MY LIFE IN BOOKS: LOUISE CANDLISH
Louise Candlish is the bestselling author of 14 novels.
Our House won the British Book Award Crime & Thriller Book of 2018 and is being adapted for an ITV four-part series by Death in Paradise producers Red Planet Pictures. The Other Passenger was published last week by Simon & Schuster.
The books on your bedside table?
I’m deep in a Barbara Vine obsession at the moment and The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy is up next. Every one of her books is a masterclass in suspense. I also have advance copies of new releases by Caroline Kepnes and Adele Parks that I’m excited to read.
The first book you remember?
Those little illustrated Ladybird fairy tales. I have a very clear memory of my mum reading Rumpelstiltskin aloud to me and of gasping in horror when he stamps his foot through the floor.
Your book of the year?
It’s a bit early to call 2021, but I love Kazuo Ishiguro so likely it will be his new one, Klara and the Sun. To consult the blurb, Klara is an artificial friend who is “warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans”. Sounds like good advice.
Your favourite literary character?
Emma Bovary. There is so much to despise in her and yet I have sympathy for her relentless discontentment. She is in every respect the wrong personality type for her time. She would have been happier in the Instagram age, with followers and likes and jollies to Dubai.
The book that changed your life?
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood because this was the novel that inspired me to try to write one myself. Unsurprisingly, masterpieces like The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace struck me as far beyond my grasp, but The Edible Woman, Atwood’s first book, is simpler. It made writing a novel feel within reach.
The book you couldn’t finish?
I dash books down all the time. I feel no guilt, either. Life is short and, who knows, the next one on the pile might be a profound, life-changing gem. It would be rude to name the unfinished though, sorry!
Your Covid comfort read?
In lower moments over the last year, I’ve gone back to PG Wodehouse and the Jeeves stories. Eccentric characters, absurd mishaps, crisp English wit: bliss. My dog is named after Bertie Wooster and I often name my fictional dogs after his fellow drones.
The book you give as a present?
I was once given the Virago Modern Classic Angel by Elizabeth Taylor when I was leaving a publisher and I now give it to aspiring young writers who cross my path. Angel’s rise to fame and fortune as Angelica Deverell, creator of overblown romances, is a perfect cautionary tale — and brilliantly entertaining.
The writer who shaped you?
Margaret Atwood, Tom Wolfe, Patricia Highsmith, Evelyn Waugh, Agatha Christie, and, going back to childhood, Enid Blyton — have all had a strong influence on me. I connect with their unflinching interest in the less heroic motives of humans. Lust and avarice, cowardice and snobbery — the savagery that hovers beneath our civilised facades.
The book you would most like to be remembered for?
At this stage, I think it will be Our House, since it’s the one that won awards and will be on TV. The Other Passenger was more fun to write, but Our House is the one that hit the zeitgeist a bit. It helped make property thrillers a thing.