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The Five Books That Influenced Me the Most
It’s hard to pick just five but here goes!
1. The Neapolitan Novel Series by Elena Ferrante — These four novels (I guess I’m already cheating!) which include My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child, changed the way I think about story both as a writer and a reader. Ferrante has written the best literary soap operas of our time, and built into it the story of two best friends, Lenu and Lila, who are torn apart by men, class, love, children, and their country. I haven’t read anything with such a fervor — I could not put these books down. I’ll never forget the crowd of wild, nerdy, gorgeous, literary women overwhelming the sweet twenty-something bookstore dude at the cash register, at Brooklyn’s now defunct BookCourt when the forth book came out. After I paid, I practically ran to the nearest bar, ordered a beer, and started reading.
2. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid — There is no other voice like Kincaid’s — so frank, confident, and full of feeling. In Lucy, Kincaid tells the story of a young woman from the West Indies, who leaves her home and her mother to work as a nanny in New York for a wealthy white couple. Lucy’s disdain for the absurd mannerisms of the white family she works for is an extension of the disdain for the island life she left behind. In this short novel, Kincaid…
