Wendy Lee is the author of the novels Across a Green Ocean (Kensington) and Happy Family (Black Cat/Grove Atlantic). Happy Family was named one of the top ten debut novels of 2008 by Booklist and awarded an honorable mention from the Association of Asian American Studies.Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
I was walking through the neighborhood of Silver Lake in Los Angeles recently when I came across a Little Free Library and a book I’ve been meaning to read for a long time: A Friend of the Family by LaurenVisit Wendy Lee's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.Grodstein. This novel is exquisitely plotted and reads like a psychological thriller. You just know that something monumental has happened to tear apart the protagonist’s seemingly well-ordered life, and Grodstein carefully sows the seeds until the very last page. I tried to pace myself but I was so invested in this story and these characters that I think I read the entire book in two or three sittings. It was just that good.
Another book I’ve been meaning to read for a long time, and finally did read, is Julie Orringer’s short story collection How to Breathe Underwater. I’ve been a big fan ofJulie’s ever since her hugely ambitious and sprawling novel The Invisible Bridge, which is set in the years around World War II. In some ways these stories are the opposite of that novel—contemporary, intimate, as refined and delicate as poems. The first story in the collection, “Pilgrims,” which begins with two children on their way to a Thanksgiving Day dinner, has an ending that you never expected and will never forget.
My Book, The Movie: Across a Green Ocean.
--Marshal Zeringue
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