Marisha Chamberlain is the author of The Rose Variations (Soho Press, 2009). James Wilcox of the New York Times Book Review called her novel, “[An] enthralling first novel … that surprises us with fresh insights…. Chamberlain’s ear is finally attuned to every nuance of The Rose Variations, a novel graced by a profound respect for the humble particulars of life.” Chamberlain will be reading at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Common Good Books, 165 Western Ave N, Suite 14, St. Paul, MN and at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday at the Bookcase, 607 Lake St E, Wayzata MN

What book(s) are you currently reading?
I’m reading Map of Glass by the remarkable Canadian novelist, Jane Urquart, having just finished Aravind Adiga’s amazing White Tiger, which links the state of servitude to the entrepreneurial drive in a way I recognize, but in a landscape utterly foreign to me: contemporary India. Next on my list is to reread Louise Erdrich’s The Painted Drum, a masterpiece of a novel by someone we’re lucky to count as our own.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Who?
I have a thing for male characters who show tenderness: Joe Rutledge, the point of view character in John McGahern’s By the Lake; Ezra Tull, the good brother in Anne Tyler’s Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant; Douglas Cheeseman, the large-eared, socially awkward engineer in Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection. But for sheer fun, my crush is on Fabrice, the Frenchman who loves Linda Radlett in Nancy Mitford’s lark of a novel, The Pursuit of Love.

If your favorite author came to Minnesota, who would it be and what bar would you take him/her to?
Can’t choose a favorite author; I have so many—but I would take Margot Livesey (The House on Fortune Street) to the bar at W.A. Frost; I would take Michael Byers (Long for this World) to Marx Wine Bar and Grill in Stillwater; and I would take Alice Munro to Al’s in Dinkytown for breakfast.

What was your first favorite book?
Little Women, which I read over and over. A large, poor, eccentric, bookish family just like mine. A tomboy heroine, Jo, who aimed to be a writer, just like me.

Let’s say Fahrenheit 451 comes to life, which book would you become in order to save it from annihilation?
I would become Ian McEwan’s Atonement, hoping that the power of my story as a page turner would stop the annihilation through distraction and charm and that my story’s attempt to bring shattered lovers together and to atone for the excesses in the storytelling impulse would convince the entire population of the moral force of literature.

What is one book you haven’t read but want to read before you die?
Dante’s Inferno in Italian. (I had better hurry up and learn more Italian!)

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Interview, MN Authors Alice Munro, Anne Tyler, Aravind Adiga, Ian McEwan, Jane Urguart, John McGahern, Kate Grenville, Louise Erdich, Margot Livesey, Marisha Chamberlain, Nancy Mitford