By the Book (35 page)

I don't read self-help, although I recently found myself helped inadvertently by reading
Moonwalking with Einstein
, which centers on the science of remembering. I picked up the book because I've always been interested in why some people have great memories and others (like myself) do not. Strangely, I discovered that simply reading about the methods used by memory champions helped me improve my own memory. Now at least I can remember where I left my glasses.

What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

Not long ago, I had an amusing experience meeting the author of a book I received as a gift nearly two decades ago—a book that in many ways changed my life. Almost twenty years ago, I was halfway through writing my first novel,
Digital Fortress
, when I was given a copy of
Writing the Blockbuster Novel
, by the legendary agent Albert Zuckerman. His book helped me complete my manuscript and get it published. Two months ago, by chance, I met Mr. Zuckerman for the first time. I gratefully told him that he had helped me write
Digital Fortress
. He jokingly replied that he planned to tell everyone that he had helped me write
The Da Vinci Code
.

Did you grow up with a lot of books? What are your memories of being read to as a child?

I grew up surrounded by books. My sister and I made weekly trips to the Exeter Public Library and returned carrying armloads of our favorites—Dr. Seuss, Richard Scarry, Curious George, Madeline, and Babar. As we got older, I remember my parents reading to us every night—
Make Way for Ducklings
,
The Velveteen Rabbit
, and Maurice Sendak's
Chicken Soup with Rice
, which I preferred to his entirely terrifying
Where the Wild Things Are
(the notion of a child's bedroom transforming into a monster-infested jungle made it impossible to sleep). The poetry of Ogden Nash was another staple in our household, which I believe contributed to my early love of wordplay and humor in writing. On the more serious side, our bookshelves contained illustrated editions of Grimms' fairy tales and Aesop's fables, which instilled in me at a very young age a clear sense of good and evil as well as the archetypal roles of heroes and villains.

Do you have a favorite childhood literary character or hero?

Frank and Joe Hardy were responsible for my first experience in “binge reading.” I remember devouring the entire Hardy Boys series over one summer, enthralled by their bravery and cleverness. I also remember feeling enormous affection for the St. Bernard Buck in Jack London's
Call of the Wild
and, in later years, Ralph in
Lord of the Flies
.

What books are on your coffee table?

It appears our coffee table is currently featuring a rather unlikely quartet—an antique edition of
The Divine Comedy
illustrated by William Blake; a copy of Stephen Hawking's
The Universe in a Nutshell
; a homemade photo journal of New England foliage; and a copy of
Mortality
, by Christopher Hitchens.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be?

Joseph Campbell. His writings on semiotics, comparative religion, and mythology (in particular
The Power of Myth
and
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
) helped inspire the framework on which I built my character Robert Langdon. The PBS interview series with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers was hands down the most thought-provoking conversation I've ever witnessed. Campbell's breadth of knowledge about the origins of religious belief enabled him to respond with clarity and logic to some very challenging questions about contradictions inherent in faith, religion, and scripture. I remember admiring Campbell's matter-of-fact responses and wanting my own character Langdon to project that same respectful understanding when faced with complex spiritual issues.

What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn't?

The Sound and the Fury
, by William Faulkner. I tried. I really did.

What do you plan to read next?

David and Goliath
, by Malcolm Gladwell.

Dan Brown
is the author of
The Da Vinci Code
,
Inferno
,
The Lost Symbol
,
Angels & Demons
,
Deception Point
, and
Digital Fortress
.

Dan Savage

If you had to name a favorite novelist, who would it be?

This question is unfair—to novelists, not to me. I mostly read nonfiction, typically history and biographies (I have dozens of books about the Second World War and dozens about the English Revolution, the Stuarts, James I and II, Charles I and II), so the size of my “favorite novelist” sample is tragically small. Gore Vidal's
Julian
, his historical novel about the last pagan emperor of Rome, and Mary Renault's
Persian Boy
, another historical novel, this one about a eunuch slave boy who falls in love with Alexander the Great after he conquers the Persian Empire, may be my two favorite novels. I've read them both at least four times each. But the last novels I read were Hilary Mantel's
Wolf Hall
and
Bring Up the Bodies
, both of which I enjoyed tremendously. So, let's just say that Mantel is my favorite living novelist?

Do you enjoy reading gay fiction? Any authors you'd especially recommend?

Again, I'm not really into fiction. But my husband is a huge Steven Saylor fan—a fan of the murder mysteries Saylor sets in ancient Rome and a fan of the racier/pornier stuff Saylor writes under the pen name Aaron Travis. There's a stack of Saylor's books on my night stand. Terry is insisting that I read some Saylor/Travis on vacation this year and not the book I had been planning to read—another book about Charles I (
The King's Peace: 1637–1641
, by C. V. Wedgwood). I “rescued”
The King's Peace
from the lobby of a hotel in Kansas City earlier this year. There was a wall of books with beige bindings, and it was right at eye level, calling out to me, begging to be read. I don't consider swiping a book that is being used as a decorative object to be theft. It's a rescue. The last really good piece of gay fiction that I read was Mark Merlis's
American Studies
.

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

I have so many books about queens. Tragic queens (
Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart
, by John Guy), murderous queens (
Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England
, by Alison Weir), adulterous queens (
A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings
, by Stella Tillyard), beheaded queens (
The Wives of Henry VIII
, by Antonia Fraser), queens with poor personal hygiene (
The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair That Nearly Ended a Monarchy
, by Jane Robins), and truly crazy queens (
The Mad King: A Biography of Ludwig II of Bavaria
, by Greg King). They're my beach reading. But there are no books by or about drag queens on my shelves—which is odd, since I was a drag queen in my formative years. People might also be surprised to find
Bless This Food: The Anita Bryant Family Cookbook
and
Aflame for God
, a biography of Jerry Falwell.

Do you ever read self-help? Anything you recommend?

I loved my mother very much, but she kind of ruined the self-help genre for me. She was big into self-help books—and religion—when I was a tween and a teen. Leo Buscaglia was right up there with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as far as my mom was concerned. Her collection of self-help books got her through some tough years (the end of her marriage, having four children between the ages of thirteen and sixteen at once), and she thought they could help me. I was her sensitive kid, I was a loner, and she sensed that I was unhappy. But I wasn't unhappy. I was closeted. The stress of keeping my sexuality secret from my siblings and parents was making me nuts. Once I came out, I was fine. But self-help titles drag me back to those unhappy days—my parents' divorce, my time in the closet—and leave me feeling more anxious, not less.

What book has had the greatest impact on you?

Strange as it sounds, the paperback edition of Mart Crowley's 1968 play
The Boys in the Band
. I shoplifted a copy—this was a petty theft, not a high-minded rescue—from Unabridged Bookstore in Chicago, where I grew up. Unabridged is a terrific independent bookstore in Chicago's gay neighborhood, and I was a closeted teenager who was too afraid to buy the book because what if the clerk knew someone who knew someone who knew my parents and it got back to my mom and dad that I bought a book about gay people? It's crazy, of course, but the closet makes you crazy. Gay people have all sorts of different feelings about that play. Yes, the guys are vicious, and there's a lot of drama and self-hatred on display. But
The Boys in the Band
gave me hope. These guys had friends, they had relationships, they had jobs and apartments. OK, some of them were vicious jerks—but lots of people are, right? I read that play and figured: “OK, one day I'll come out and I'll have lovers and friends. I'll just try to find better ones.”

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

End This Depression Now
, by Paul Krugman.

If you could require all high school teachers to read one book, what would it be?

It seems self-serving, but all high-school and middle-school teachers should be required to read
It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living
. It's a collection of essays by contributors to the It Gets Better Project. Not all LGBT kids are miserable or being bullied, but for the ones who are—particularly the queer kids who are being bullied by homophobic or transphobic parents (and those kids are at the greatest risk)—school can either be a place of refuge or a place of additional torment. There are stories in the book by kids who were saved by something as seemingly trivial as a kind word or gesture from a single teacher.

If you could require all high school students to read one book, what would it be?

The same.

What books are in your kitchen?

Terry cooks, I clean, so the books in the kitchen are all Terry's. He was a first-wave Martha Stewart fan/acolyte, so we have a worn, greasy, battered and batter-splattered first edition of
The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook
. He also relies on Mark Bittman's
How to Cook Everything
and
Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen
. Terry grew up in Spokane, Washington, and his family went camping a lot when he was a child. When he's feeling nostalgic, he cooks in the yard using a scary-looking cast-iron Dutch oven. It looks like a witches' cauldron. He has a couple of cookbooks about Dutch ovens, but I've never seen him open one. When he wants to cook in his Dutch oven, he digs a pit, builds a fire, tosses some meat and vegetables in, and a couple of hours later we're eating like cavemen. He also makes the most spectacular pineapple upside-down cake in that thing. I don't know how he does it.

What books are on your coffee table?

We have no coffee tables, so no coffee-table books. On the side table next to my chair in the living room is Jon M. Sweeney's
The Pope Who Quit: A True Medieval Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation
. It was published in 2012 and it's already out of date. There was just one quitter pope in history back in 2012. Now there are two. Also, Aaron Hartzler's
Rapture Practice
, a terrific new memoir about growing up gay in a fundamentalist Christian home and community. Hartzler was a guest on my podcast, and I just finished his book—it's terrific. What's most interesting about it is that Hartzler hasn't come out to his parents by the end of the book. It's a coming-out story without a big coming-out scene.

If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?

Gore Vidal. I admire his range, his passion, and the rate at which he cranked out work. Novels, essays, plays. My process is very, very slow, and I am in awe of writers like Vidal. I'm in awe of writers who write like it's what they, you know, actually do for a damn living. I don't think writing comes easy to anyone. Writing is a painful process. But some writers have a higher tolerance for pain. It makes me jealous. Also,
United States
, a collection of Vidal's essays (including “The Birds and the Bees,” which I consider one of the best essays ever written about sex), was the first gift I gave to Terry after we started dating.