Christi Phillips lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her interest in European history has led her all over the Continent. The Rossetti Letter is her first novel.
Author Q&A
What was your favourite childhood book?
It’s difficult to narrow it down to one. I have always been an avid reader. When I was eight years old I had an epiphany when I realized what an author was, and from then on, when I found I book that I liked, I read the author’s entire body of work (I still do this, actually). In this manner I read most of the contents of my local childrens’ library. I loved Edward Eager, E. Nesbit, Beverly Cleary, Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Narnia books. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle was also a great favourite. I remember being completely mesmerized by an English novel called Summer Birds by Penelope Farmer. I liked one book so much I hid it in my closet so I wouldn’t have to return it: Daddy was a Numbers Runner by Louise Meriwether. It’s set in Harlem, quite realistic (I believe it’s a memoir) very compelling and unforgettable. But it isn’t really a children’s book so I must have been a bit older, perhaps eleven or twelve. And although obviously I didn’t read them until I was an adult, I would include the Harry Potter books. I think they’re terrific.
Which book has made you laugh?
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Blockbuster by Douglas McGrath and Patricia Marx
Naked; Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
Which book has made you cry?
I’m having a difficult time thinking of any; I guess I’m not easily moved to tears. Oh, wait—The Great Gatsby.
Which book are you reading at the moment?
I always have a number going at any given time: right now it’s Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe; Looking for Class: Days and Nights at Oxford and Cambridge by Bruce Feiler; John Hall and His Patients: The Medical Practice of Shakespeare’s Son-in-Law by Joan Lane; Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason by Jessica Warner; and The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber.
I’m reading all of these as research for the book I’m currently writing; only one is a novel. I always wish I had more time to read fiction, especially fiction that has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m working on.
Which book would you give to a friend as a present?
My own, of course!
Which other writers do you admire?
Michael Cunningham for the beauty and clarity of his prose; the first chapter of “The Hours†is especially stunning. Michael Chabon, because of his gift for language and his compassion for his characters. Tolstoy for his ability to communicate the experience of transcendence. Jane Austen for her deft, sly wit. Evelyn Waugh for his sharp wit. Virginia Woolf for her technical brilliance. Ditto Nabokov. Kurt Vonnegut because I fell in love with him as a teenager and have never fallen out of love with him; he just passed away so I’m reading Breakfast of Champions for what is probably the 20th time.
