Karla Cornejo Villavicencio on 'Franny and Zooey,' Judy Blume, and the Book That Proved Her Wrong
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Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio decided to write The Undocumented Americans the day after the 2016 presidential election, though her first piece on immigration was published when she was a Harvard senior (byline: Anonymous). Anonymous no more, she has since written for the New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and ELLE.com, among others, and her National Book Award-shortlisted nonfiction book came out in paperback today.
The Ecuador-born Villavicencio once wrote about music for a jazz publication and indie rock blogs (she dreamed of fronting a rock band as a kid, but didn’t have access to instruments or lessons, so she became a music writer instead), is a PhD candidate at Yale, has a Boston terrier named Frankie, was an Emerson Collective Fellow, likes birds and CBD oil, and loves singing along to breakup anthems played at top volume with tears in her eyes. “That’s what I want my YA novel, Dreamgirl, to feel like,” she says. She is also at work on a book about cults.
The book that:
…helped me through a breakup:
Bluets by Maggie Nelson.
…kept me up way too late:
Forever by Judy Blume.
…made me weep uncontrollably:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
…I recommend over and over again:
They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell.
…shaped my worldview:
DBT Skills Training Manual by Marsha M. Linehan.
…I swear I'll finish one day:
Any of the Elena Ferrante books.
…proved me wrong about something:
Black and Brown in Los Angeles: Beyond Conflict and Coalition edited by Josh Kun and Laura Pulido.
…made me laugh out loud:
Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood by Trixie and Katya.
…I’d like turned into a Netflix show:
Inferno by Eileen Myles.
…I last bought:
The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder.
…has the best title:
The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller.
…should be on every college syllabus:
My partner, Tal [Talya Zemach-Bersin], teaches A Third University is Possible by la paperson, and her students never stop talking about it. That’s the mark of a good book, I think.
…I’ve re-read the most:
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger.
…I consider literary comfort food:
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
…makes me feel seen:
Quiara Alegría Hudes’s memoir, My Broken Language, which comes out April 6. It feels like holding my beating heart in my own hands and somehow remaining alive.
…I could only have discovered in the basement of:
The Harvard Book Store in Cambridge: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.
…fills me with hope:
Any novels tweens are writing on Word documents or Notes apps with titles meant to confuse their parents.
…I’d want signed by the author for my library:
Sylvia Plath’s second novel.
Bonus question: If I could live in any library or bookstore in the world, it would be:
One World editor-in-chief and publisher Christopher Jackson’s apartment.
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