Christina Lynch

Christina Lynch’s picaresque journey includes chapters in Chicago and at Harvard, where she was an editor on the Harvard Lampoon. She was the Milan correspondent for W magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, and disappeared for four years in Tuscany. In L.A. she was on the writing staff of Unhappily Ever After; Encore, Encore; The Dead Zone and Wildfire. She now lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

Lynch is the co-author of two novels under the pen name Magnus Flyte. She teaches at College of the Sequoias.

Lynch's debut novel is The Italian Party.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

I’m always half way through several things that are strewn all over the bed. Right now those are:

The Italians and the Holocaust by Susan Zuccotti. This is an older book but a really excellent study of something you just don’t hear that much about—the experiences of Jews in Italy during World War II. Some of the stories are as heartbreaking as those from other parts of Europe, but there are some heroic stories of Italians risking their own lives to hide Jews from the Fascists and the Germans, and using their own famously muddled bureaucracy to keep them safe.

Travels With Myself and Another by Martha Gellhorn. This is Gellhorn’s memoir about traveling with Hemingway, who is never named in the book, but only referred to as “U.C.” for “Unwilling Companion.” Gellhorn is a terrific writer—funny, smart, and much braver than I will ever be. Given her predilection for rickety airplanes, rusty boats and war zones, it’s amazing that she lived to a ripe old age.

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch. Someone else mentioned this in their list of favorite books, and it sounded so good that I sent off for it immediately. It’s a darkly funny story of a washed up writer. I’m only a few pages in but I’m laughing and wincing already at the arrogance of the main character.

I recently finished a couple of books I’d like to recommend:

Educated by Tara Westover. This is the hot memoir of the moment, and it’s deserving of all the attention it’s getting. It’s the story of the author’s upbringing in a family of Mormon survivalists in rural Idaho who neither sent her to school nor homeschooled her. She taught herself enough to get into Brigham Young, and eventually went on to Harvard and Cambridge. It’s a phenomenally gripping story of family, home, and what it means to get an education.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer. This, like Under the Net, is the story of a not very successful novelist. I laughed so hard reading it that my dogs woke up and were worried that something was terribly wrong. I was shrieking with laughter.

Visit Christina Lynch's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Italian Party.

The Page 69 Test: The Italian Party.

--Marshal Zeringue