What’s Joe Davies’ Reading?
I’ve got a few things going at the moment – always seem to read this way: Ondaatje’s Running in the Family (which I’m re-visiting after about 30 years) – brilliant; Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen – something I’ve been wanting to get to for a while – funny, sad, a glimpse into a world I know too little about; The Chauvinist and Other Stories, by Toshiro Mori – stories of the Japanese West Coast diaspora, much of it written pre-war, pre-internment – a glance into another world I’m glad to be getting a better sense of.
Two books I recently finished: Near to the Wild Heart, by Clarice Lispector – Brazilian, c. 1943, stream-of-consciousness-ish – occasionally found myself drifting unhelpfully as I read, but came across a description of someone that made me smile – “she understands life because she isn’t intelligent enough not too” – loved that; and the other book, something I don’t usually read, a graphic novel, Fun Home, by Allison Bechdel – autobiographical – I was especially moved by the way the author’s responses to her experiences evolve, looping back and deepening, mirroring how feelings about things can rove all over the map and grow in complexity with time – of all the books noted here, the one I’ve connected to most.
Joe Davies’ short fiction has appeared in The Manchester Review, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, Rampike, The Missouri Review, Descant, The Capilano Review, Grain, PRISM International, Stand Magazine, The Dalhousie Review, Queen’s Quarterly, The Dublin Review and previously in The New Quarterly. He lives in Peterborough, Ontario.