My earliest reading memory
I was five years old, in our third floor apartment in Stratford, Connecticut. The book was The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr Seuss.
My favourite book growing up
Probably And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. It is the perfect whodunnit.
The book that changed me as a teenager
Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I was totally invested, totally there. You know the way kids were about Harry Potter at the height of the craze? That was me with Ralph and Jack.
The writer who changed my mind
I was 12 years old when I read Studs Lonigan, by James T Farrell. It did what juvenile novels did but with grownup concerns. I understood Studs from the jump. It’s a trilogy, which follows an optimistic young Chicago teen during the Depression until in the third volume he becomes a washed-up, bitter alcoholic. It fuelled my teenage cynicism and offered a fictional portrait of societal forces that were grinding Americans down. A year or two later it was supplanted by Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath as my perfect Depression book.
The book that made me want to be a writer
Lord of the Flies: it was about kids, and I was a kid. The plot was simple and the descent into savagery was believable. I read it at the age of 12 – it was only later that I grasped the symbolism of the severed pig’s head and the sexual subtext. I felt that if I could do something like that, I’d be happy. And guess what? I was right.
The book I came back to
A Garden of Sand by Earl Thompson. I wanted to know if it was as radical as I remembered. It was. Also, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. It was better than I remembered, but just as radical.
The book I could never read again
Probably The Robe by Lloyd C Douglas.
The book I discovered later in life
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Written by a young woman who was really no more than a child, it focuses on the importance John Singer, a “deaf-mute”, has for three characters. Singer doesn’t really care for any of them, he has his own fish to fry, but they think he’s all-knowing and all-wise. Think how people feel about God.
The book I am currently reading
After Midnight, short stories by Daphne du Maurier, which will be published in October 2025.
• Holly by Stephen King is published by Hodder & Stoughton and available now in paperback, ebook and audio. To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com
