What is Eric Gansworth reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Eric Gansworth, author of If I Ever Get Out of Here.

His entry begins:

To be fair, it is the end of summer, so to some degree, I’m reading to prepare for the coming semester, but that is one of the nice things about teaching in a college. My pleasure reading and my professional preparation are often the same thing. It’s a great benefit of my work life. I get to talk about things I love with young people, and engage their curiosity, learn from their insights. I read eclectically, and visitors have sometimes jokingly wondered if others have just randomly abandoned books at my house, because there seems to be no discernible pattern.

I blew through Stephen King’s Joyland when it came out, because I loved the golden light of this coming of age story so much, I couldn’t stop reading. It’s also a novel in which a young man is forced, by circumstance, to rise to responsibility. I’ve been writing about that tension, myself, so I’m sure that was part of my attraction. It’s just such a fine novel that I wanted to appreciate its richness without...[read on]

About If I Ever Get Out of Here, from the publisher:

Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him -- people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family's poverty from George. He also has to deal with the vicious Evan Reininger, who makes Lewis the special target of his wrath. But when everyone else is on Evan's side, how can he be defeated? And if George finds out the truth about Lewis's home -- will he still be his friend?

Acclaimed adult author Eric Gansworth makes his YA debut with this wry and powerful novel about friendship, memory, and the joy of rock 'n' roll.

Learn more about the book and author at Eric Gansworth's website.

My Book, The Movie: If I Ever Get Out of Here.

Writers Read: Eric Gansworth.

--Marshal Zeringue