Kathryn Scanlan’s slim novel “Kick the Latch” didn’t arrive with a massive media push when it was published in 2022, but both book and author continue to defy expectations.
Over the course of a single week last month, the Los Angeles-based writer was the recipient of both the £10,000 Gordon Burn Prize and one of this year’s Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes, which comes with an astounding $175,000 award.
“It’s shocking. I was not expecting that,” says Scanlan, who spoke by phone from her Silverlake home. “I think it was a span of a week that I found out about both of them. So that was crazy.”
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“It still hasn’t really sunk in yet. It seems surreal,” she says with a laugh. “It was a weird week, a nice week.”
Scanlan and I met up at an event at Skylight Books for Rita Bullwinkel’s novel “Headshot,” where she and novelists Amina Cain and Rachel Khong joined Bullwinkel and musician Kelsey Shell for a night of readings and music.
“[Bullwinkel] asked several people to just read alongside her, which I think is a really cool model for her book release,” says Scanlan, who knew Cain but not the others. “They’re all lovely, and Rita had a little dinner for us at Figaro next door before we did the reading, which was really nice.”
At an event celebrating the publication of Rita Bullwinkel’s “Headshot,” author Kathryn Scanlan reads at Skylight Books along with authors Amina Cain, Rachel Khong and musician Kelsey Shell on March 28, 2024. (Photo by Erik Pedersen)
For those who aren’t familiar with “Kick the Latch” – which, as regular readers know, I’ve mentioned more than once (including sending off for the cool-looking U.K. edition) – I asked Scanlan to describe the novel.
“If I’m describing the book, I just try to keep it simple and say that it’s a novel that I wrote based on interviews I did with a former racehorse trainer from Iowa,” says Scanlan, who is also the author of the book “Aug 9-Fog” and a collection of stories, “The Dominant Animal.”
In “Kick the Latch,” the narrator, a woman named Sonia, tells stories about her life, which has largely been spent around horses. In Scanlan’s skillful telling, the sections are brief, captivating and potent, revealing Sonia’s insights about the animals and the peculiarities (and dangers) of the racetrack community. Even the most painful stories are delivered with an economy that can be devastating.
“The first conversation … was about four hours long. And so after that, I transcribed it and then I had this big text document,” says Scanlan about her time with Sonia. “Right away, I just started playing around with it just to see what I could do with it. And so I started just cutting and pasting sections of it into individual Word documents and kind of working on those, playing around with those and rewriting them in some instances.
“A lot of it was a question of editing, of trying to bring out what I thought was really interesting about a particular anecdote or scene or vignette or story,” she says. “It was a process of starting with the original raw material and then over years just working it into this short form.
“I like it when you can sort of see it all at once or maybe see a block of text on a page and have that kind of control over it and and shape it almost like it’s an object or an artwork,” says Scanlan, who studied painting and writing and whose husband is a painter.
One of my own favorite sections of the book concerns the story of a woman known as Bicycle Jenny (which I won’t explain so you can discover it on your own). Scanlan lights up as she recalls hearing Sonia tell it.
“When she told me that story, I just loved it so much,” says Scanlan. “I sort of sat up a little bit and was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is a book.”
These days, Scanlan says she’s at work on something new, though it’s too soon to talk about. Still, she’s pleased about the continued interest in “Kick the Latch.”
“The hope always, I guess, when you’re writing a book is that it has a really long life outside of this world of, you know, buzz and publicity,” says Scanlan. “I had no expectations in the beginning that anything like this would come of it.”
“It’s really remarkable,” she says. “It is heartening.”
‘Terminal Island’ co-authors talk book clubs and comfort reads
In an image from “Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America’s Edge, Orie Mio, second from left, stands in front of the first Mio Café, located at 777 Tuna Street circa 1928. (Courtesy of Angel City Press)
Initially published in 2015, “Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor” proved to be popular with historical societies and institutions but went out of print. Now, Angel City Press is republishing the book as “Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America’s Edge.” Its co-authors Geraldine Knatz and Naomi Hirahara talked to Southern California News Group correspondent Liz Ohanesian about the communities on Terminal Island and their work finding these stories. Here, they share some book recommendations.
Q. Is there a book that you always recommend to others?
NH: Kyoko Mori‘s memoir, “Dream of Water.” The reason is very specific and personal: I find it illuminating the way the author, a Japanese immigrant, begins to see the value of female friendship among Japanese women after living in America.
GK: I keep records of all the books I read so I can recommend to others depending on what they like.
Q. What are you reading right now?
NH: Hisashi Kashiwai’s “The Kamogawa Food Detectives.” Such a comfort read!
GK: I am in three book clubs. One is called Nomads and we read books written about or by authors from other countries. So I just finished a book about Haiti by Isabel Allende called “Island Beneath the Sea” and one by Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair called “How to Say Babylon.”
Q. Is there a genre that you read most frequently?
NH: Mysteries because I’m a mystery writer! I receive a lot of blurb requests.
GK: I like historical fiction and last night just started “Mrs. Poe” by Lynn Cullen.
Q. What’s your all-time favorite book? Why?
NH: Louise Erdrich‘s “Love Medicine.” That book opened a door on how to get in the head of various characters. Also the characters’ lives weave to form the community.
GK: One of my all-time favorites is “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett. Oh…. and “The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese.
Q. What’s next on your reading list?
NH: I’ve had Elly Griffiths’ last Ruth Galloway mystery, “The Last Remains” on my TBR pile since last September. When I’ve finished a draft of my next historical mystery, I will read it as my reward!
GK: I like Kristin Hannah and looking forward to reading “The Women.”
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Bookish (SCNG)
Next on ‘Bookish’
Today, April 19, Steve Almond talks about his new book on writing, “Truth is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow,” and novelist and licensed death row investigator Rene Denfeld discusses her novel “Sleeping Giants” on Bookish at 5 p.m.
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