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| photo: Ricardo Siri | |
Katie Crouch is the author of Girls in Trucks, Men and Dogs and Abroad. Her new novel, Embassy Wife (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, July 13, 2021), is about two women abroad searching for the truth about their husbands. The book is in development with 20th Television. Crouch lives in Vermont with her family and teaches creative writing at Dartmouth College.
On your nightstand now:
I have a friend who owns an independent bookstore, and my favorite thing to do is sneak in and steal advanced reader's copies. So I have a huge stack of next season's fiction. Some are: Mrs. March by Virginia Feito, Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge and The Eternal Audience of One by Rémy Ngamije. Halfway through Mrs. March. Oh my God.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I was bullied as a girl and was so confused by my body, and Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume really saved my life. I just met the author this winter at her bookstore in Key West. (Can you sense a bookstore theme?) We had this totally nice writerly chat, and then I walked out and just started bawling. My daughter was terrified.
Your top five authors:
Jane Austen really knew how to organize a novel. And she's just so razor sharp. I find Jean Rhys's female characters comforting, because they have really dark thoughts and so do I. Every time I finish a Colson Whitehead book I have to lie down on the floor for a while and marvel at it. George Saunders's stories, even at their most grim, make me feel better about the world. And my best friend from high school is the author Grady Hendrix, and every year he writes a book that is wilder and better than the one before it, and I am just in awe of watching that happen in real time.
Book you've faked reading:
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. It's been assigned, recommended... I think an old boyfriend even gave me a first edition or something. Can't connect.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Once We Were Sisters by Sheila Kohler. It's a memoir about growing up in South Africa. It's super spare and novelistic, and just gutted me. Also, I think it's almost impossible for foreigners to understand race relations in that part of the world, but this gave me a tiny (terrifying) window.
Book you hid from your parents:
Judy Blume, don't you know it! Forever. (Ralph!)
Book that changed your life:
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I was 14 and didn't understand depression was a medical condition. And I was like, Oh, Sylvia, me too! And then I was like, oh, right: me too. So I told my dad (a doctor), and he took me to a therapist, and I've been treated ever since. That book really warded off some bad things that might have taken place. And why I think there's nothing more important than an honest story.
Favorite line from a book:
"Goodnight, nobody." --Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Five books you'll never part with:
Black Vodka by Deborah Levy, as a quick story from it feels like a shot. Birds of America by Lorrie Moore is like listening to a smart, acid-tongued friend. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, because, when I'm stuck, I need to hear from the lady in the attic. Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan is a beautiful book--I read it after I met Randall, but he died recently, and I never got to tell him in person how much it meant. So I will hang on to that. And Maggie Brown and Others by Peter Orner, because it's gorgeous. Also, it's dedicated to me, and that doesn't happen every day.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. (I wish I didn't know what happened to that farmer so I could go in again, wide-eyed, innocent.)