Three god-tier novels I wish more people in my life would read.
Not necessarily my top three favorite books, but some pretty damn good ones.
Once in a while I read a book that changes the way I see literature and how to approach my writing. For the ten years of my life I’ve been a writer, I’ve changed my genre, tone, and style countless times, constantly influenced by whatever I was reading at the moment. I’ve come to realize that reading and writing are absolutely inseparable, and what you consume shapes both the product and the process. Reading is breathing in, and writing is breathing out.
Over the past three years, I’ve read about 150 books. While I tend to be very generous with my book ratings (I can find something to like in just about any book), there are three standouts that have completely shattered my preconceived notion of what a novel can or “should” be. Beyond their general entertainment/enjoyment factor, these novels represent where I aim to take my storytelling moving forward.
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (1984) is a New York-based story of a man who works at a magazine by day and engages in parties and drugs by night. In the wake of his model wife’s leave, he begins to look for her at fashion shows, slipping into a downward spiral and ultimately losing his job. We eventually learn about his mother’s death and his stilted ambitions as a writer which explain his addiction and disillusionment toward life in general.
Beyond the cities/parties/depressed character motifs, which permeate most of my own writing, McInerney’s novel stands out to me because of its witty prose. It’s melodramatic and a touch pretentious but inordinately clever. McInerney balances a Catcher-In-The-Rye-esque edgy cynicism with vivid figurative language that is initially puzzling but utlimately immersive. The tone of the novel places me directly into the main characters’s numb, not-fully-there headspace, which works well with the second-person narration. The narrator forces the reader to feel his feelings and be uncomfortable along with him.
“The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivor where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush.”
I aspire to write the way McInerney does in this novel. Give me quirky, rhythmic prose. Give me the immersive observations of an unraveling conscious. Give me disenchanted, teen-angsty twenty-something-year-olds with something deeply wrong with them.
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis (1998) is a satire that extends Ellis’s critique of the late 20th century and its obsession with decadence, debauchery, and superficial relationships. Ellis also tackles these themes in Less Than Zero, American Psycho, and The Informers. What Glamorama does differently is that it feels more like a “novel.” Though Ellis typically steers away from a calibrated plot and writes without a rigid structure, this novel warrants more of it and incorporates it exceptionally well.
Narrator Victor Ward is a minor celebrity who believes “the better you look, the more you see.” Everywhere he goes, he sees designer brands, famous people (who are namedropped an absurd number of times), and pop culture references. He perceives the world through the lens of status and fame and beautiful people. When he’s offered a large sum of money to track down a former college classmate turned agent for a terrorist organization, he begins to question reality as he knows it. The story completely descends into madness from there.
“But then I suggested other music: “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, but I was told that the rights were sky-high and that the song was “too ominous” for this sequence; Nada Surf’s “Popular” had “too many minor chords”, it didn’t fit the “mood of the piece,” it was – again – “too ominous.” When I told them I seriously did not think things could get any more fucking ominous than they already were, I was told, “Things get very much more ominous, Victor,” and then I was left alone.”
This book is pure satirical self-aware genius, dancing on the line between political thriller and weird lit fic that doesn’t even seem to understand itself. Between the side characters constantly gaslighting the narrator to the persistent mentions of cameras and directors, Glamorama is a fever dream drenched in glitter. The reader has no choice but to be confused as to whether or not these events are truly happening, or if all of it is an elaborately crafted film set that mirrors the superficiality of the characters’ lives.
I read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (2015) a month ago, and it has never let me go. This book blew up online a few years ago and for a good reason. A Little Life is a heart book, i.e. a book that takes you by the heart and smashes it into pieces. Because I typically find myself drawn to cynical or apathetic main characters (see the first two books I recommended), I am often shocked by how sincere and emotional some novels can be. This book in particular is a standout because it is sincere, and because it doesn’t try to be suave or edgy.
“Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.”
For 800-ish pages, we follow Jude, a successful and intelligent yet traumatized man who struggles to deal with his past. Despite the unconditional love he receives from friends and an adoptive family, he relapses into self-destructive coping mechanisms and struggles to open up.
I might’ve seen every interview Yanagihara did about this book that exists on Youtube, and some consistencies I found were as follows: 1. This book is about men and the social stigmatization of trauma (especially sexual violence) as well as the lack of fluidity between platonic and romantic love when it comes to male relationships. 2. This is the story of a character who is unable to get better despite the fact that other people love him and that he has found success despite all odds. 3. This is about the relationship between a person and their body and how we are limited by our phyiscal forms (by disabilities, as well as trauma that keeps us small), but also how we can use our bodies for fun (as shown by the dichotomy between two more “promiscuous” characters and two that are less so, including our main character who has endured physical and sexual abuse). Yanagihara also describes this book as a fairytale (main character with dead and/or mysteriously absent biological parents + slew of awful things happening to him) and an exploration of a life on the margins of society. She accomplishes this with an unforgettable cast and a gripping storyline.
This book does not try to be witty or quirky. It is raw, messy, ugly, and awkward, and therefore an insightful exploration into the relationship between people and our bodies. For the longest time I wanted to write something humorous, cool, and nonchalant. But this novel shattered that idea and inspired me to let myself and my characters be messy.
The bottom line here is to read (if not these books, then any book at all)! You are a sponge that soaks up the elements you interact with, and identifying the parts of your favorite books that you love the most can enrich your creative processes.
Note: I hope y’all liked this post! I really wanted to talk about these three books, especially Glamorama, which I watched an author interview for recently.
I finally recovered from a life-threatening illness, and we are so back. I’ve been working on an absolutely insane new project while setting up signed copies of VHF and making promotional content as usual.
Check out VHF if you haven’t yet!
-Jina <3