The multidisciplinary artist reveals the books that have helped to shape her.
My Favorite Book as a Child
It’sMandy, byJulie Andrews, weirdly.
I’m actually reading that to my kid right now.
Credit: Courtesy of Miranda July
I’m like, “Does this hold up?
Is this good writing?”
I will say, it’s not great writing!
[Laughs] It’s plain and simple, it does the job.
The story really still works for me.
It has this sort of darkness to it.
A Movie Adaptation of a Book I Love
Call Me by Your Name.
I saw the movie and was like, “Oh my God, that wasn’t enough!”
So I got the book.
That was like my porn!
It was very erotic to me.
I don’t think I was fetishizing it.
These people really believed in the healing power of sex.
It’s a graphic comic.
There’s one part of the book where this cisgender man puts on his “hat of ignorance.”
This is a part my child loves.
I act it out, always miming putting on the hat of ignorance.
We’re both laughing.
But at the same time, it’s fairly intense stuff that we’re reading again and again.
It’s a perfect use of humor.
The Last Book That Made Me Cry
I Am Jim Henson.
The story ends with the power of creativity.
And I was just in pieces.
My child is very used to this by now.
My Literary Hero
Many, truthfully.
But my friend Sheila Heti.
When we first met, I hadn’t read her work.
She gave meHow Should a Person Be?.
My Literary Crush
[The narrator of]Cleanness,by Garth Greenwell.
This [interview] is gay-romance-themed, clearly.
[Laughs] You just fall in love with this person.
He’s so open.
More open than you might be with yourself about your own desires.
