TBR: Morningside Heights by Joshua Henkin

 

 

 TBR [to be read] is an invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

When Ohio-born Pru Steiner arrives in New York in 1976, she follows in a long tradition of young people determined to take the city by storm. But when she falls in love with Spence Robin, her hotshot young Shakespeare professor, her life takes a turn she couldn’t have anticipated. Morningside Heights is about the love between women and men, and children and parents, about the things we give up in the face of adversity, and about what endures when life turns out differently from what we thought we signed up for.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

The character I most enjoyed writing: Arlo, Spence’s estranged son from his first marriage. Arlo is angry and needy and complicated, and he defies expectations, certainly his father’s expectations. It wasn’t until several years into the writing process that Arlo even existed. But once I settled on him, the novel really took off.

 

The character who gave me the most trouble: Enid, Spence’s developmentally disabled older sister. She’s an important character—she gives us a window onto Spence’s inner life—but she doesn’t take up much real estate in the book, so I needed to evoke her in only a few brushstrokes. I wanted to give the reader a full sense of her without making her an object of pity.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

Morningside Heights was originally supposed to be come out in June 2020, but publication got delayed a year because of Covid. A friend of mine said it’s like carrying a baby past term. I wouldn’t know about that personally, but that sounds about right! People ask me if the wait was frustrating, but mostly it was a relief. 2021 is a much better time to have a book come out. Good things come to those who wait.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

It has to be bad before it’s good.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

Everything surprised me. I always start with just a seed, and I have no idea what that seed will grow into. If there’s no surprise for the writer, then there’s no surprise for the reader.

How do you approach revision?

 

It took me eight years to write Morningside Heights. I wrote three thousand pages and found the book inside all that mess. That’s how I always write. There are hundreds of drafts along the way. Ninety percent of what I write gets thrown out, some of it material I like, but just because you like something doesn’t mean it belongs in your novel. I’m always telling my MFA students that you need to bark up a lot of wrong trees in order to get to the right tree. There are no shortcuts around those early mistakes. They’re an essential part of the book’s discovery.

 

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

There’s a wide range of food interests in Morningside Heights. Pru, who grew up in a kosher home in Columbus, Ohio, catches her mother eating breaded shrimp. Arlo is a meat and potatoes guy, who goes with his father to a Jewish deli on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where they split a pastrami sandwich and a corned beef sandwich. Sarah is a vegetarian, and her grandmother orders for her a banh mi tofu sandwich, though Sarah doesn’t like tofu. (“Her grandmother wasn’t alone in thinking that if you were a vegetarian you had to like tofu, as if it were an obligation you’d incurred.”) Recipe links:

 

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/16824/easy-breaded-shrimp/

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a26595080/corned-beef-sandwich-recipe/

https://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/vegetarian-banh-mi-with-crispy-tofu

 

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: http://www.joshuahenkin.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK:  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/606142/morningside-heights-by-joshua-henkin/

 

 

 

 

 

TBR: Mona at Sea by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Mona at Sea is a dark comedy about Mona Mireles, a Millennial overachiever who has lost her Wall Street job during the Great Recession, and has to figure out what she’s going to do with the rest of her life. And once she figures that out, will she be brave enough to go after it?

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

My favorite character I think is Mona’s brother, Danny, whose grades, shall we say, have always tended toward the left side of the bell curve. But what he lacks in intellect he more than makes up for in emotional intelligence…most of the time. He’s a senior in college and the president of his fraternity, and I really loved crafting a frat boy who wasn’t an ugly caricature, who was actually a wonderful person.   

 

I had a lot of trouble nailing down Mona’s mother and figuring out what her big, psychic wound was. Maybe that’s because, when I started writing this book, I had only been a mom for a few months, and now I’m ten years into it. Maybe I didn’t know enough about being a human while also being a mother, and how we’re basically supposed to stop being a human once we have kids, and become this ideal. But I think I did eventually figure out that Mona’s mom feels unloved and invisible, and hopefully that comes through in the story. 

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

Oh jeez, there were a lot! I’ll just say briefly that it was a very long road to publication, and I’m very grateful that after many years of trying to find a publisher, my book has finally found a home. Shout out to all small presses everywhere. They’re doing the Lord’s work.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

It’s an oldie but a goodie: To paraphrase Henry James, a writer should try to be a person upon whom nothing is lost. This is good advice for everyone, not just for writers. To me it means taking everything in, all five senses plus your whole heart and mind, and putting that into your work.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I was surprised to find out how funny Mona is, and how incapable she is of avoiding public scenes. I think I’m sort of funny, but Mona is hilarious, and she definitely says some things I would never voice out loud. I’m also pathologically averse to making scenes in public. I’m positively Victorian in that regard, and so it was funny to see Mona steering into that constantly. It was surprising to see her character take on a life of her own.

 

Who is your ideal reader?

 

I think my ideal reader is someone who has an open heart and comes to books without judgement. Mona as a character is not going to appeal to everyone. She’s spoiled, sarcastic, morose, self-centered, and histrionic, which are traits that may not endear her to every reader. But I think Mona is sympathetic and ultimately relatable, as long as readers come to the novel knowing that it is a story about growth and someone undergoing an emotional journey. 

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

This is a tough one since Mona is just out of college, incorrigibly lazy, and would not likely cook anything more difficult than pasta. But I will share one favorite recipe that is delicious and takes only 30 seconds to make.

 

The world’s laziest quesadilla:

 

INGREDIENTS:

 

1 flour tortilla (I prefer Trader Joe’s Truly Handmade Flour Tortillas)

1 mozzarella string cheese

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

 

Lay a paper towel down in a microwave. Place the flour tortilla on top of the paper towel. Place cheese stick (unwrapped) in the center of the tortilla. Microwave for 20-30 seconds. Roll up your quesadilla in the paper towel, making sure to spread melted cheese around evenly, and enjoy!  

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.elizabethgonzalezjames.com/ 

 

BUY THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://www.greenapplebooks.com/book/9781951631017

 

 

 

 

 

 

TBR: Truth Like Oil by Connie Biewald

TBR [to be read] is an invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

TRUTH LIKE OIL is the story of two mothers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nadine Antoine, a Haitian-American nurses’ aide, and Hazel Watkins, a white, cantankerous nonagenarian felled by a stroke, who struggle with each other and their sons.

 

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why?

 

I’ve really thought about this question and keep coming back to the unsatisfying answer that I can’t answer it because I enjoy them all in such different ways—even characters with cameo appearances. They all have their stories, the reasons they act and think the way they do, and figuring all that out is actually the thing I love most about writing. The tricky thing about this book is that I began with two main characters, Nadine, the Haitian-American CNA and Hazel, the ninety-year-old white woman felled by a stroke, and in the first draft they had equal time. As the drafts evolved, Nadine became more central, and Hazel, though still important, had a lot less pages. Readers made the point that a little of her went a long way. Some people even wanted me to cut her from the book, but that was not going to happen.

  

And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I wouldn’t call it trouble, but Nadine, the driving reason for the book, is the reason I began going to Haiti. I needed to learn a lot about her culture and background to do her justice on the page. For more than a decade I returned to Haiti once or twice a year to give workshops on writing and progressive education to teachers and kids at Lekòl Kominotè Matènwa on Lagonav, Haiti. I learned some Haitian Creole in the process and developed a lot of relationships—all of which took time away from writing. That’s part of why this book was thirteen years from idea to publication.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

I started writing this book in 2007 when it never occurred to me to be hesitant about writing a Haitian character. If Nadine began whispering in my ear now, in the current literary climate clamoring for more stories by POC, I don’t think I would have wanted to take her on. I am all for people telling their own stories. In the beginning, Hazel and Nadine had almost equal time in the book, but as I mentioned, in each draft, I cut Hazel’s part more and more. I think even now, I’d feel more comfortable as a white person having written this, if Hazel had a bigger role, and it wasn’t as much a Haitian book. It’s interesting to think about—I have less in common with Hazel than Nadine, but I worry more about my right to write about Nadine, than Hazel. I’m very aware of White Supremacy as a terrible presence in the founding of our country and society today and don’t want to be contributing to it with my writing. Agents and publishers were also reluctant to take this on, maybe for that same reason. Still, it’s fiction, and one of the main reasons I write is to discover what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes—someone different from myself. I sincerely hope I’ve done it well enough.

 

 What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

I’ve been blessed with many inspiring writing mentors, but the most influential one is Grace Paley. Notice the verb tense. She died in 2007, and I still think about her almost every day—actually, maybe every day. She is famous for saying that if you want to be writer keep your expenses low and never live with anyone who doesn’t support your writing. I have followed that advice and do believe it is fundamental.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

A lot of things surprised me about this book, but the biggest one is how a fictional character could change my life so profoundly outside of writing. Because I wanted to understand Nadine more than I could from talking with Haitian people I know in Cambridge, I traveled to Haiti and even though I insisted I was going one time as a writer and NOT a teacher, I went back often and had the privilege of participating in that amazing school and community on the island of Lagonav.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

For all the years I spent writing this book it was called The Heart of the Yam. I love nouns and I love food. I was sure that was the title. It was accepted for publication with that title. Then, in a brilliant call, a friend of mine, not Haitian but a woman of color, said she thought it was problematic. She said that if I’m worried about being a white person writing about a Black main character (which I was/am—see above) I shouldn’t use the word “yam,” so connected to Africa, right in the title next to my Germanic author name. Heart of the Yam comes from a proverb (as does Truth Like Oil). I was already worrying about using proverbs due to their role in the essentialization of culture, even though I love them in any culture and some Haitian people I know use them a lot. I looked through the other proverbs I’d used as section titles, hoping one would work. Truth Like Oil jumped out. One thing I love about it is that “Truth, like oil, always comes to the surface,”is a proverb in many cultures, and my book is about people connecting cross culturally.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

Best question ever! I am a huge fan of cole slaw, and Haitian cole slaw is the best. And it has the best name—pikliz. It’s commonly served with fritay--fried plantains and other fried foods--but I became known in Haiti as the person who enjoyed pikliz most by itself. This recipe I found online looks great, but my friends in Haiti always included a cube of maggi:

https://www.sidechef.com/recipes/2368/haitian_pikliz_picklese/

 

*****

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.conniebiewald.com

 

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER: https://www.vineleavespress.com/

 

BUY THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: Please check your favorite independent bookstore, or try these:

https://www.greenapplebooks.com/search/site/truth%20like%20oil

https://www.belmontbooks.com/search/site/truth%20like%20oil

 

 READ AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK: https://conniebiewald.com/truth-like-oil-3/

 

TBR: The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young

TBR [to be read] is an invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

The Hive is a story about class in America and the fates of four Midwestern sisters and their family business. After the sudden death of their patriarch, the surprising details of succession in his will are revealed and the mother’s long-term affair surfaces as her apocalypse prepper training intensifies. Facing an economic recession and new civil war amidst the backdrop of growing fear and resentment, the sisters unite in their struggle to save the family foundation they’ve built.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

Grace, queen bee and doomsday prepper, was a blast to write. Jules broke my heart and Maggie, the oldest daughter, was the most difficult to imagine. Writing Maggie made me wrestle with a place for a woman in a family structure not built for her.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

Thirty minutes after I signed the book deal, The Hive was optioned to Sony. I agonized over the book cover; the designer gave me two amazing options and I wanted them both.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

It’s more life advice than writing but it applies: You can do hard things.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

The affair. I probably shouldn’t say anymore.

 

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

I want readers to know you can disagree with someone about politics and still love them. You can love people that hurt you from a safe distance. Families are messy and empathy is hard, worthy work.

  

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

The Fehlers eat a lot of mac n cheese. Any casserole is a hit.

·       1 1/2 cups dry elbow macaroni shells

·       3 tablespoons butter or margarine

·       3 tablespoons all purpose flour

·       2 cups milk 

·       1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper

·       2 cups of shredded cheese 

Preheat oven to 350. Boil pasta. In a big skillet, melt the butter. Add flour. Whisk for two minutes. Slowly add milk. Salt and pepper. Turn off heat and add cheese. Add pasta to sauce. Bake twenty minutes.

Secrets: I add a chopped jalapeno to sauce. If you want a crusty top (who doesn’t?), mix up panko, lemon juice, olive oil, and parmesan. I make mine in my Grandma’s big cast iron skillet and it goes from stove to oven easily.

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: http://www.melissascholesyoung.com

 

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: http://www.thehivenovel.com

 

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://bookshop.org/books/the-hive-9781684426430/9781684426430

 

 

READ AN ESSAY RELATED TO THIS BOOK, “What Needs Done: The Love and Burden of a Family Business”:

https://lithub.com/what-needs-done-the-love-and-burden-of-a-family-business/

 

TBR: One Great Lie by Deb Caletti

TBR [to be read] is an invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

One Great Lie is a crossover YA novel about Charlotte, who travels to Venice for a summer-long writing program, led by the brilliant and charismatic author, Luca Bruni. While there - with the help of Dante, an adorable conservation student - she also hopes to uncover some hidden truths about her Venetian ancestor, the poet Isabella Di Angelo, who might be the real author of a very famous poem. The events of that summer will force Charlotte to confront the long, dark history of powerful men—and the determination of creative girls, in this deeply feminist book that is also full of mystery and romance.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I most enjoyed creating the character of Luca Bruni, mostly because he was a challenge. Bruni does some awful things, but it was also important for the reader to understand why Charlotte might initially admire, look up to, and even love him, and why she’d grieve the loss of who she thought he was.  He needed to be as complex, as such people are in real life: brilliant, troubled, someone you both felt sorry for and longed to be, utterly charismatic, ultimately empty.

 

Charlotte’s mother gave me the most trouble. She’s an important character, even if we don’t see much of her. Charlotte’s mom is angry a lot, and sometimes scary, and readers need to know this in order to understand Charlotte’s relationship with Bruni. He, too, had a turbulent home life, and this makes Charlotte feel like he has a unique ability to understand her. Her vulnerability is something he’ll exploit, as well, as she defers to him and tiptoes around his volatility. So, the character of Charlotte’s mom helps a reader to comprehend the why of all that. But Charlotte’s mom is not one thing either. She’s also loving and anxious and frustrated with her life. As a secondary character, I had less space to show that complexity, which made it trickier.

  

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

Since I’ve published nearly a book a year since I first began back in 2000, my “road to publication” as a whole is a well-trodden one. But this book’s particular road was odd given that it was completed and edited during the pandemic. Counted among the highs: the fact that it was mostly finished by then. It was a comfort to be already well underway in a book I loved writing, and entering my favorite part of the process, too – editing. It would have been much more difficult if I’d been attempting to start a new book.  A low – my longtime imprint at S[imon]&S[chuster] was dissolved, and the company went through a restructuring. I’m with a new imprint at S&S now, but it was sad to see friends and colleagues of many years move on.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

My favorite piece of writing advice is to mostly ignore writing advice. I think it’s always great to remember that your honest voice is the most powerful thing you have as a writer, and getting tangled in how-to’s can sometimes take you farther away from that.

 

One great tip, though? End your writing day when you know what’s coming next. If you stop when you’re stuck, you’ll end up with a clean closet, a pile of stuff you baked, old photos organized, and tackling that hated paint job, everything but those dreaded pages.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

What surprised me were some of the people, real people, who I didn’t even know were going to be in the book, who found their way in only after one bit of astonishing research led to more and more of it: the feminist writers of five hundred years ago. I had absolutely no idea that women (many of them teens), were writing and publishing bold and controversial feminist works way back in the 1500s. It was an awful and shocking realization, that we are still writing about the same subjects that they were writing about back then, and struggling with the same power dynamics, too. I found those women incredibly inspiring, and it’s extraordinarily meaningful to me, as a writer and a woman in the twenty-first century, to share their stories in my own work.

  

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

I’d love for my readers to know that all of the places, celebrations, and historical facts, facts about drowned manuscripts, locked letters, ancient teen writers, and more that they’ll read about in the book are all real and true. Fictional license was taken with Luca Bruni’s private island, La Calamita, but it, too, is based on the very real “Plague Island,” La Poveglia, which is still home to the original, eerie, abandoned hospital and bell tower. Facts about it, the superstitions, the ground of ash… all true. I’ve never done more (and more fascinating) research for a book, and I’m thrilled to share it.

  

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

This book has SO MUCH GREAT ITALIAN FOOD! Canederli, and shrimp scampi, and fried artichokes, and cheese, and wine, and after-dinner liqueurs, and various cicchetti, like fried meatballs and tramezzina, and, and, and! Let’s not forget dessert, such as lemon mousse, and elegant pastries, and fritole. Here’s the recipe, because what’s not to like about fried dough rolled in sugar? 

https://www.flaviasflavors.com/desserts/fritole-veneziane/

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.debcaletti.com

  

LINK TO PREFERRED SITE FOR ORDERING BOOK: https://bookshop.org/books/one-great-lie-9781797125039/9781534463172

READ AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK (through June 30, 2021): https://rivetedlit.com/free-reads/