Helen Benedict

Helen Benedict, a British-American professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of nine novels, six books of nonfiction, and a play.

Her new novel is The Soldier's House.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Benedict's reply:

Like so many people these days, I feel overwhelmed and distressed by the many injustices crowding in on us, from the wars in the Middle East to the dismantling of the natural world, the destruction of our environment, the persecution of immigrants and Latinos, and the deriding of science and fact. I could go on.

So I recently retreated to rereading my favorite novel in the world: Middlemarch, by George Eliot, only to find that she was writing about all the same things a century and a half ago. The way hypocrisy and lies destroy people, including the hypocrites and liars. The evils of greed and destruction. The consequences of unkindness and selfishness. The healing qualities of kindness and reason. Eliot describes all this with irony, satire and yet great affection for her characters, or at least for those who are not wholly irredeemable. I do believe Middlemarch is one of the wisest, and funniest, books ever written in the English language.

Visit Helen Benedict's website.

My Book, The Movie: Sand Queen.

The Page 69 Test: Sand Queen.

The Page 69 Test: Wolf Season.

Q&A with Helen Benedict.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Deed.

My Book, The Movie: The Soldier's House.

--Marshal Zeringue