What an Editor Reads on Vacation

Tricked you. Last week’s midlist review of The Compound by Aisling Rawle was written in advance and scheduled to publish last Tuesday. Meanwhile, its writer was on vacation. Away in what is truly the ideal setting for a reader: off-the-grid in rural Maine with family, a lake, and zero obligations. We’re talking truly out there—no electricity, no Wifi. Phone off and, without exaggeration, untouched for six days straight. PSA: If you have a job that gives you paid time off and you can make it work, this can and should be done once a year.

A silver lining to a relaxing getaway like this is that unplugging makes reading an unquestionably top three entertainment option a la centuries of old (alongside talking to people and playing board games, other timeless options that should be embraced). Reading for a living is pretty damn good (the job is much more than that, as many Dear Head of Mine readers know), but laying around reading with a long stretch of unscheduled time ahead of you is something different. Reading on vacation taps back into the joy of reading you might have experienced as a kid if you were lucky, sitting around on summer break, picking up a book randomly and getting unwittingly absorbed in a story for hours without a care as the sun’s heat makes you drowsy. Without further ado, let’s get into what a week of reading looks like when an editor is left free to roam.

Ruins by Amy Taylor

Literary thrillers. They are hard to do. This one is amazingly well executed. I’ve read many books, both published and unpublished, trying to take on the elements of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley. An old-world European romantic claustrophobia (here, a sweltering summer in Athens, Greece) mixed with a literary treatment of a psychological thriller. Amy Taylor’s sophomore novel isn’t trying to be Ripley — there’s no Ripley character and bodies don’t pile up and that’s maybe partly why it’s a good spiritual cousin to The Talented Mr. Ripley. Even without a take on Highsmith’s most iconic character, Ruins manages to be one of the best contemporary comparisons to this oft attempted style of novel. Psychologically interesting with a tense, atmospheric setting.

Like a lot of good literary genre novels, it’s not always easy to pinpoint what a writer is doing that makes the difference. But sentence by sentence Ruins’ overall effect is that it just does every element that feels familiar a little better, from ménage à trois to a sort of menacing thuggish character that’s all over other literary fiction but is often used much less convincingly. What further separates Ruins is what is always a great quality in a novel: focus. A literary novelist is always in danger of getting a bit lost in their own sauce. Of having their characters stand around, smoke cigarettes and think. Even in what is undoubtedly a literary novel, Taylor has an acute sense of plot and always keeps the story moving forward. Things happen, locking into place quickly and only ever driving forward. It’s no wonder this novel has already been optioned for film starring Vanessa Kirby and Sebastian Stan. We’re long overdue for a sexy, Ripley style thriller on the silver screen, too.

Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen, as one of the blurbs on the back of his newest novel notes, is “a national treasure.” That remains unimpeachably true. In his latest, Hiaasen skewers white nationalist groups for all of their stupidity and buffoonery. Hey, as we slip further into darkness, it’s important that we still laugh. Only Hiaasen could come up with a character name, perfectly hilarious that sounds credibly like one of these such buffoons: Jonas Onus. There are plenty of Hiaasen moments like this in Fever Beach, names, phrases, set pieces, that remind you he’s a one of one. Fever Beach is not his best in recent years (Razor Girl and Squeeze Me are both better in my opinion) — the concept here gets a little stretched thin over 400 pages — but will you regret reading Fever Beach for a second? Absolutely not.

Editing! Work? Mark Edwards

Although the phone was figuratively left in a drawer for the week, there was one bit of editing work done on this vacation. Although, like the best of reading for work it didn’t really feel like a burden. Purposefully, it was the kind of novel that begs to be read on vacation for fun anyway. Although it’s not yet time to share anything about Mark Edward’s next novel, you can preorder a signed copy of The Wasp Trap from the illustrious Mysterious Bookshop, which comes out September 16^th, .

The Wasp Trap is an ideal early fall read if you want to stay in a summer frame of mind. There’s a raft of praise and reviews you can read that will tell you it’s a page-turner of a high order (“jaw-dropping plot twists”, “universally unpredictable”, “incredibly satisfying”, etc.). Putting my editor’s hat on the table next to me, as a reader it’s the story’s transportive nature that comes to mind first. A beautiful dinner party gone wrong and a flashback timeline that is jewel-toned nostalgia, early internet at its finest.

Someone in my family came up with a great idea a few years ago to just bring your books on vacation and throw them all on the communal coffee table for anyone to pick up read. Contributing a good half-dozen books I worked on, including an advance copy of The Wasp Trap, it was a delight to watching multiple family members tear through it.

Recreation of the book table with other books I’ve been meaning to read for a long time + The Wasp Trap!

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

This wasn’t for me. That said, two very different readers in my family both loved Shark Heart. The novel certainly passes the technical test discussed by Dear Head of Mine before, it is well written and moves at pace. Some of the stylistic choices and ideas, though, weren’t convincing to me personally. So, this is not to dissuade you from trying out Shark Heart yourself, if you’re a reader that likes novels that wears its shark — sorry — heart on its sleeves than this could be a novel for you.

A Collapse of Horses by Brain Evenson

Possibly saving the best for last. I owe an apology to the person who recommended this writer to me five years ago in the pandemic—not actually a bad indication of how long it will take an editor to read a book you recommend to them for pleasure. Having read Evenson’s nonfiction work for a piece on the legendary and infamous editor Gordon Lish, it felt like the right time to finally read A Collapse of Horse in an undistracted place. Contrary to the popular idea of a “beach read” I find it’s also fun to tackle your more difficult or highbrow literature in the peace and quiet of vacation.

Evenson’s excellent collection of literary horror stories didn’t disappoint. The horror genre is perhaps still best suited to the short form of storytelling. Evenson does what the best short story writers mange to do: stick in your head. Or haunt you, if you will. This is one of those classic recommendations where it’s less of a description and more of a “just give it a try” if you’re any kind of fan of the horror classics from Poe to Queen Shirley to King. My favorite story, top to bottom was “Past Reno” if you want to start there. Or give “The Punish” a try if you want to start with an even shorter sample before reading the whole collection. Or just start at the beginning like a normal person.

Bonus Books

Both these books were started but not finished on vacation. It’s no slight to either of them, but they were facing an unwinnable battle by being marooned on the Kindle in favor of physical books.

Long Time Gone Charlie Donlea

This popped on the Dear Head of Mine “midlist bestseller list” back in March and a reader commented to say that Donlea is the real deal and will soon be rising to bestsellerdom. It has been enjoyable so far; the central mystery is that a woman finds out through DNA testing that she is a little girl who went missing two decades ago along with her biological parents and was presumed dead. A nice twist on unremembered past trauma.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

This has been on the list for a long time. Ann Patchett wrote her own book about her friendship with Grealy in Truth and Beauty, a memoir that comes heavily recommended. Patchett has been forever recommending Grealy’s own memoir Autobiography of a Face, even decades after its publication. It only felt right to read Grealy’s own version of her story before tackling Truth and Beauty, and already there have been show-stopping passages worth copying down by hand. Certainly, living up to the billing so far.

And that’s what an editor might read if you put them in the wilderness for a week. Feel free to leave recommendations on the proverbial coffee table below, you may even see your suggestion on a list like this five years from now.