Sophie Mackintosh leans darkly. Her Booker-longlisted debut novel The Water Cure, released in 2018, was described as The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Virgin Suicides, an eerie, dystopian tale of a family of five who find shelter on an island away from a chemically wrought and polluted mainland. Toxic masculinity takes on literalness.
Her new novel, Cursed Bread, out on March 21, is also a fever dream about insularity and strange goings on, centered on a townwide poisoning in a small French village. Death and mass hysteria ensue, along with a jittery story of obsession that orbits around a baker’s widow and a pair of glamorous, charismatic out-of-towners.
A book I couldn’t put down
I recently just tore through I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel. It’s a blistering and dizzying journey into obsession, social media, race and class, following a protagonist in the grip of a toxic romantic affair. The mercilessly sharp observations about power dynamics and how they play out in our interpersonal connections particularly winded me (in a good way).
A book that changed my perspective
Bluets by Maggie Nelson — a short and fragmentary meditation on heartbreak and the colour blue, somewhere between verse, memoir and lyric essay. It really made me think about the power of compression and brevity when done well, and about the humanity and intimacy in being open and unafraid with readers, as well as how we can create our own forms when writing to express most truly what we are trying to express.
A book that influenced my writing practice
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Advertise with NZME.Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a classic for a reason. When I was going through a really difficult time writing-wise, and undergoing a lot of rejection, I was given this book as a gift. It’s a warm and honest look at the real work of writing, funny and realistic and also encouraging. I always return to it when I’m feeling disconnected from writing itself, to remind me to find comfort in patience and process, that the joy is in the little moments, that the act of creation is different from the act of publication. As the title references (in the context of Lamott’s brother struggling with a school report on birds), you really do just have to take things “bird by bird” when it comes to writing.
A book I gift to friends
I’ve given Heartburn by Nora Ephron to more people than I can count. Whether they’re heartbroken, needing comfort, or simply in the mood for a really great and funny read, it never fails. It’s a story of how Rachel, the protagonist (based on Ephron herself) dealt with discovering, at seven months pregnant, that her husband was having an affair with someone in her social circle. That might not sound like the basis of a story that lends itself to either comfort or laughter, but it’s also blackly hilarious, and an excellent case study in elegantly delicious literary revenge to boot.
A book I wish I had read sooner
Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux is a book that really devastated and fascinated me. Ernaux writes with such straightforwardness and honesty about her experiences, whether motherhood or class or growing up as a woman in France, and this account of her all-consuming affair with a diplomat is rendered in prose that is utterly precise. The way she writes about these feelings so forensically, recording the complete joy and abjection of desire both, never fails to stun me.
A book that’s underrated
Suicide Blonde by Darcey Steinke is one that I wish got more attention — it’s a book that feels neon-drenched, dirty, incredibly alive. The story slides around San Francisco in the 90s, with a cast of characters who feel grotesque and charismatic all at once. It’s incredibly vivid and captivating, pulling us into the personal odyssey of the narrator, Jesse, as she descends ever further into the darker side of the city and those within it.
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Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh (Penguin, $37) is on sale from March 21.
