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| photo: Martin Figura | |
Emma Healey grew up in London, where she completed her first degree in bookbinding, then, in 2011, received an MA in Creative Writing. Her novel Elizabeth Is Missing (Harper, June 10, 2014) is a disturbing, darkly suspenseful debut, a meditation on memory and identity that follows a woman grappling with the unexplained disappearance of both her sister 50 years ago and her friend in present day.
On your nightstand now:
I've just finished Alys, Always by Harriet Lane and started After the Fire, A Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld. They are both the first novels by authors whose second novels I have recently really enjoyed; somehow I missed the first novels when they came out, and it's a real treat to read them now.
Favorite book when you were a child:
A Lion in the Meadow by Margaret Mahy. It's all about imagination versus reality, which is a theme I still find interesting! I loved the book when I was three or four and remember getting a huge stuffed lion for Christmas because of my obsession with it.
Your top five authors:
This list is in no particular order and is chosen on the basis that if I were stuck on a desert island and was only allowed the complete oeuvre of five authors, these are the ones I'd want. They are full of humour and disappointment and the mysteries and joys of human relationships: Jane Austen, Penelope Fitzgerald, Michael Frayn, Graham Greene and Barbara Pym.
Book you've faked reading:
I've done that with countless books. I don't mean to, but often I realize too late that I haven't read something--especially if it's a very well-known story or has had a lot of publicity. I do that the other way round, too, realizing after a conversation has ended that I've actually read the book I'd denied any knowledge of. (No one is ever going to believe me when I say I've read something, ever again!)
Book you're an evangelist for:
Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds. I'm quite new to the joys of poetry, and this was a revelation to me. The collection describes the feelings of a breakup so unflinchingly well and with such humour, I couldn't put it down.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The London Train by Tessa Hadley. The hardback is gorgeous, with an Edward Bawden-esque cover illustration. Luckily the writing is as beautiful--Tessa Hadley is a fantastic writer.
Book that changed your life:
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. It made me want to be a writer--both in the style of Cassandra Mortmain, "sitting in the kitchen sink," and her father, the tortured genius who hides himself away in the castle gatehouse.
Favorite line from a book:
"The bathroom, with its water supply half connected, had the alert air of having witnessed something." This is from The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald and it sums up the quirkiness of Fitzgerald's writing. I also like that it's not a perfect sentence, but is still a pleasure to read.
Character you most relate to:
Probably Cecil Grey in The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. She is exactly the confused jumble of awkward/passionate/romantic/practical/knowing/innocent that I was as an adolescent. I just wish I'd had a summer in a French hotel with an international criminal.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
This is slightly cheating, but I was working at a bookshop when the final Harry Potter book came out and I worked the midnight shift, selling to the fans who were queuing out of the door. I hadn't read any of the books until then and so I spent July and August reading the whole series. It was the best summer reading experience I've ever had and I'd love to do that again.
Book you're scared to revisit:
Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys. I loved Jean Rhys when I was in my late teens, but I worry that if I tried to read this book again now I wouldn't feel the same emotional connection. Her writing is fantastic and she was a strict editor, so I would still admire the work, but the themes of love and betrayal and general hormonal confusion were pretty perfect for me at that time in my life in a way that they wouldn't be now.