John Larison was born in 1979, and spent much of his childhood in remote regions of Australia, the Caribbean, Canada, the South Pacific, Alaska and the American West before graduating high school in Ithaca, N.Y. He studied philosophy and literature at the University of Oregon, and became a fly fishing guide ahead of earning an MFA from Oregon State, where he stayed to teach while writing Whiskey When We're Dry (Viking, August 21, 2018). He lives (and reads) on a small farm in rural Oregon.On your nightstand now:
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker. I was lucky enough to score a pre-publication copy at a conference (the book comes out in January of 2019). I've only just started reading, but dang! The first pages have swept me into the dream.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Trout Bum by John Gierach. It's a book of fishing essays written by a philosophy major turned societal dropout. I doubt it would appeal widely, but as a kid who loved rivers and all things aquatic, I found the book to be an essential antidote to the pressures I felt to succeed in school.
Your top five authors:
My answer to this question changes with the season, but at the moment, I'm awestruck by Zadie Smith, Michael Ondaatje, Willa Cather, Marilynne Robinson and Colson Whitehead.
Book you've faked reading:
Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner. It was assigned in two different classes in graduate school and I tried to read it both times but found my brain wasn't nimble enough to balance the page-long sentences. Somehow, I managed to earn an A- on a paper about the novel, mostly by repurposing the notes I'd taken during our classroom discussions. Every few years I take the book off my shelf and try again, mostly to assuage the guilt, only to find I'm still not smart enough for those sentences.
Book you're an evangelist for:
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean. As a kid in the rural West, I was drawn to this book because of the Montana setting. As an adult, I reread it every couple of years for the heartbreaking story of a bookish man trying to save his charismatic, troubled little brother. Maclean wrote it and rewrote it for years near the end of his life; the story grows from the real-life loss of his kid brother to violence, and you can feel the protagonist's culpability and regret and search for meaning in every sentence. I'm a sucker for sibling stories, and this is--hands-down--the most breathtaking I've yet encountered.
Book you've bought for the cover:The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan. I was entranced first by the title, but when I saw the almost three-dimensional cover, I knew I had to read it. I was not disappointed. It is a stunning story that I think every American president should read.
Book you hid from your parents:
I didn't have to hide books from my parents; they encouraged me to read anything I wanted. But I will admit, at age seven, I stole the bra section from one of my mother's catalogues. I found it 10 years later still hiding in the pages of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy.
Book that changed your life:
Strangely, because I don't think this book was designed to change anyone's life, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. I admired the book, and after finishing it, I felt newfound energy to push through the hardships of writing my own take on the western, Whiskey When We're Dry.
Favorite line from a book:
From A River Runs Through It, here is a snippet of conversation between the narrator and his father, after the loss of the narrator's brother.
" 'You like to tell true stories, don't you?' he asked, and I answered, 'Yes, I like to tell stories that are true.' Then he asked, 'After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it? Only then will you understand what happened and why.' "
Five books you'll never part with:
I have 500 books I can never part with, but here are a few I'll grab when the flood waters are rising:
The Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith. For this secular reader, the book feels like a great American novel that slipped through the cracks.
Close Range by Annie Proulx. The book contains the long story "Brokeback Mountain," which I consider a masterwork; I've read it dozens of times and always feel more, not less.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I've been reading this book on repeat for years, a few pages at a time, usually while waiting for my kids to finish soccer or choir practice.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. One of America's finest novels, this Pulitzer winner delivers distilled, humble wisdom on every page.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. I've read all of Ondaatje's published work, but this novel is one I reread every few years for its emotional weight and crystalline imagery.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The River Why by David James Duncan. A coming-of-age novel that can only be properly appreciated in your own coming-of-age.
Describe your ideal reading experience:
Give me rainy day, a thick slab of oak in the woodstove and the sound of wind through the treetops.