It Takes A Village
on unexpected community and reliable authors
Have you ever been able to answer the question, “What’s your favorite book?”
When books were more of an affixation to a fantasized life I may never live out— I’m going back to my early twenties, not last week —I pretty much only bought psychology books or the latest bestseller in the “personal development” or “business” genre, because startup culture and Eckhart Tolle were all the rage back then. Twenty-something Ashley had a hunger for intellectual stimulation and knowing a more fulfilled version of herself. (I promise you, I’m not talking about last week.) Back then, when admitting I liked to read, I’d inevitably be asked what my favorite book was and my most frequent lie was always the latest Malcolm Gladwell title I had purchased from Barnes and Noble, though I would never make it past the first three chapters because I wasn’t a disciplined enough reader yet. Every few lines I’d read would inspirationally fuel me to pursue distraction.
This question came up at my monthly book club. It’s something I started at the beginning of this year, just one other reader-writer-friend and myself. I like it that way. We meet at the halfway point between our houses and sit in a corner nook at a beautiful restaurant, share an incredible meal and never run out of bookish things to talk about. We usually cover 2-3 books together each month, and that plus our own writings-in-progress give us so much to discuss. When we return home at night to our families asleep, we’ll carry on over text about what we’ve come home to read before dozing off. It’s been my favorite dating experience since meeting Jason.
With the impossible question posed at our last meetup, we shifted it from the favoritism of certain titles to that of certain authors: Who are the authors we always find ourselves recommending? This was much easier to tap into and it led me to reflect back on some of the first books I ever fell in love with.
Judy Blume and Francine Pascal were the first authors that made me feel SEEN, and in the preteen adolescent years, to say that’s an impactful sentiment feels like a huge understatement. Sweet Valley High books helped me weasle my way into popularity to fill the void of that sister I would never have. And Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret offered me so much! (Sadly I can only find the reprint, not the original one I read from the ‘70s.) It was the first time I remember having a sense of honest relatability from anywhere. That book called out the unspoken anticipation among peers on who was crossing over into being “older” by way of menstruating as a good thing, something to brag about, like the size of your boobs; the chanting of “I must- I must- I must increase my bust” is lodged in my memory like a movie line I’ve seen thousands of times; Margaret’s spiritual sense of belonging to something but not identifying fully with one organized religious group. All of these touchstones in plot and character gave me the strongest camaraderie, and to feel that from a stranger — some older female author — and recognize that candidness wasn’t available to me in my real life… was just as strange a feeling as it is to be that early teen age in the first place. They made me feel right at home.
Curtis Sittenfeld was one of the first authors to really reel me into fiction. Both Prep and American Wife had me ripping through a novel in days. Her protagonists always had that female-outsider-trying-to-fit-in vibe and would end up bemused by where those need-to-belong choices would take them.
Melissa Febos has taught me so much about writing essays. I still have so much of her work to read but from the half that I have read, I’m in awe of the art form in large thanks to her.
Ocean Vuong makes me want to know the origin of every freakin’ word. His work, his thoughts, his sentences… it brings out this love affair with language for me. Gets me all hungry and heated.
Barbara Kingsolver, Lois Lowry, Ann Patchett… there were so many reliable authors in our collective rolodex. They’re the ones we’re committed to picking up next, without question to what exactly next even is. The ones that have helped shape a chapter of our lives. The ones we know we can always turn to when we need that really specific thing that they’ve offered us, time and time again.
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My neighbors have been offering to come and babysit for over a year now, basically since before Silas was born, but the timing was never right. Someone was always sick, or going through a sleep regression, or waking up to pee all the time (not me, I swear). So when I got an invite for a friend’s fortieth birthday dinner and I saw the location was only fifteen minutes away from our house – mind you, there is almost nothing that is so close to our house; it takes ten minutes to get to the bottom of our hill alone—I was determined to get us there. We skipped the boys’ naps that day, put them to bed early and much to our surprise it worked. Our neighbors came over and watched HBO over homemade popcorn and wine. The boys never knew we left. And Jason and I joined eight other locals who quickly became new friends in celebration of someone dear to us all, shared a fab farm-to-table meal and not one, but two cocktails that were so yum I didn’t get a hangover. It was truly divine.
I’ve had more book club dates in the last four months than Jason and I have had together in the last four years. Babysitters are harder to find upstate, and our families live on the opposite end of the country. This season of early parenthood and home ownership in a remote area of the woods has felt immensely sacrificial. But now that we’re three years in I’m beginning to get a taste of what life has to offer us up here. The fruit that this season bears is finally revealing itself in abundance, no less.
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Jason always used to ask me, if we could live near any of our friends or family members who would they be?
Another impossible question. I couldn’t, can’t imagine my life decisions in relation to someone else’s, even hypothetically. There was no confident response, only a cyclical dialogue we kept returning to, trying to squeeze our dreams and goals for our future into confines that were much too small.
Then we met another couple up here who recently started their own business, a modern market with farm fresh food and homemade goods. He used to run a winery with his brother in NorCal. She is a chef and former EIC of Saveur magazine. In meeting them and learning the origin story of their relationship, their home, their new business, being in their company unexpectedly offered us a new lens for the question Jason had this internal nagging to answer:
Who are the types of people we want to surround ourselves with?
The question became a sudden floodgate of discussion. Artists. Artisans. Entrepreneurs. People who take their time to create something, be it a family, a meal, a business, a painting, a garden, a home. Those who know how to take the time to slow down, but aren’t waiting around to make shit happen.
At the start of every year, unintentionally, there is always a word lingering, echoing somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Fragility and unlearning were words that sprang up for me in recent years after becoming a mother. This year, it was community. Maybe it was a byproduct of COVID, but I grew tired of the narrative being created for us, about us. That we chose isolation, as if any of us had much choice while experiencing the pandemic.
When I told Casey, my book club gal pal, about the neighbors coming over so Jason and I could go out with friends, she replied, “Yes! That’s your village!”
And she’s absolutely right. If I can break down the preconceived notions of what a village should look like (I often expect it to look like me at the surface), it’s much easier to see that we do in fact have one. It’s the retired correctional officer who mows our lawn every week. The teenage daughter up the road who told us our garden bed placement was a terrible idea because it lacked obvious sun exposure the first half of the day. The 60-something-year-old who brings us the fish he catches each summer and always recommends eating it with eggs. The realtor who gives us recs for a new dentist, contractor, dry cleaner and literally everything in-between. The weekenders from Jersey who have every home gadget ever invented and love to host karaoke when their house isn’t being rented by AirBnb-ers. The couple across the street who are planning their retirement in Portugal, who always have that extra onion I forgot to buy at the store, whose cat we always feed when they’re out of town, who came over while our kids were asleep so we could enjoy the company of our new friends and actually watched our kids on their monitors because they found the kids’ sleep habits more amusing than the movie they put on.
As reliable as the authors we love over the years, we all have a village supporting us if we’re willing to accept that support. One we can grow to love over the years regardless of what they may look like on the surface. They’re the ones we commit to picking up next, without question to what exactly next even is. The ones helping to shape the present chapter of our lives. The ones we know we can always turn to when we need that really specific thing that they’ve offered us, time and time again.
Authors I recommend keeping in your village:
When you’re looking for a good, light laugh, David Sedaris is very reliable at offering humor from life’s mundanities. Bill Bryson’s A Walk In The Woods falls in the same vein. For a more modern edge, I know Casey and a few others really love Samantha Irby. (I haven’t gotten around to her yet myself.)
If you’re looking for the literary equivalent of a good romcom; a feel good type of “beach read” that you can easily devour in a single sitting, turn to Emily Henry. She’s been on a roll.
Stephanie Danler always seems to capture that internal turmoil in a good coming-of-age story. If you’re a young twenty-something year old feeling the pressures of piecing your life together while also acting your age and living in the moment, pick up her novel Sweetbitter for a relatable protagonist. If you’re ten years older and trying to create your own family, assessing the one you come from in the process, her memoir Stray is the one for you. Both are so different, both are beautifully written.
When you want to appreciate the art that is writing, Maggie Nelson will capture your attention.
For something a little angsty-er, Lisa Taddeo can light your fire.
Want to immerse yourself in the kind of character development that will have you loving a character one chapter and frustrated with them in the next? Jonathan Franzen is your guy. I also think Hanya Yanagihara does this well.
A fan of pausing mid-read to soak up the perfect descriptions amid thrilling plot lines? Emma Cline is a genius and I swear she only releases page turners. Currently reading her latest release The Guest for book club and am already dreading the inevitable finish. Her writing is brilliant. The Girls has remained one of my most recommended reads since its release in 2017.
Alexander Chee made me want to get an MFA, but I’m not made of money so who knows. I would like to re-read his work because it’s been like 7 years and I’m still rafting on the inspiration I got from first encountering it. He edited last year’s Best American Essays and the ones that I’ve consumed so far are f-ing incredible. He is an author of impeccable taste. (Annie Dillard was his mentor and I hope to read her this summer.)
Speaking of writing mentors, Amanda Montei has been mine this year and I’ve made so much progress on my book project because of her. If I bypass the MFA route, it will be in large thanks to her mentorship. She has a book that you can pre-order, to be released in September. (I’ll be interviewing her for a forthcoming article — stay tuned!) If you’re into social commentary around the patriarchal systems that limit and belittle the lives of “others” in this country, particularly that of women, she has some profound insight. Oh and how could I mention social commentary without recommending Roxane Gay or Angela Garbes or Francisco Cantu?
Jen Beagin will always offer a narrator with a dark sense of humor. I also recently read Ruth Madievsky’s debut novel All-Night Pharmacy which is coming out next month and I’d def put her in the same category. She has such a great voice on the page.
I could keep going, but I’d rather not lose my readers, so, until next time!
Three beauty products I return to year ‘round and will always pay to refill… Aesop hand cream, Necessaire roll-on deodorant, and Oribe Gold Lust Nourishing Oil. Would love to hear yours.