Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky, has written a third novel. With The Almost Moon now appearing in bookstores, she has endured some pretty harsh criticism.
The material covered in Sebold's work is very dark and disturbing for some readers. The Lovely Bones addresses the rape and murder of a 14-year old girl, Lucky provides details of her own violent rape, and The Almost Moon is about a woman who kills her mother.
This interview on The A.V. Club provides some personal insights into the author and her methods.
I find it interesting that she doesn't work with an outline and she prefers to work early in the morning to later at night. Compared to some of the egotististical authors I've read about lately, and based upon this interview, Sebold somehow seems more "original" and "authentic".
I've not read any of the books at this point, and I'm not sure the subject matter is my cup of tea, but that doesn't stop me from admiring her honesty. It's kind of refreshing.
Want to read a review of The Lucky Bones, Sebold's break through novel? Click here.
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Alice Sebold
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2 comments:
I love Alice's writing and the person that comes across in interviews, but unfortunately hate her subjects... just a bit too much to deal with in fiction for me.
The same thing keeps me from Anne Enright, another novelist whose style and personality I admire, and whose books just make me shudder.
It makes me wonder about people who might be reading MY stories thinking, "She writes well, now if she'd only write about something better..." LOL We just all can't please everybody all the time, I suppose.
I found Stephen King later in life than most. I always assumed that King's books were too vulgar and too gruesome to read...until I read one of them.
Maybe I'm just reading some of the more tame books that he's written, which include Misery, Blaze, On Writing, Cell, and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
That being said, I doubt that I'll be reading any of the Sebold books anytime soon, knowing what I already know about their subject matter.