|
|
| photo: Rachael Wright | |
Lindsey Kelk is a British writer who lives in Los Angeles. She worked as a children's editor for seven years, then made the switch to the other side and moved to New York after publishing her first novel, I Heart New York. Six years later, she has published nine novels that have sold more than 1.2 million copies worldwide. Her new novel, About a Girl, was recently published by HarperCollins360.
On your nightstand now:
I just finished the edits on a new novel so I'm gorging on all the books I missed out on while I was working--right now, there's The First Bad Man by Miranda July, Patton Oswald's Silver Screen Fiend, Yes Please by Amy Poehler and my friend Lucy Robinson's The Day We Disappeared. That's the top of the pile, at least. Once I get a copy of the new Ishiguro, everything else will go out the window. Possibly literally.
Favorite book when you were a child:
If I had to choose only one book or chop off my right arm, I'd probably send you my arm. I was an obsessive reader as a child--11-year-old Lindsey put 34-year-old Lindsey to shame. I was a huge fan of Enid Blyton novels (and blissfully unaware of the less savory themes of her books--growing up is so sad sometimes) before moving on to wildly inappropriate pre-teen reading like Barbara Taylor Bradford and James Herbert. I'm not sure that reading the entirety of V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic series before the age of 12 was a good idea, but what's done is done and let's leave it at that.
Your top five authors:
I can never answer this and stick with it, so I'm choosing authors I read and re-read: Donna Tartt, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Cunningham and Tom Perotta.
Book you've faked reading:
I lied about having finished Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch for months because everyone kept asking me about it. The Secret History is my favorite book of all time and I'd been bleating on about Goldfinch for months before it came out; then, it arrived, in all its weighty glory and I just couldn't get into it. I did finish it eventually, though, so now it's back to faking my knowledge of Russian literature, just like I did during my degree.
Book you're an evangelist for:
After I read Room by Emma Donoghue, my friend barred me from talking about it. I don't know what it was about that book at that time, but I ate it up in one sitting and could not get it out of my head. I've since bought it for so many people, and I'm pretty sure every single one of them considered it an odd gift. Nothing says happy birthday like a book about a woman and her child, locked away from the outside world for several years by a deranged rapist.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Because I'm from the U.K. and live in the U.S., I'm obsessed with the differences between international covers and often have both editions for that reason. The last books I bought for the cover alone were some of the clothbound Penguin classics. I have The Odyssey, Les Miserables, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Little Women, all of which I already owned. I have a book-buying problem.
Book that changed your life:
It's probably going to sound pretentious, but I think every book I read changes my life in some way. It still blows my mind that I can sit down and go inside another world that came from someone else's imagination, meet a whole cast of characters and live their lives beside them, in a way that TV and movies can't, and I love TV and movies. The fact that something so powerful can sit inside something so unassuming is too much for my tiny mind to handle. The fact that I actually get to do that for a living is insane.
Shorter answer, The Secret History was the book that made me want to really be a writer.
Favorite line from a book:
"He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is one of my all-time favourite books, and I can read it again and again and again. Clearly Cathy and Heathcliffe did not have a healthy relationship by anyone's standards, but I happened to reread it when I was in a similar-ish situation and remember staring at that line forever, thinking "Yes! That's us!" and then I considered what happens to the lovers in that book and realized perhaps I was not on the wisest of paths. Much appreciated, Ms. Brontë.
Which character you most relate to:
It feels as though every book I read these days has me sitting back and shouting "that's me!" even though, quite clearly, it is not. I recently said Mary from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett because she can't help being a pain in the arse, even when she's trying to help. I can be a bit bossy and self-involved when I try, but I'm fairly certain I've got a good heart. Plus, I'm from Yorkshire, I like a bit of gardening and I always had a crush on Dickon when I was little. Also, I apparently really like book titles that start with "The Secret." But not the actual The Secret. Weird.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Probably Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. I was very young when I read it the first time and didn't get it at all. Even though I've read it since, that pervasive feeling of "having to read it" is always hanging over me. I wish I could back and just enjoy it. The Michael Fassbender film adaptation really helped me heal some of the scars, but I still feel bad that I just don't love it.