The winner of the Baillie Gifford prize on giving up on Balzac, Saki’s black humour, and why parody doesn’t last long
The book I am currently reading
The New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast’s graphic memoir of her parents Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?. It’s about death and dementia, guilt and irritation, and is both heartbreaking and very, very funny.
The book that changed my life
When I was 10 or so, a teacher read us The Storyteller by Saki, about a little girl who is so well-behaved that she is awarded three medals – for obedience, good conduct and punctuality. A few days later, she is hiding from a wolf when the wolf hears the medals clinking against each other, and gobbles her up. It was my first encounter with black humour, and I was filled with joy that this sort of writing was allowed.
The book I wish I’d written:
The Education of Hyman Kaplan by Leo Rosten: a little miracle of word-play and phonetics.