What is Margaret Verble reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Margaret Verble, author of Stealing: A Novel.

Her entry begins:

I like to consider myself a connoisseur of books. A person one could turn to for advice about what to read. Someone with enough discernment to divide the wheat from the chaff. But I’m beginning to believe that’s just crap. I’ve been disappointed in nearly everything I’ve picked out to read lately. Rather than diss those authors, I’ll mention a couple of books I read a while back and did enjoy quite a bit:

Lucy by the Sea: Elizabeth Strout is a fabulous writer. She’s so skillful that she can draw readers into caring about characters who are deeply flawed, or jaggedly scarred, or just not particularly likeable. And she can write a compelling book without including a murder, or a suicide, or some awful accident. That’s real talent, and...[read on]

About Stealing, from the publisher:

A gripping, gut-punch of a novel about a Cherokee child removed from her family and sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s—an ambitious, eye-opening reckoning of history and small-town prejudices from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble.

Kit Crockett lives on a farm with her grief-stricken, widowed father, tending the garden, fishing in a local stream, and reading Nancy Drew mysteries from the library bookmobile. One day, Kit discovers a mysterious and beautiful woman has moved in just down the road.

Kit and the newcomer, Bella, become friends, and the lonely Kit draws comfort from her. But when a malicious neighbor finds out, Kit suddenly finds herself at the center of a tragic, fatal crime and becomes a ward of the court. Her Cherokee family wants to raise her, but the righteous Christians in town instead send her to a religious boarding school. Kit’s heritage is attacked, and she’s subjected to religious indoctrination and other forms of abuse. But Kit secretly keeps a journal recounting what she remembers—and revealing just what she has forgotten. Over the course of Stealing, she unravels the truth of how she ended up at the school and plots a way out. If only she can make her plan work in time.

In swift, sharp, and stunning prose, Margaret Verble spins a powerful coming-of-age tale and reaffirms her place as an indelible storyteller and chronicler of history.

Visit Margaret Verble's website.

My Book, The Movie: Maud's Line.

The Page 69 Test: When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky.

Q&A with Margaret Verble.

Writers Read: Margaret Verble.

--Marshal Zeringue