On the occasion of Narrative cofounder and editor Tom Jenks’s new book, My Reading: James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” being published, Narrative has a few burning questions for the author.
1. Who is your favorite character in fiction; your fave character in life?
Just one?! Well, okay, in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Levin, for his love of Kitty, his impatience with bureaucracy and social pretense, and his essential concern with What is the right thing to do?, whether it’s how to help transform a feudal, agrarian society into a modern one in which all people are free and can take part equally, or care for his dying brother, who suffers an intemperate wastrel’s fate, or make sure that his house guests have a good lunch, with cucumbers and honey.
