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B.A. Shapiro is the author of the novels The Art Forger, The Safe Room, Blind Spot, See No Evil, Blameless and Shattered Echoes. She has also written screenplays and the nonfiction book The Big Squeeze. The Art Forger won many awards, including the 2013 New England Book Award for Fiction. Her new novel, The Muralist, was just published by Algonquin.
On your nightstand now:
Drown by Junot Díaz (I just finished This Is How You Lose Her and loved it). Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith (I just finished The Talented Mr. Ripley and loved it). This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison (I'm doing an event with him and like to have read my co-panelist's work).
Favorite book when you were a child:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I must have read it a half dozen times. I just loved how it took me to so many different worlds without my having to leave my bedroom. This was the first book that gave me a real understanding of the power of the novel.
Your top five authors:
I don't really have favorite authors as much as I have favorite books: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien and so, so, so many others.
Book you've faked reading:
I wasn't an English major--I have three degrees in sociology--so I never have to fake it. No one expects a sociologist to have read Ulysses.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I am so impressed with her use of short stories from a multitude of characters' viewpoints to build a multi-multi-dimensional Olive. A masterpiece.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Bill Roorbach's The Remedy for Love. The icy blue draws you into the flame at the center and impels you to pick up the book.
Favorite line from a book:
"It was a bookstore, and he felt at home in bookstores, and he hadn't had that feeling much lately. He was going to enjoy it. He pushed his way back through the racks of greeting cards and cat calendars, back to where the actual books were, his glasses steaming up and his coat dripping on the thin carpet. It didn't matter where you were, if you were in a room full of books you were at least halfway home." (The Magician's Land, Lev Grossman)
Book you hid from your parents:
The Group by Mary McCarthy. Although it was actually their book, I hid the fact I was reading it. They didn't believe I was old enough, but of course I was.
Book that changed your life:
I know this isn't politically correct, but it was Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I read it when I was about 12--and didn't know it was politically incorrect--and after turning the last page, I went back to page one and read it again. I decided then that I wanted to be a novelist--or Scarlett O'Hara. Being a novelist worked out better.
Favorite book that you've written:
The Muralist, my 11th novel--the seventh published--is my favorite. It's a kind of genre-breaker, a historical fiction with art, a mysterious disappearance, characters interacting with historic personages and a message about the evil of bigotry that's as relevant to pre-World War II America as it is today.