Authors Answer: A Conversation with J.F. Riordan

J.F. Riordan has worked in opera, in the classroom, and in philanthropy, but her first love is writing. 

Ms. Riordan has been called “a latter-day Jane Austen”. Her mesmerizing literary fiction makes the Great Lakes region one of the characters in this continuing series. The North of the Tension Line books (North of the Tension Line; The Audacity of Goats; Robert’s Rules; and A Small Earnest Question-due out in Summer 2020) represent a sensibility that is distinctively Midwestern, even though the small-town politics and gossip will be universally familiar. Riordan celebrates the well-lived life of the ordinary man and woman with meticulously drawn characters and intriguing plots that magnify the beauty and mystery lingering near the surface of everyday life.

She is also the author of a book of essays, Reflections on a Life in Exile.

Do you collect anything? If so, what, why, and for how long?

I have a highly curated collection of dogs, which I have been working on for many years. As is so often true for connoisseurs, it is only finite resources that prevent me from adding to it regularly. The nature of the collection has evolved to suit the place we live: it’s a large wooded property, and there are quite aggressive coyotes, so little dogs are out of the question. We currently have two German Shepherds—one still a puppy—and a fifteen-year-old Indiana Spotted Dog named Pete. He is the heart of the collection for the moment, but I know that will not be for much longer. Sadly, the content of the collection can change suddenly, and tragically, as happened this past December when we lost our beloved Moses. Despite their heartbreaking inevitabilities, however, they are a particularly rewarding collection, since, unlike fine china or figurines, they never need dusting. They keep me company when I write, and amuse, pester, and distract me the rest of the time. They are also highly useful aids to procrastination, which is essential to the writing process.

Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and you just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?

There are too many great books to bother reading something you don’t enjoy, and not everything is for everybody, so I’m a big believer in tossing a book aside and moving on. There are some books which are an insult to your intelligence, and you can usually tell those immediately. For everything else, I will try for a chapter or so, but if the style is too violent, disgusting, or at all sadistic, I’m out. I can’t pretend that I’m a patient reader.

My dogs can also be highly critical, and, in their youthful enthusiasms, will occasionally shred an author. 

I recently read Frances Burney’s Evelina, and found the beginning rather rough going—probably because of the eighteenth-century mannered writing style— but I stuck it out and became engrossed in it, while cheerfully—and with no compunction whatever—skipping certain annoying dialogues. There is only one book—years ago—that I can remember literally throwing across the room because it was so badly written, but I can’t remember what it was or why I threw it. I’m pretty sure it was written by a friend, so perhaps that’s for the best.

To read the rest of the interview, click here.

To learn more about A Small Earnest Question, click here.

To learn more about J.F. Riordan, click here.