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| photo: JJ Geiger | |
Lilliam Rivera is a MacDowell fellow and an award-winning author of nine works of fiction: a forthcoming horror book, four young adult novels, three middle grade books, and a graphic novel for DC Comics. Her books have been awarded a Pura Belpré Honor, been featured on NPR, the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and multiple "best of" lists. Rivera is a Bronx, N.Y., native, and currently lives in Los Angeles. Tiny Threads (Del Rey Books, September 24, 2024) marks her adult debut, a chilling tale set in the world of fashion.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
Tiny Threads is a dark thriller about an ambitious woman who goes to work for a legendary Californian fashion designer and encounters nightmarish visions instead.
On your nightstand now:
I'm currently reading Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, and it is triggering how the writer captures the disturbing monotony and rage of being a first-time mother. A raw and funny take on the collective mother as a monster.
Favorite book when you were a child:
My favorite book as a child was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. There's something quite dark about a young girl chasing after a talking bunny while taking drugs.
Your top five authors:
I want to give flowers to the authors currently writing beautiful and innovative work, so my top five authors are Angie Cruz, Caro De Robertis, Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Esmeralda Santiago. These authors have been so generous, have opened doors for so many, and have helped shape the writer I am today.
Book you've faked reading:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is a book I thought I've read. I certainly know what happens in the book, but maybe it's because I've seen movie adaptations of the book.
Book you're an evangelist for:
If there's any book I'm obsessed with it is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I read it every year. Shelley cleverly introduces the question of who the real monster is with one who only wants to be accepted by his creator.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty by Andrew Bolton was published to coincide with an exhibition of the fashion designer's work at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. When I was writing Tiny Threads, I thought of McQueen a lot and how each of his collections drew from such dark and sensuous places. The 3D cover of Savage Beauty is also both chilling and gorgeous.
Book you hid from your parents:
All the kids at St. Simon Stock Elementary School in the Bronx, New York, were sharing a copy of Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. Looking back now, it's so strange to remember how captivated we all were and way too young to understand the gothic story.
Book that changed your life:
The book that changed my life is Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. As a person who's been sober for over 20 years, when I read this short story collection I felt such an affinity to the lost souls he depicts. It's also the reason why I wrote Tiny Threads, to find a way of chronicling a Latina's ascent into addiction and paralleling it to the haunted city she moves to.
Favorite line from a book:
My favorite line from a book comes from our most treasured writer Jesmyn Ward and her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing: "I like to think I know what death is." Ward's works, but particularly this novel, use genre to explore traumatic experiences as a person of color, something I strive to do in my own work.
Five books you'll never part with:
The five books I'll never part with all fall under the tent of the horrific history of colonialism. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor is a gut-wrenching fairy tale of sorts that is relentless in its prose. While They Sleep (Under the Bed Is Another Country) by Raquel Salas Rivera is a collection of poems about Puerto Rico and the aftermath of Hurricane María. War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony by Nelson Antonio Denis is a powerful account of the island's 1950 revolution and the United States's intervention. The Annotated Frankenstein, edited by Susan J. Wolfson and Ronald L. Levao, is a reminder of the destruction of science and power. And finally, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury is about colonization that still reflects our current times.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez has a beautiful first line about scented almonds and unrequited love. I was in college when I first read the translated book and went on to read it several more times. It's an epic tale of romance.