Kevin Guilfoile has
written for McSweeney's, Salon, the Morning News and the
New Republic. The Thousand (Knopf, August
24, 2010) is his second novel; his first, Cast of Shadows, has been translated into
more than 15 languages. He lives in Chicago with his wife and
children.
On your nightstand now:
The Passage by Justin Cronin; Get Capone by Jonathan Eig; Columbine by Dave Cullen.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Man,
so many, of course. The first books I remember being absolutely transported by
are probably The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill, and Bob Fulton's Amazing Soda Pop Stretcher by Jerome Beatty, Jr. It seems like there was a
year when I just read and reread Ray Bradbury. No doubt I was reading other stuff,
too, but Bradbury is all I remember.
Your top five authors:
I have probably been asked this question a hundred times and I doubt I've ever given the same answer twice. The ones you get today are Walker Percy, Bradbury, Henning Mankell, T.C. Boyle, Stephen White.
Book you've faked reading:
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser. I had to read it for a class in college and just couldn't get past the first 30 pages or so. The drudgery of it left such a mark that 20-plus years later I feel like I'm still reading it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Sharp Objects and Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I didn't buy it for the cover, but if I hadn't heard of it and only happened upon it in the store, I would have bought Fever Chart by Bill Cotter just by looking at it.
Book that changed your life:
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. As a child, that book created a quantum leap in my understanding of what a novel could do. It opened a whole new window into the relationship between reader and writer for me. That was one of the first times I thought to myself, "I want to do this someday. I want to make a reader feel the way I'm feeling right now."
Favorite line from a book:
Once again, it depends on what day you ask. How about, "The mentality of Las Vegas is so grossly atavistic that a really massive crime often slips by unrecognized."--Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I got around to Lonesome Dove only a few years ago, and it just floored me. I think adult reading is all about trying to recapture the kind of magical experience you had when you discovered reading as a kid (L'Engle, Bradbury, Tolkien, for me) and it happens so rarely. But it happened to me with McMurtry. What an amazing work of art.