5 Favorite Book Picks with Emily Beaver, author of Slipping Reality
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| Special thanks to Emily Beaver and JKSCommunicatons for this original content! |
Truman Capote
Literature, and I just couldn’t put it down. Technically this is a non-fiction
book, but I felt like it was fiction with how rich the characters and
descriptions were. I’m already a fan of his most famous novel, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but this book
was written so simply and so effortlessly you can’t help but feel aligned with
the characters. While much of it is focused on the murderers of the Clutter
family (a historic moment in Holcomb history), the amount of research and time
Capote spent with them getting to know these men is remarkable in how they open
up in their seemingly motive-less crime. It certainly won’t make you fall in
love with a cold-blooded killer, but it’s one heck of a perspective! I highly
recommend it to people who are fascinated with how the minds work of true,
once-living people and those who love a good mystery.
4 – Mudbound by
Hillary Jordan
thing, I almost cried reading how brilliant the writing was – which led me to
rewrite Slipping Reality. Again. But
for another, I loved the idea of telling Jordan’s story from multiple
perspectives – the way she colored each character was so distinct I never for
one moment had to think about who’s perspective I was reading. I received a
copy of this book while Hillary’s agency was reviewing my manuscript, and while
I was not accepted I gained great admiration for what they did and how Hillary
wrote. Her simplicity in the story of an unlikely friendship between a white
man and a black man who served in the same war was poetic, and how this
friendship affected their families was unreal. I loved how Jordan could say the
shortest, simplest sentence, and I would sit back and think, “My God, she’s
right.” Mudbound is definitely a
must-read for those who love history as much as I do, but more so, love the
people involved.
3 – The Lovely Bones by
Alice Sebold
significant experience I had reading this story. I started it one night in
February 2010, and read all the way up to Susie Salmon’s gruesome death before
deciding to take a break and go on Facebook. My blood almost drained from my
entire system when I saw the statuses proclaiming that Chelsea King, a
classmate at my high school, had gone missing. Extremely afraid of The Lovely Bones at that point, I stayed
away from it as my community banded together in a heartbreakingly inspiring
search for Chelsea. She had gone out on a run after school and never come home.
Days later, her body was found in a shallow grave. Like Susie Salmon, she had
been kidnapped and murdered.
The kind of
devastation this set upon me and my community was unforgettable. A beautiful,
promising, sweet and bright girl enjoying her second semester of senior year,
taken from us so young by someone so evil, is unspeakable. I didn’t know
Chelsea personally, but I knew a lot of people who did and were close friends
with her. I felt shaken to my bones, and outraged at the blanket of terror that
now rested in my town – it appeared we weren’t safe to be on our own anymore.
It was a
few days later of a completely silent school and sitting with people I didn’t
know, crying with them, that I spotted The
Lovely Bones again. I decided to pick it up and read a little more, to see
if the book would somehow give me cause to feel better.
And
remarkably, it did – getting to read Susie narrating her loved ones’ life from
above, while sometimes tragic, gave me a lot of hope. While it may have not physically
done anything to prevent Chelsea’s unthinkable end, it gave me a sense of
justification that she was okay, and by extension, so was my brother.
I don’t
know if I can ever read it again, but I do know that beyond my personal side
story to my journey with this book, the writing is beautiful, and well worth a
good sit down and read.
2 – The Bell Jar by
Sylvia Plath
absolutely adore her writing. Her semi-biographical Bell Jar reminded me a lot of Slipping
Reality, especially because at one point I remember reading the book,
looking up and realizing, “Wait a minute… this chick is crazy.” The magic of
Plath’s writing is how she pulls you in to her story, and because of how
artfully she executed Esther Greenwood’s downward spiral, I didn’t even realize
the insanity was taking over her, much as how Esther didn’t realize it herself.
A haunting, unforgettable book.
1 – Little Women by
Louisa May Alcott
abridged versions of it from five years old, and read the full version for the
first time at ten. I’ve never had a sister, but Little Women made me feel like I had one in the March family. My
first childhood crush was on Theodore Laurence, the rambunctious but kind
boy-next-door, and my first real heroine was Jo March, who, like me, aspired to
write and act and be something extraordinary. This book resonates with me
because it doesn’t seek out telling any story but the one of family. In days
where I’d have temper tantrums or Matthew would be too ill to speak, I’d
dissolve into the March family and feel at home again. It’s a very light, very
easy read for a book so old, but it never fails to cheer me up when I need it.
