My favorite book

Lau­rie wrote: “… some­one has to ask (and it might as well be me) … what is your favorite book, Avi? (No fair say­ing it’s what­ev­er book you’re cur­rent­ly work­ing on.)”

Let me answer this in two parts: The rea­son why many writ­ers say their cur­rent project is their favorite book seems fair­ly obvi­ous: They are com­plete­ly engaged in it, and it seems to be full of pos­si­bil­i­ties. In fact, it can be a prob­lem when that cur­rent project is NOT the favorite book. It takes very much more ener­gy to start anew each day.

As for which is my favorite book, I tru­ly don’t have one. As per the above, I’m too engaged in too many projects to go back and be nos­tal­gic about any one work. I tru­ly want the next book to be my “best.” That said, there are books of mine that while some­times over­looked, are books which I think in terms of, “I did such-and-such par­tic­u­lar­ly well.” I think of Beyond the West­ern Sea, Seer of Shad­ows, City of Orphans, in that way. I think of the forth­com­ing, The Most Impor­tant Thing as one of my bet­ter books.

While I don’t believe in per­fect books (not by me, any­way) I con­fess, if there is any one of my books that word for word, sen­tence for sen­tence, gives me great sat­is­fac­tion, it is The Barn.

Deal­ing with the care a boy (Ore­gon, 1840’s) gives his mor­tal­ly ill father, it is upset­ting to peo­ple who have had no such expe­ri­ence. But for those who have dealt with sim­i­lar issues, it seems to strike a very deep chord.

It was trig­gered by a casu­al remark I heard about the build­ing of an old barn, and the almost simul­ta­ne­ous news of my father’s ill­ness. While it is in no way auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal, those two events allowed me, in Paula Fox’s injunc­tion, to do what writ­ers need to do, that is, “To imag­ine the truth.”

Favorite book? Not quite. But, well, almost. The Barn. Try it.