Mslexia

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Bedside Table

Anna Massey

From Issue 30 ◊ Jul/Aug/Sep 2006

Reading at the moment

I am hopefully going to finish Richard Yates’ Young Hearts Crying soon. His Revolutionary Road was remarkable. His short stories are really depressing. You have to feel quite strong when you read them, because they are so bleak. Young Hearts Crying is about a young couple’s relationship going wrong. It contains brilliant insights and has a real economy of style.

I’ve just finished a most remarkable book by Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, and also her book Play It As It Lays. I had not read any of her work until The Year Of Magical Thinking, which is very powerful. I have now bought three more of her books, and am reading her collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Generally I prefer the meat of a novel. After that I am going to read David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. His first book, Ghostwritten, was amazing. I am told Cloud Atlas is rather impressive.

I try and mix past and present as much as I can in my reading. I keep my ears open and am married to someone who reads a great deal. He is frightfully good at finding new authors. I tend not to read reviews often, as I fear they might give away the plot.

Couldn’t put down

I couldn’t put down Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. It was remarkable. Practically everything she has written I find completely brilliant. Her writing is very powerful, honest, strong, economical, and often heartbreaking. She takes you to New Mexico or wherever she is writing about and makes you feel that you are there. I enjoy them so much, I find her books an absolute pain to put down!
I am a great fan of Ian McEwan’s work. I thought Saturday was the most brilliant holiday read. If I had only been able to read 14 pages a night at home, I might have given up.

Covered with dust

David Mitchell’s Number 9 Dream was very disappointing. I got through it but all the way through I was thinking, ‘It has to get better.’ That was what kept me going, but it didn’t. I think that sometimes, if you love an author’s first book, you owe it to them to read their second book. I had two or three goes at Knut Hamson’s Hunger, and, if my husband had not pushed me to carry on with it, I would not have finished it. I really like Hamson’s other work.

Secret indulgence

I don’t tend to feel guilty about my reading. If I happened to like Barbara Cartland I wouldn’t feel guilty about it – though I do loathe her work.

ANNA MASSEY was born in 1937, the daughter of the actors Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen. Her brother is Daniel Massey. In 1958, she made her film debut in Michael Powell’s notorious Peeping Tom. She has since become famous for acclaimed roles on stage and screen (large and small). Her autobiography Telling Some Tales was published by Hutchinson in April 2006.

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