I’m a sucker for a book like this. Thirty writers tell about that “special something” that most influenced them. For example, Joyce Carol Oates writes about the impact Nabokov, Donald Barthelme, John Gardner, Lewis Carroll, and Poe had on her writing. Jay Cantor remembers taking a class at Harvard with Bernard Malamud who inspired him to write. For Denis Johnson, it was reading Leonard Gardner’s cult classic Fat City that ignited Johnson’s passion to write. Each of the writers in this volume describe the person or book or place or an event that changed their writing lives forever. I loved reading their insightful essays and I bet you will, too. GRADE: A
I’m definitely fascinated by this kind of book, as well, even when not done well.
So many for me…but the ones who were most encouraging in personal interaction were Robert Onopa and A. A. Attanasio, after a non-writing high-school teacher, a genuine Dutch Aunt sort, who held up a copy of the school literary magazine one day in my sophomore year and said “You should be all over this.”
I’m with you, Todd! We all have people and events who influence us and help make us what we are. I’m always interested in those types of stories.