Writers Read: Bonnie Kistler

Bonnie Kistler is a former Philadelphia attorney and the author of House on Fire and The Cage. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College, magna cum laude, with Honors in English literature, and she received her

law degree from the University of the Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a moot court champion and legal writing instructor.

She spent her law career in private practice with major law firms. Peer-rated as Distinguished for both legal ability and ethical standards, she successfully tried cases in federal and state courts across the country.

She and her husband now live in Florida and the mountains of western North Carolina.

Kistler's new novel is Her, Too.

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

I usually have three novels going at a time––two on audio and one in print. The audios are typically mystery/suspense/thrillers, while the print is either contemporary literary fiction or a classic. Literary thrillers are the best of both worlds and always top my list. Think Long Bright River by Liz Moore or Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby.

I listen to one book on the treadmill every morning, and my husband and I listen to another during our nightly cocktail hour. (If the story’s particularly engrossing, we continue to listen during dinner and into the evening.) The third book I read in print whenever I have a chance to put my feet up.

Here are my three most recent reads:

On the treadmill: Faithful Place by Tana French. This is one of her Dublin Murder Squad books, and it may be my favorite of the lot. It’s a 20-year-old murder mystery tightly interwoven with a richly realized portrait of a family in a poor neighborhood in Dublin. The narrator is Frank Mackey, a detective who thought he escaped his family and that neighborhood, until the past rears its ugly head and he’s launched back into the thick of a bitterly complicated family drama. His voice is a revelation—wry and curmudgeonly and sometimes so achingly sweet. The prose in French’s books is levels above what’s usually found in mysteries: it’s lyrical and colorful and even sometimes hilarious. And ultimately heart-breaking.

Cocktail Hour: Suspect by Scott Turow. Presumed Innocent was a major influence on my own writing, so it’s wonderful to find Turow back in fine form in this new novel, complete with a new, totally original protagonist. Pinky Grannum has pink hair and tattoos and wears jewelry that looks like a nail through her nose. She’s also bisexual and falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. But she’s a brilliant investigator, and her skills are on full display in this neat subversion of a sexual harassment case. In Suspect, it’s a woman police chief who’s brought up on charges. Believe it or not, the most exhilarating scenes take place during an administrative hearing! This novel reminds me how thrilling a legal thriller can be. The mental gymnastics on display during cross-examination are every bit as heart-pounding as any car chase or fight scene.

Feet Up: The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. I first read this classic decades ago and probably thought of it as a western with a moral. Now on re-reading it, I realize that it’s by no means a genre western. The Old West is merely a setting for a deeply philosophical study of mob mentality, the power of a charismatic bully, and the thin veneer of civilization. A group of otherwise decent townspeople and cowboys are exhorted into a posse turned lynch mob that ends up hanging three innocent men. It’s chilling how much it conjured up the events of January 6 in my mind.

Let me finish with the novel I’ve just begun, the book everyone’s talking about this spring: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. It’s a delicious takedown of the publishing world, and I’m loving all the insider insights. A literary and commercial darling dies, and her lesser author friend steals her latest work and passes it off as her own. We’ve seen this premise before––The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz comes first to mind––but Yellowface folds in the hot-button topics of cultural appropriation and authenticity, and I am riveted.