Heather O'Neill shares 6 books that fostered her love of reading
The bestselling writer is championing Catherine Leroux's The Future on Canada Reads 2024
The first book that Heather O'Neill remembers reading is an old book of nursery rhymes from the turn of the century.
It was passed down through the women of her family every generation, starting with her great-grandmother, until it got to her. By the time she was four, she memorized all the nursery rhymes — and she still has it to this day.
Now an award-winning writer of Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, The Lonely Hearts Hotel and When We Lost Our Heads, reading is still everything to O'Neill, so much so that she's championing Catherine Leroux's The Future on Canada Reads 2024!
Ahead of the debates, she told CBC Books about the books that she holds close to her heart.
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel by Marie-Claire Blais
O'Neill first read A Season in the Life of Emmanuel because her dad's francophone girlfriend had a copy. Already a voracious reader, she asked to borrow it from her, but was told that it wasn't for children, which obviously made her want to read it more.
The idea that you could come from such a milieu but want to be a philosopher and a poet was so inspiring to me.- Heather O'Neill on A Season in the Life of Emmanuel
"It was just talking about childhood in a way that wasn't available to me in children's books — all the things they wouldn't admit," she said.
The novel follows a poverty-stricken Quebecois family in rural Quebec after their 16th child, Emmanuel, is born. The story unfolds through the lens of Emmanuel's teenage siblings, who are all rebelling against traditional family values in their own way.
"The idea that you could come from such a milieu but want to be a philosopher and a poet was so inspiring to me."
The Theatre and its Double by Antonin Artaud
When O'Neill was in school, her English teacher allowed her to do an independent study. She was sent to work in "the book room" alone, where she naturally read through all of its contents.
One day, she found an old box full of books from the 1960s and 1970s about theatre theory. She promptly brought the box home and read them all, completely captivated.
I loved the idea you could talk about writing.- Heather O'Neill on The Theatre and its Double
"That was kind of the first criticism that I had come up against and I loved it," she said. "I loved the idea you could talk about writing."
She was particularly impressed by The Theatre and its Double, a collection of essays that looked to revitalize theatre and make it accessible to all audiences.
"Everything he was saying was so crazy, but he's just trying to get to that moment in life when you rip down the curtain and he's just trying to capture it," she said.
A Fairly Good Time by Mavis Gallant
A Fairly Good Time is a novel that centres around Shirley Perrigny, a young Canadian living in Paris. Already widowed once, with her marriage to a French journalist on the fritz, she finds herself alone and unwittingly the heroine of her own story.
The women she meets are always in trouble, but they have the most wonderful conversations.- Heather O'Neill on A Fairly Good Time
What most stood out to O'Neill, however, were Shirley's encounters with random "crazy" women on the streets of Paris. "They lead her to all these sordid situations," she said. "The women she meets are always in trouble, but they have the most wonderful conversations."
Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys
Set in the 1930s, Good Morning, Midnight follows a young woman who, reeling from personal tragedy, escapes to Paris to find independence.
The way she describes melancholy and sadness makes it so it's a thing of such depth and beauty.- Heather O'Neill on Good Morning, Midnight
"The way she describes melancholy and sadness makes it so it's a thing of such depth and beauty," O'Neill said. She explained that at the time the books were written, they didn't get the recognition they deserved because a woman's depression was not something people were interested in reading about. "She was so ahead of her time."
Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung
Although it only came out in 2021, O'Neill has already read Ghost Forest three times. The novel explores an unnamed woman's grief after her father dies. She revisits her memories of him, an "astronaut father" who stayed in Hong Kong to work when his family immigrated to Canada, and is left with unresolved questions that only her mother and grandmother can help answer.
It's just the way she writes. It's so graceful and delicate.- Heather O'Neill on Ghost Forest
"I love an author who can stage an image," said O'Neill. "It's just the way she writes. It's so graceful and delicate."
"With each of her observations, I'm satisfied — that's beautiful enough. Usually, a book can have one or two of those moments and then she just has them all over the place."
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Like many Canadian bookworms, O'Neill has a certain nostalgia for Michael Ondaatje's writing, Warlight in particular.
In Warlight, Nathaniel and Rachel's parents move to Singapore towards the end of the Second World War. The siblings are left in London with an eccentric man known as The Moth and are shaped by the strange characters that surround him.
There's something about the way he describes childhood that I adore.- Heather O'Neill on Michael Ondaatje
"There's something about the way he describes childhood that I adore," O'Neill said. "And it's almost of another era because it gives children this agency in adulthood and sophistication that children don't get to have anymore because we kind of hover over them."
Heather O'Neill's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
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