Nine Books About Your Life:

In our Nine Books About Your Life series, authors are invited to talk about nine types of books that have had an impact on their life. Their responses give us a glimpse into their relationships with their books and other people’s books. In this installment, we speak with Paige Clark, author of She Is Haunted (Two Dollar Radio).

First Book
Green Eggs and Ham springs to mind. Something about that magic Seussian use of rhythm, rhyme, humor and nonsense still influences my work today. It taught me early on how important sound is in writing. The use of repetition and meter in this particular book is a masterclass. “I am Sam. Sam-I-am.” Just brilliant.

Most Cherished Book
My copy of The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel is deeply loved like an old teddy. For years, I took it with me everywhere. We went to Hawaii, Germany, Vietnam, Australia and beyond together. I was almost afraid to be without it as if I wouldn’t be able to understand the world I was living in if I didn’t have it as a reference. The first book in the collection is Reasons to Live, and this text gave me that exactly.

Most Perplexing Book
I’m thankful that in past few years poetry is finally getting some of the limelight it deserves. But while I understand the appeal of books like Rupi Kaur’s Honey and Milk, the profundity of Instagram poetry is lost on me. I can’t help but feel like Kaur’s poems should be embroidered on a pillow instead of written down in a book.  

Life-changing Book
Oh, there are so many answers to this question! I find such company and connection with the books that I read. If I had to narrow it down to one book, I’d choose Ellen van Neerven’s Heat and Light. This book helped me to understand the past/present/future of the country I live in (so-called Australia) in a way that no history book could. Not only did it have a profound impact on me as an immigrant (colonizer), it is a testament to what the short story can achieve.

Most Underrated Book
It was by complete chance that I came across Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas and what a lucky chance that was! It is the best memoir I’ve ever read. It is one of those books I wish I’d written. It is a book that I will return to again and again and again to learn how to write. It won’t have the recognition it deserves until everyone has read it!

A Surprising Book
I do not have an opinion on books to be provocative (I suspect some people do). But I have tried and tried again to read the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. As I was reading My Brilliant Friend, I even thought to myself that I should like this. It is entirely in line with my taste in books, yet it lights nothing up inside me. I will probably try to watch the TV series, though.

Your Most Recent Book
The only book I have ever written is a collection of short stories called She Is Haunted. I wrote it slowly over seven or eight years, story by story. It was motivated by my need to write in order to understand myself—my past, present, future. I hope that whoever reads the book finds a story within it that they needed to read as much as I needed to write it.

Your Next Book
I am asking this question myself: what will my next book be? My dream is to have the time, headspace, stamina and creativity to start and finish another book. I will get there eventually by plodding along, sentence by sentence, revision by revision. For me, inspiration comes from the act of doing the work, so I won’t know what this book is about until I am writing it.

Plug a Book
You should read Ella Baxter’s New Animal (Two Dollar Radio). Ella is as good of a writer as she is a friend, and she is the kind of friend who makes you chocolate cream cheese cupcakes and lentil soup when you most need it. She will deliver these to your doorstep in a wicker basket with a bundle of homegrown greens. Her book New Animal is as good as this, if not even better.