Keith Donohue

Keith Donohue is the national bestselling author of the novels The Stolen Child, The Angels of Destruction, and Centuries of June.

His new novel is The Boy Who Drew Monsters.

Recently I asked Donohue what he was reading. His reply:

Two books are clamoring for my immediate attention: Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks. I turned to Mitchell first and am well entrapped in its narrative web.

These two writers are fascinating in so many ways. They are both excellent stylists with Mitchell often breathtakingly lyrical and Murakami packed with compression. They are both great storytellers, with vivid characters and settings and situations that pull you through twists and turns. And they are both great craftsmen, structuring their novels with intricate designs and detail that make me gasp and wish I had been so clever.

My bent is for literary fiction, but I don’t believe genre labels serve much purpose. There’s lots of good stuff that gets pigeonholed. The Bone Clocks could easily be shelved as science fiction, as could some of Murakami’s work. My own novels jump around all kinds of boundaries. As a reader, I’m interested in quality, attention to language, a sophisticated structure that offers challenges and allows for some openness and air in interpretation. The best books kick the readers’ hive, stir up the bees in the brain, and teach you how to read them as you buzz along.

Visit Keith Donohue's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Boy Who Drew Monsters.

--Marshal Zeringue