|
|
| photo: Kristina Sherk | |
Shelley Puhak is a poet and writer and history lover whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, Creative Nonfiction and Virginia Quarterly Review; been anthologized in Best American Travel Writing; and designated as Notable in four editions of Best American Essays. Puhak is the author of three books of poetry, including the forthcoming Harbinger, a National Poetry Series selection. Her nonfiction debut, The Dark Queens (Bloomsbury, February 22, 2022), is the little-known story of two trailblazing women in the early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A history few people know because it was purposefully erased: during the Dark Ages, two women ruled most of Western Europe.
On your nightstand now:
It's a mix of fiction and nonfiction. I just finished The Push by Ashley Audrain and Weather by Jenny Offill. Now I am midway through Assembly by Natasha Brown. Also, after so many months of reading about the medieval period, I'm finally getting the chance to dig into more recent history. I'm reading Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed and next in the pile is Wendy Lower's The Ravine.
Favorite book when you were a child:
There were many, but two books that I owned and read over and over were Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel and Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary. Clearly I thought I might have a future as a spy.
Your top five authors:
I agonize over creating lists like this. Top five in any genre? Across all time periods? If I restrict myself just to fiction, five authors I keep returning to are Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Leo Tolstoy and Donna Tartt.
Book you've faked reading:
I confess to skipping over entire chapters of Moby-Dick when I read it in school. Does that qualify?
Book you're an evangelist for:
Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies. I didn't expect this book to stick with me as much as it has. Certain scenes have wormed their way into my memory and refuse to leave. I've also been recommending a more recent read, Melissa Febos's essay collection Girlhood, and anything by the brilliant Jenny Offill.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I don't think I've ever bought a book for its cover as an adult. But as a kid, I fell in love with the covers of the Nancy Drew books on display at my local library. I would decide which one to check out next based solely on which cover promised the most mystery.
Book you hid from your parents:
Plenty, but two in particular come to mind--Anne Sexton's The Complete Poems and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer.
Book that changed your life:
It's impossible to pick just one! Different books expanded my sense of what was possible at different times. One book that made The Dark Queens possible would be Antonia Fraser's Mary, Queen of Scots, which captured my imagination when I was a teen and opened my eyes to what biography and historical writing could accomplish.
Favorite line from a book:
My current favorite comes from a source I have spent entirely too much time with over the past two years, Gregory of Tours' sixth-century The History of the Franks: "A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad." I'd like a day planner with this quotation printed on its cover.
Five books you'll never part with:
Over many years and through several moves, I have toted around my dog-eared and annotated copies of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Deborah Tall's A Family of Strangers, Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and a tattered brown Riverside Shakespeare.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Reading this novel is like unpacking a Russian nesting doll; once you know the links between the six storylines you can still be dazzled by the book's structure but you cannot recapture that initial sense of wonder.
Your top five nonfiction authors:
More agony! But any list of my favorite historian/detectives would have to include Ann Wroe, Rebecca Solnit, Hallie Rubenhold, Patrick Wyman and Daniel Mendelsohn.