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Welcome to Books That Matter. In this series, I ask writers to share a book that matters to them. I read it and we deep dive into the world of the text, exploring story, craft, and the way a great book can become part of someone. You’ll hear your favorite authors on their favorite authors and come away with expertly curated reading lists.
Today, Layne Fargo, author of The Favorites, Temper and They Never Learn, joins me to talk about Emily Brontë’s haunting classicWuthering Heights. This is one of my favorite novels of all time. I love how messy and slippery and complicated it is—how every time I read it I notice something new and change my mind about what I think the book is “really” doing. I’ve wanted to talk about this strange and brooding novel with Layne since I read her brilliant reimagining of WH set in the world of Olympic ice dancing, and I loved talking with her about why this novel endures and why it’s still puzzling us centuries after its publication.
I also got the chance to ask Layne about The Favorites and learn how a totally different project and a Wuthering Heights reread developed into this gripping bestseller. If you’re a reader, you’ll love this peek behind the curtain, and if you’re a writer, you’ll love the lessons buried in Layne’s lived experiences.
You can purchase The Favorites, Temper, They Never Learn and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights on Bookshop.org or wherever you get your books!
Layne Fargo has a background in theater, women’s studies, and library science, so it’s only fitting that she now writes deliciously dramatic, unapologetically feminist stories for a living. She’s the bestselling author of the novels TheFavorites, They Never Learn, andTemper, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages as well as optioned for film and TV. Layne lives in Chicago with her partner, their pets, and an ever-expanding collection of books she’s definitely going to read before she dies.
* East of Edenby John Steinbeck
* East of Eden
* Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
* Wuthering Heights (1992)
* Novel Pairings Episode 166. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
* The Favorites by Layne Fargo
* Wise Children
* Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
* The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
* Saltburn
* Windward Heightsby Maryse Conde
* What Souls are Made Ofby Tasha Suri
* The Madwoman Upstairsby Catherine Lowell
* FictionMatters Interview with Layne Fargo
* Anna Kby Jenny Lee
* Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s Moulin Rouge at PyeongChang 2018
