Miwa Messer, director of Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program, writes “Tara Clancy’s memoir The Clancys of Queens roared into our hearts and minds; we couldn’t shake her voice even if we’d wanted to. The Clancys of Queens is the very best kind of memoir: emotionally inclusive and familiar, even if its terrain is not exactly ours; the universal, revealed through layers of detailed observation and ferocious, lively, loving prose.”
When we asked the author to share some of her favorite reading with us, she supplied a list of five favorites, each of which illuminates the life of the city from a unique angle.
The Wanderers
By Richard Price
“This book, more than any other, changed my life, both because of its unvarnished storytelling and for how it influenced future decisions I made. It’s Price’s very first novel — a partially autobiographical story about a group of working-class Bronx guys in the ’60s. Reading it transported me right back to being a kid in my own kitchen in Queens, where I used to eavesdrop on my father and uncles telling raunchy stories from their youth. But, as much I loved this book for what was in it, I was equally struck by what wasn’t: the stories of New York’s working-class women. In fact, after I read this book, I went to a bookstore, found a clerk, held up my copy, and said, ‘I want a book just like this, but by a woman!”‘The clerk thought about it for a while, then said, ‘Me too! . . . but it doesn’t exist.’ ‘So,” I said, ‘what was the last book written by a working-class New York woman?’ And he replied . . .
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
By Betty Smith
“Yup! This classic was what the clerk and I came up with. The thing is, Smith’s novel about growing up as a second-generation Irish-American girl in Williamsburg, though deserving of its lasting legacy, was published seventy-three years ago! That’s my mother’s lifetime; it’s unreal to me. Immediately after leaving the bookstore, I started relaying this bonkers fact to everyone I spoke to. I often added the joke, ‘Well, shoot, maybe I’ll have to write the next book! I’ll call it, A Tree GREW in Brooklyn, A Long Effing Time Ago!’ Eventually, it went from being a joke to being a real motivator for me.
Drown
By Junot Díaz
“This was another life-changing book for me. The characters in Díaz ‘s first short story collection were very familiar — growing up in Queens, I went to school with a lot of Dominican kids — and so, just like with Richard Price, reading this book took me home. It also helped me realize that it was okay (and maybe even more powerful) to write in my authentic voice; that I could share my story without having to adopt any literary pretense. And when the term ‘ghetto nerd’ starting popping up around Díaz, as well as his characters, my instant response was, ‘YES! I knew a bunch of those growing up. Well, damn, I kinda am one, too!’
Preparation for the Next Life
By Atticus Lish
“Published in 2014, this was my favorite novel of the last decade. It’s a dark, raw, and thoroughly original love story between a white working-class American war vet and a recent Chinese immigrant, two demographics that hardly appear in literature. It’s also set in Flushing, Queens — a place where I spent a lot of time as a teenager — and features a native New York Irish-American family who, for better or worse (they’re some pretty rough folks), bear strong similarities to families I grew up with. Lish’s writing is phenomenal, and the story is one that needed telling.
Another Brooklyn
By Jaqueline Woodson
“So, here I’ve been outraged about the decades-long lack of native New York women writers, wondering why their stories have been missing on our shelves, and a few months ago, the brilliant Jacqueline Woodson comes out with this amazing novel! Set in Brooklyn in the 1970s, it centers on the friendship between four young black women. She had me hooked from the dedication: ‘For Bushwick (1970–1990) In Memory.’ Whether you’re familiar with Brooklyn then, now, or not at all, there’s no other way of putting it — this lyrical and transporting novel is an absolute must-read.
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Sig Nordal 