|
|
| photo: Jennifer Boyle | |
Katrina Carrasco's debut novel, The Best Bad Things, won a Shamus Award and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and Washington State Book Award. Her essays and short stories have appeared in various publications and online, including Witness magazine, Post Road magazine, and Literary Hub. She has received support from the Corporation of Yaddo, Jentel Arts, Artist Trust, and other foundations and residencies. Her second novel, Rough Trade (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 9, 2024), blends deeply researched historical fiction with riveting queer adventure.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A band of smugglers and the reporter who's gone undercover to expose them pursue each other through the queer underworld of the 1880s Pacific Northwest.
On your nightstand now:
How Much of These Hills Is Gold (C Pam Zhang); The Jakarta Method (Vincent Bevins); Borderlands/La Frontera (Gloria Anzaldúa). New, just read, and revisiting: I've heard lots of great things about Zhang's book and it's next up on my to-read list; I recently finished Bevins's gripping nonfiction about the CIA's brutal anti-Communist activities overseas; and I've read Anzaldúa's classic text before but am spending time with it again as I work on a new project.
Favorite book when you were a child:
This is a three-way tie between Doomsday Book (Connie Willis), Invitation to the Game (Monica Hughes), and So You Want to Be a Wizard (Diane Duane). I loved the pure escapism of these stories. I was also young enough that I could almost convince myself it was possible to discover a book that would teach me magical powers and/or be transported through space and time!
Your top five authors:
Valeria Luiselli, Elif Batuman, Patrick O'Brian, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Maggie Nelson. These are my current top five authors; I have many more who are dear to me. When I read these authors, I feel so much energy and awe--in a manner particular to each artist, their writing opens my brain to new ways of seeing things.
Book you've faked reading:
I don't think I've done this. If I don't like something, I'll just put it down and be honest about why (if asked).
Book you're an evangelist for:
Master and Commander (Patrick O'Brian) is the first book in the Aubrey/Maturin series, which contains the best portrait of a lifelong friendship I've ever read. I love rereading these books; it feels like visiting old friends. I recommend Master and Commander a lot and have the rest of the books on hand to lend out if someone gets hooked.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Popisho (Leone Ross) has a gorgeous, colorful cover that caught my eye in the bookstore. And I loved the book! The prose is lush and poetic, and the book's magical realism elements are richly imagined.
Book you hid from your parents:
Not so much hid, but hid that I had read it: I found a copy of Eye of the Needle (Ken Follett) in my mom's room, was super embarrassed by the sex scenes, and put it back a few days later without ever saying anything about it.
Book that changed your life:
Shanghaiing Days (Richard H. Dillon) is a collection of nautical anecdotes, history snippets, and tales of sailors and scoundrels in the 1800s, with a focus on the Pacific Seaboard. It captured my imagination and provided seeds of inspiration for two of my novels, one shelved and the other my debut, The Best Bad Things.
Favorite line from a book:
"Ennis, riding against the wind back to the sheep in the treacherous, drunken light, thought he'd never had such a good time, felt he could paw the white out of the moon." --Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Five books you'll never part with:
Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer), The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen), Cantoras (Carolina de Robertis), Blood Meridian (McCarthy), Woman Hollering Creek (Sandra Cisneros). I have a favorites shelf and each book on it is special for a reason, but these are a small sample: I return to Braiding Sweetgrass for hope in the face of the climate crisis; The Sympathizer truly stunned me with the lyricism and imagery revealed in every line; I read Cantoras while falling in love and it holds the echoes of those feelings; Blood Meridian is vicious and shocking and reminds me that words can be packed with gunpowder; and Woman Hollering Creek first taught me how a short story can make and unmake itself to take any shape and flow between languages.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Red, White, & Royal Blue (Casey McQuiston) was so cute and so restorative, a dose of queer happiness just when I desperately needed one. I was delighted by every plot twist and romantic development. Maybe if I pick it up again in 10 years it will feel like the first time again!