Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been, kindly answers our questions:
On your nightstand now:
I don't have books on my nightstand. I have them in little strategic piles throughout my house so that wherever I am, I have something I can reach for. I'm also one of "those" people who has several books going on at once. Currently lying in wait for me somewhere around my house: Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs; Lovely Me, the biography of Jacqueline Susann by Barbara Seaman; Breath by Tim Winton; The Home Maker by Dorothy Canfield; Everyone She Loved by Sheila Curran; and the recent reissues of all the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace, which I so loved as a child.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I have a passion for British novels and novelists, and it started as a child. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild was my favorite. My family was not artistic at all, just a working-class Midwestern family in the 1970s, and I was this strange child who dreamed of dancing and singing and acting and who lived in her head much of the time. This book showed me that girls particularly can dream of an artistic career. More important, it showed me that there are so many possibilities and that if you have a passion, keep searching until you find a way to pursue it. I loved that book.
Your top five authors:
As I said, I was heavily influenced by British novels and novelists. So my top five British authors have to be E.M. Forster, E.M. Delafield, E.F. Benson (both the Provincial Lady series and the Mapp and Lucia series never fail to bring a smile to my face; I've re-read them all so many times!), Muriel Spark and, of course, Jane Austen. (I should add Lewis Carroll, as well. Do I have to stick to just five?!)
Book you've faked reading:
I have to admit, it's A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Sigh. I just do not like that book. I've tried to make it all the way through but have never succeeded.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Howards End by E.M. Forster. It's the perfect book, in my opinion: it tackles big issues but its strength lies in the small moments between people. I love it, love every single character, love all their flaws (for they all have them). It's just an innately humane book. It's also wickedly funny.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Just recently, I absolutely had to buy Shanghai Girls by Lisa See for the cover alone. Of course, I would have bought her latest anyway, but the cover is so beautiful, I want to frame it.
Favorite line from a book:
" 'No, no! The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: 'explanations take such a dreadful time.' " I love this, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I want to use it daily.
Book that changed your life:
Oddly (or maybe not so oddly?) it was Moss Hart's Act One. I know that it's not exactly a truthful memoir (long before James Frey came along, it seems memoirists were taking liberties!). But it's such an inspiring book. Again, it really helped me believe that some day I could have a creative career. Like me--but under such different circumstances, of course--Moss Hart did not come from a creative or artistic family background at all. Yet he dreamed, just as I did, of a career in the arts. (I think it's safe to say I'm drawn to books by and about dreamers!) And by luck and talent and determination, he lived his dream. I re-read this book whenever I feel as if the odds are against me. It inspires me, just reading of the odds against his first theatrical success and how he overcame them. I also love that era--imagine going to a cocktail party and meeting George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, the Lunts!
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Gone with the Wind. My parents liked taking road trips when I was a child, and I remember being in the back seat of a station wagon on the way to Colorado, just lost in that book. I couldn't wait to see what Scarlet would do next, and I sobbed and sobbed when Melanie died. I will probably never have that absolute, breathless innocence and wonder about a work of fiction again--sometimes we get too sophisticated for our own good--and I mourn that. Also, my mother named me after Melanie Wilkes. Even if I didn't come from an artistic family, I do have a literary namesake!
