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| photo: Rachel Sundheim | |
Gina Wohlsdorf was born and raised in Bismarck, N.Dak. She triple majored at Tulane University. Following graduation, she lived in northern Florida, southern France and Minnesota. She held a variety of jobs that gave her time to write, including bookseller and massage therapist. Wohlsdorf earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. She now lives in Colorado. Her debut novel, Security, was just published by Algonquin (June 7, 2016).
On your nightstand now:
Sophie's Choice by William Styron--I keep hearing about the narrative voice he uses, so I'm excited to finally read it. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. The Plague by Albert Camus. Hegel in 90 Minutes and Derrida in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern--he's hilarious, really!
Favorite book when you were a child:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My dad brought it home for me when I was 11. He taught high school English. I went to him when I'd finished and said, "Dad, I wish the book would keep going." He laughed and handed me A Separate Peace by John Knowles.
Your top five authors:
Stephen King--he was my writing white knight all through high school, and I still reread my favorites almost annually. Kazuo Ishiguro--I'd buy the phone book if he wrote it. Ian McEwan breaks my heart. Shirley Jackson, the high priestess of everyday horror. William Faulkner, the high priest of same.
Book you've faked reading:
Joyce. All of it. I read Dubliners to give me a dram of cred. 
Book you're an evangelist for:
Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates. I feel bad for people when I start talking about it, because I inevitably start talking about Chappaquiddick, which I researched obsessively after finishing the novel. Utterly enraging, engaging, amazing.
Book you've bought for the cover:
A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O'Nan. I almost don't want to know where they got the photo--it's this immensely creepy dude in a dried-out husk of a town, his arms spread wide, his face ghastly. It fits the story like a dead man's glove.
Book you hid from your parents:
My parents didn't care what I read. I might've blushed if they'd cracked One on One by Tabitha King, the book that got me interested in the craft of writing sex. I think I tripped over it when I was maybe 16 or 17. I still reread that one, too. Steamy.
Book that changed your life:
Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I was 18. I'd never read a book where a woman basically tells you, over and over, Look, if you're a girl, and you're super-nice, that's great, but it's not going to make your life easy. Neither will being a bitch. So figure out who you are and be that. Plenty of people are going to think you're awful, because plenty of people are terrified of females who aren't constantly apologizing. But when stuff gets hard, at least you won't be simpering "Who am I?" for too long because you'll have worked that out already. I owe her a debt.
Favorite line from a book:
"Therefore she will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator--though she would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed." --Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth. [I changed the pronouns, Mr. Barth, but it's a compliment.]
Five books you'll never part with:
My dad's Complete Shakespeare, a very wrecked copy of The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, my Doré-illustrated Divine Comedy, Les Sept Solitudes de Lorsa Lopez by Sony Labou Tansi (en français) and Bitch.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. I was up until one or two a.m.--something ridiculous--and I could not put it down. I had to work the next morning. I need my sleep, so everybody kept asking me what's wrong, why're you pounding coffee? Fortunately, I worked at a bookstore. Everyone understood. And I handsold the bejeebers out of it for the next several years.
Book that made you want to become a writer:
Beloved by Toni Morrison. I read it when I was 16. I remember thinking, as I finished the last lines, "The power of great writing is infinite."
Fictional characters you most relate to:
Ambrose in Lost in the Funhouse. Briony Tallis in Atonement. Rebecca in Rebecca.