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Jen Percy is the author of Girls Play Dead: Acts of Self-Preservation (Doubleday, November 11, 2025), a work of cultural criticism and self-examination about all the ways fear shapes storytelling and language in the aftermath of misogyny and sexual assault. She is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and a graduate of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program and the Iowa Writers' Workshop in fiction. Percy's award-winning writing has appeared in Harper's, the New York Times, the New Republic, Esquire, among others. She teaches journalism at New York University's Arthur J. Carter Institute.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A story-driven and kaleidoscopic examination of women making sense of often unimaginable reactions to trauma.
On your nightstand now:
Tyll, a hilarious historical novel by the German author Daniel Kehlmann about the life of a jester in 17th-century Europe. Also The House of Beauty, Arabelle Sicardi's debut on the human rights abuses and environmental destruction behind the fashion and beauty industries, and Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara on all the ways the Internet shapes personal identity. I have tons more--a big pile--that keeps growing but with a new baby and a book, I've been able to only read a few pages here and there.
Favorite book when you were a child:
As a kid I was obsessed with this book called Owl at Home (Arnold Lobel) about a frightened and lonely but gentle owl who is terrified of his own feet under the covers and makes "tear-drop tea" by thinking about sad things, like pencils that are too short, and crying into a tea pot. "It tastes a little bit salty," he says.
Your top five authors:
This list probably gets a refresh every year but right now I'm obsessed with Clarice Lispector for being utterly original, strange, and brilliant. I'm also a huge fan of Susan Minot for her perfect sentences about love and sex; Annie Ernaux for her bold memoirs on the most intimate subjects. I love everything by Mary Gaitskill, and recently fell in love with the work of Carol Shields for her extraordinary writing about the ordinary woman's internal life. Basically, I'm catching up on women writers and loving it, and finding new authors I love every month.
Book you've faked reading:
You know, I'm not sure I've done this! I think I wouldn't be very good at faking it. Although in college I faked being able to translate German passages of Kafka to English to a non-German speaker--maybe that counts?!
Book you're an evangelist for:
I devoured Emily Witt's Health and Safety. I'm blown away by her ability to write so hypnotically about three seemingly disparate topics (raves, an abusive boyfriend, political unrest) that amount to a masterful work of nonfiction.
Book you've bought for the cover:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Any cover with a pre-20th century painting of a woman makes me really want to buy it!
Book you hid from your parents:
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides is one of my favorite books, and I devoured it as a teenager. But my mom had never read it and was convinced the book would guide me to suicide based on the title alone.
Book that changed your life:
Every book changes me in some way but each book feels unique in how it shapes me. I keep thinking back to reading Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway for the first time in college and how these made me want to become a writer. Her prose made me realize my anxious internal thoughts might actually matter--and that's life changing for anyone stepping into their 20s.
Favorite line from a book:
Oh this is such a hard question! It makes me think I should keep better track of lines I love because it's so nice to collect them. When I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, I marked this line: "And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us from being swept away into the night." I love the rhythm and way a gentle holding transforms quickly into an act of survival.
Five books you'll never part with:
Reading just a few of the sentences in any of these books always inspires me to write (and write better): Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Susan Minot's Lust and Other Stories, James Salter's Light Years, Annie Proulx's Close Range. I like having them around to flip through.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I can't wait to reread John McPhee's Coming into the Country. When I read it years ago, it reignited a feeling of awe for the wilderness of the West that always dims while I spend my days in the cement forest of New York City--and I'm longing for that fire again because I miss the West.