean history as a teen
Che Yeun, author of Tailbone, wishes she read more 19th and 20th century Korean history as a teen

Che Yeun‘s debut novel, Tailbone, follows a teenager who runs away from her abusive home to live in a boarding house for single women as a global financial crash threatens the people of Seoul. Heralded by the great Alexander Chee as an “unforgettable debut novel,” Yeun’s book finds hope in the darkest moments.

Her short has previously appeared in Granta, AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Kenyon Review Online. Outside of fiction, she earned a PhD in History of Science at Harvard University, and is currently a professor of History of Science & Technology at Texas A&M University.

We asked Yeun to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Che Yeun, author of Tailbone, wishes she read more 19th and 20th century Korean history as a teen” →