What is Anne Raeff reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Anne Raeff, author of Winter Kept Us Warm.

Her entry begins:

Although I am an active reader of novels and short stories, I think that, though I have not written poetry since I was an adolescent it has had more influence on my writing than prose. In fact my recent novel, Winter Kept Us Warm is in some ways a tribute to two poems, Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" and Eliot's "The Wasteland," from which the title of the book is taken. I believe that good writing is at its core poetic and that writers have an obligation to beauty and to language. We must care about every word, every image, and our prose must contain its own meter and rhythm. I read poetry so that I never forget this beauty, and, I hope, so that poetry fills the pages of my prose.

When my wife, Lori Ostlund, and I first got together twenty-six years ago, we often stayed up until dawn reading our favorite poems to each other. We read some of them like Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach," and T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" over and over and never tired of them. In December, 2017 we decided that poetry needs to be part of our daily life again, so we reinstated this tradition, though now we have a more staid approach and read for about twenty minutes every night before going to sleep. So far Lori has been doing the reading and has also taken on the responsibility of choosing the poetry, asking for suggestions from friends and other writers. Unlike in the early days of our relationship when we jumped from one poet to another, we are now reading complete books, lingering with each volume for a few nights. So far we have been focusing on contemporary work. We have read Louise Glück's A Village Life...[read on]

About Winter Kept Us Warm, from the publisher:

A bold and haunting novel that sets love against the brutality of WWII and post-war life

Ulli is a young woman, half-English and half-German, squatting in a dismal, empty Berlin apartment, one year after the war has ended. She’s scraping together a living as an interpreter between Berlin-based GIs and the wide-eyed local girls eager to meet them. One night, Ulli meets two American soldiers: Leo, handsome and ambitious and desperate to escape his small town upbringing; and intellectual, asthmatic Isaac, whose refugee parents had fled Russia and then Paris for New York.

Winter Kept Us Warm follows Ulli, Leo, and Isaac through the next six decades of their lives—from Berlin to post-war Manhattan, 1960s Los Angeles, and Morocco. A marriage. Two children. And yet, only one parent. At the core of this novel is the mystery of how this came to be; not a chronological narrative, we explore the dark corners and lantern slides of these characters’ lives, revealing in pieces and fragments what became of their long ago love triangle set against the brutality of post-war living.

Winter Kept Us Warm is an evocative story of family, strained by the cruelty of war and its generational repercussions. A novel of the heart, filled to the brim with unforgettable characters stitching together the deep threads of love, friendship, loyalty, and, of course, loss.

Visit Anne Raeff's website.

Writers Read: Anne Raeff.

Marshal Zeringue