Reading with... Jessica Elisheva Emerson

Jessica Elisheva Emerson lives with her husband and children in the Sonoran Desert, even as she dreams of living among the lakes in Canada. Her stories and poems have been published in numerous journals, and she's a produced playwright. Her debut novel, Olive Days (Counterpoint, September 10, 2024), is a smoldering story of a young mother whose quest for authenticity erupts in a passionate affair.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

There's a wife swap in the Orthodox Jewish community within 15 pages... the obsessive love affair and identity crisis that follows is (sad) icing on the cake.

On your nightstand now:

Benediction by Kent Haruf (because his breathtaking novel Plainsong taught me so much about good writing); A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (because by teaching about good writing he's also teaching about life, plus you get to read all those classic Russian stories); Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (the only reason I haven't read it yet is because one of my kids snatched it up immediately when I brought it home, and so it's mid-pile); Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (because he's a groundbreaking author and I am obsessed with stories about identity); Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Sara Glass (although I don't dip into many memoirs, this one I had to read); The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (haven't started, cannot wait, her Matrix is one of the best stories about women and leadership that I've ever read); and a huge book of Louise Glück poems (because, like the rest of us, I'm still very much mourning her).

Favorite book when you were a child:

Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I am a total Joan Aiken acolyte. She is a brilliant and unflinching feminist, and her books are impossible to put down. This is a story about two girls saving scores of other girls, against all odds and with steep stakes. Look up how to make a posset before you start reading it.

Your top five authors:

John Williams: I'm one of those writers who thinks everyone should read Stoner, again and again and again as long as their tear ducts hold up.

Nicole Krauss: beginning with utter captivation at The History of Love.

George Saunders: since CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, I'm also a fan of him as a person, a generous teacher, and a Luddite.

Judy Blume: without our patron saint Judy, I never would have written a book.

August Wilson: I had to include a playwright because I'm so enamored with the form, and I think I've both read and seen more August Wilson plays than any other single playwright. They're quintessentially American stories.

Book you've faked reading:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. The movie Sleepers came out when I was in high school; everyone was obsessed with it, and The Count of Monte Cristo was referenced throughout the movie. I always had a nose in a book and people assumed I'd read it, and instead of being normal and, you know, reading it, I just pretended. And then I sort of forgot I hadn't read it, and just included it in my mental inventory of read books.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. This book of short stories will stay with me forever. I read it quickly and then again, slowly, haunted and uplifted, gutted and elated. I have given it as a gift so many times.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Piglet by Lottie Hazell. Holy shit, the painting of that very delicious and very non-kosher cheeseburger. But then, of course, I read and loved it. Also My Name Is Barbra, just so I could look at Barbra Streisand's gorgeous face. I have not gotten around to finishing that one yet.

Book you hid from your parents:

My parents were so, so generous, they let me read anything I picked off their shelves. I did, however, once seal an annotated copy of Camus's The Fall into plastic and bury it in my parents' garden, seeding some spider plants above it. I guess it was for posterity? Post-apocalypse? I was just an angsty teen? I was certainly intoxicated when I did it and promptly forgot. When my mother accidentally dug up the copy two decades later--significantly decayed but not so decayed they couldn't read my unpleasantly precocious and navel-gazey notes--I was appropriately horrified.

Book that changed your life:

My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. This masterpiece helped me understand my own artistic inclinations, and upon many (many) rereads also imbued in me a love of vividly actualized characters and settings in fiction, something I hope readers experience with Olive Days.

Favorite line from a book:

"And in this self-expression I put all the thoughts I had about her, I released the anger she made me feel, my amorous way of thinking about her, my determination to exist for her, the desire for me to be me, and for her to be her, and the love for myself that I put in my love for her--all the things that could be said only in that conch shell wound into a spiral." --Italo Calvino, Cosmicomics, from The Spiral, told in first-person perspective of a marine gastropod mollusk named Qfwfq.

Five books you'll never part with:

The Riverside Shakespeare: because sometimes you need Cymbeline on a random weekday.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: the single best book I've read in my adult life.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon: my husband and I bought two copies because we couldn't wait for the other to finish it, and then--because we were on a road trip--he read a third of it out loud to me because I couldn't stand him getting too far ahead.

We Don't Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus: I write about adultery so I also read about adultery. I will never be able to shake the scenes from this book, and I wouldn't want to.

Tenth of December by George Saunders: it's funny because George Saunders teaches a masterclass in short story writing in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, but in this book he demonstrates it. I don't even know what adjectives to use to get across the urgency of reading this book.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. The sensation of reading this book was so unique. I hated when the POV shifted, and became immediately obsessed with each new POV. It's funny, it flows, it's incredibly stylish but not in a distracting way, and it contains some of the most distinct characters and struggles in recent memory. Plus, it's nearly 600 pages and I read it in a couple of sittings. I would like that feeling back again.

Best school book fair purchase ever:

On Fortune's Wheel by Cynthia Voigt. I'd never read a fantasy book before, and for years after I bought this book on a whim at a seventh-grade book fair, I reread it annually. It's still a great comfort on a sick day or during a particularly cold winter.

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