Attica Locke: ‘Toni Morrison’s Beloved touched my soul’ | Books

My earliest reading memory
My maternal grandmother, a primary school teacher, taught me to read at a very early age. While I can’t recall learning to read, I remember that the earliest books I fell in love with were “readers” from her school classroom, before I was even old enough to attend school. Having easy and early access to books shaped my whole life.

My favourite book growing up
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. I read it when I was around 10, and it was my first experience of a story that was also a mystery or a puzzle. It lit up my brain and delighted me no end.

The book that changed me as a teenager
Beloved by Toni Morrison. I read this in high school, and it broke something wide open in me, showed me that literature could do things I hadn’t yet imagined. Until then, no book had touched my soul the way Beloved did. It was a mirror, a cipher, a teacher, a midwife, a guide. It was, though I didn’t know it at the time, the first breadcrumb dropped on the path to one day writing a novel myself.

The writer who changed my mind
Pete Dexter. I was struggling with my first novel, Black Water Rising, writing prose that felt “put on”, as if I were donning literary airs on the page. I was copying some idea of what my book should be, and it wasn’t working. It wasn’t good. I sat in bed one night reading Dexter’s Brotherly Love, which is in the present tense. I came to novel writing from screenplays, so the present tense is my mother tongue. I thought: “Wait, I could write a novel like this?” I hopped out of bed and started rewriting the novel in the present tense. Write what you see, Attica, that’s it. One sentence after another. This experience and Dexter’s book freed me up to find my own voice.

The book that made me want to be a writer
Fay by Larry Brown. I read the book in my 20s. I wanted to do for Texas what he did for Mississippi – show it and love it, warts and all.

The author I came back to
Jane Austen. I didn’t read her until my 30s. I was raised by political activists who had a kneejerk reaction to anything remotely canonical. So, there are a great many “western classics” I haven’t read. Someone loaned me a copy of Emma, and I liked it. It was funny. I get it.

The book I reread
Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. I reread chapters and passages that remind me of the power and purpose of novels.

The book I could never read again
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious – but only because I’d be afraid that it doesn’t hold up politically.

The book I discovered later in life
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

The book I am currently reading
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

My comfort read
Anything by Curtis Sittenfeld.

My earliest reading memory
My maternal grandmother, a primary school teacher, taught me to read at a very early age. While I can’t recall learning to read, I remember that the earliest books I fell in love with were “readers” from her school classroom, before I was even old enough to attend school. Having easy and early access to books shaped my whole life.

My favourite book growing up
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. I read it when I was around 10, and it was my first experience of a story that was also a mystery or a puzzle. It lit up my brain and delighted me no end.

The book that changed me as a teenager
Beloved by Toni Morrison. I read this in high school, and it broke something wide open in me, showed me that literature could do things I hadn’t yet imagined. Until then, no book had touched my soul the way Beloved did. It was a mirror, a cipher, a teacher, a midwife, a guide. It was, though I didn’t know it at the time, the first breadcrumb dropped on the path to one day writing a novel myself.

The writer who changed my mind
Pete Dexter. I was struggling with my first novel, Black Water Rising, writing prose that felt “put on”, as if I were donning literary airs on the page. I was copying some idea of what my book should be, and it wasn’t working. It wasn’t good. I sat in bed one night reading Dexter’s Brotherly Love, which is in the present tense. I came to novel writing from screenplays, so the present tense is my mother tongue. I thought: “Wait, I could write a novel like this?” I hopped out of bed and started rewriting the novel in the present tense. Write what you see, Attica, that’s it. One sentence after another. This experience and Dexter’s book freed me up to find my own voice.

The book that made me want to be a writer
Fay by Larry Brown. I read the book in my 20s. I wanted to do for Texas what he did for Mississippi – show it and love it, warts and all.

The author I came back to
Jane Austen. I didn’t read her until my 30s. I was raised by political activists who had a kneejerk reaction to anything remotely canonical. So, there are a great many “western classics” I haven’t read. Someone loaned me a copy of Emma, and I liked it. It was funny. I get it.

The book I reread
Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. I reread chapters and passages that remind me of the power and purpose of novels.

The book I could never read again
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious – but only because I’d be afraid that it doesn’t hold up politically.

The book I discovered later in life
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

The book I am currently reading
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz.

My comfort read
Anything by Curtis Sittenfeld.