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| photo: Jim Pogozelski | |
Jennifer S. Brown is the author of the novel Modern Girls (New American Library, April 5, 2016), about a mother and daughter in New York City in 1935 who must face the consequences of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. Brown has a BFA in film and television from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, Seattle. She has published fiction and creative nonfiction in Fiction Southeast, The Best Women's Travel Writing, the Southeast Review, the Sierra Nevada Review and Bellevue Literary Review, among other places. Her essay "The Codeine of Jordan" was selected as a notable essay in 2012's The Best American Travel Writing.
On your nightstand now:
The pillar of books on my nightstand threatens to topple and crush me in my sleep. The books that are on the top of the pile and being read at the moment are: Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum; Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent, which I'm reading for research for my current writing project; Hover, a breathtaking book of poetry by a former MFA classmate, Erin Malone; and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (translated by Lucia Graves). Next to those is my to-read stack: The Lake House by Kate Morton, Stars over Sunset Boulevard by Susan Meissner and Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg.
Favorite book when you were a child:
My favorites always changed with my mood. My first favorite was a picture book called Beady Bear by Don Freeman, and I still own it. I named my teddy bear (which I also still own) after the character. Once I started to read for myself, I devoured books by the library cart, and at any given moment, my favorite could be The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, or any book by Judy Blume. For a long time, I idolized Harriet the Spy in the eponymous novel by Louise Fitzhugh, and I tried to keep a notebook with observations, though I frequently lost it. My observations, however, were much less interesting than Harriet's so losing it was never a big deal.
Your top five authors:
Again, this list changes depending on which way the wind is blowing, but today, my favorites are Dorothy Parker, John O'Hara, Milan Kundera, Andrew Sean Greer and Paula McLain.
Book you've faked reading:
I wouldn't say I've faked it per se, but I do try to sound like I know what I'm talking about when Jonathan Franzen's name comes up. I have a number of his books on my shelf, and I intend to read them, but it just hasn't happened yet.
Book you're an evangelist for:
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman was forced on me by a friend. It's not a book I would have ever thought to read on my own: a story about a cranky old guy? Pass! But from the first page, I was laughing, and then I was crying, and then I was laughing again. I made my husband read it, I bought it for everyone for holiday gifts, and I'm trying my darnedest to convince my 12-year-old son read it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. So many beautiful elements to this cover: Washington Square Park pulled me right in because I love New York historicals, but the colors have a moodiness that hints at the haunting nature of the story. The font is wonderful, harking back to ancient times. Happily, the cover's promise did not disappoint and I enjoyed the novel greatly.
Book you hid from your parents:
I was quite fortunate in that I had ridiculously liberal parents, and I have never hidden any books from them. In fact, I have a clear memory of being 10 years old and checking out of the library Judy Blume's most-definitely-adult novel Wifey. The librarian looked at my mother and said haughtily, "This is not a child's book." My mother sniffed back and said, "I don't censor what my daughter reads." I read it. I don't think I understood all of it. But I was glad for the opportunity to read it.
Book that changed your life:
Books shape my life on an ongoing basis. Each era of my life has a representative book that was influential. In junior high, Ray Bradbury's short stories showed me that we don't have to confine ourselves to this world. In high school, I read Sylvia Plath's Ariel over and over, appreciating how despair could be captured so beautifully in poetry. College was defined by Milan Kundera. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting taught me that a novel could be so much more than a novel; it could be historical, philosophical and simply amazing. When I traveled in my 20s, books opened my eyes to the culture around me: Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo trilogy while I was in Egypt; Amos Oz's My Michael while in Israel; The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth helped me reimagine Austria and Hungary as I experienced them. Books continue to alter how I think and perceive the world around me.
Favorite line from a book:
"In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken." --from "Ten Indians," The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway. I love how that line so beautifully and so succinctly captures the misery of heartbreak. At some point in our lives, we can all relate to that line.
Five books you'll never part with:
My grandfather's copy of The New Yorker Album 1925-1950, my collection of 1930s WPA travel guides, my signed copy of Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane and The Portable Dorothy Parker.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Middlemarch by George Eliot. That book swept me away, and I would love to read it again with fresh eyes. Luckily, my memory is fairly poor, so I'm sure I've forgotten much of the detail, so reading it again would almost be like reading it for the first time.
Book you wish you had written:
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum is everything I dream of in a book: beautiful language, a story that lingers in the mind, an incredibly satisfying ending. This was one of those books I wanted to read quickly to find out how it ended but also read slowly so I could savor every word.