Dan Therriault Book Recommendations & Book Mentions

Dan Therriault

The Bell (1958) by Iris Murdoch is about a young women from London who goes back to her dominating husband while he’s staying with a religious group in the woods next to a nun’s abbey. And there’s a medieval bell that’s at the bottom of a lake. Beautifully/ironically written. https://t.co/Ex14zEu9nN

Dan Therriault

Beautiful World, Where Are You (2022) by Sally Rooney is about a woman writer, her childhood friend and their love interests. All in their thirties. IMO, Rooney's best novel. Use of email as a new epistolary technique. Dark, romantic, sexual, graphic, all the Rooney touchstones. https://t.co/BV3A89pdft

Dan Therriault

Groundskeeping (2022) by Lee Cole is a coming of age novel about a young white male aspiring novelist who returns to his home state of Kentucky, gets a job as a groundskeeper at a university to take a writing class and gets into a romantic relationship with a woman writer. https://t.co/5ts3t7fT7N

Dan Therriault

Happening (2000) by Annie Ernaux is a short sharp shot of a novel/memoir about a young working class college student (in 1963? when abortion was illegal) seeking an abortion. Ernaux delivers in the powerful true horror climax. Written in Ernaux's unique direct voice. https://t.co/jnC0GNvCSH

Dan Therriault

"Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars." an extraordinary novel by Joyce Carol Oates tracking five adult siblings in the wake of a father's death. The soul of the story is the widow matriarch and her gorgeous stark state of being and transformation. Beautiful, knowing, ravishing. https://t.co/3a5jTXr2aY

Dan Therriault

Septology by Jon Fosse (A New Name, the last two sections) is a stream of feeling from a painter at the end of his career living in the detailed moment and past. Mystical, “slow prose,” with simple language and mesmerizing repetition, an immersive experience for the right reader. https://t.co/Pt3quSPvzX

Dan Therriault

48 Clues Into The Disappearance of My Sister by Joyce Carol Oates is about the vanishing of a young sculptress/heiress Marguerite narrated unreliably by her aggressive (and funny) sister Georgene. Clues for abduction, that M. fled & suspects are explored in this vivid suspense. https://t.co/h9Nmfw0bBa

Dan Therriault

Normal People (2018) by Sally Rooney is a love story between a young man and young woman that spans from high school through grad school. Dark, funny, frightening at times. It’s great to see a younger author (a Millennial) enter the world of literature at this level. https://t.co/5Tt5orTudH