Madeleine Gray's Desert Island Books
Featuring a poetry book Madeleine wants to recite rum-drunk on a desert island, and the erotic thriller that keeps her on edge...
It was in August of last year; the cold of winter was drifting away into a bright, blue-skied spring. I had my favourite sort of weekend ahead; one with no plans other than rifling through the unread stack of books on my kitchen table. One of them jumped out at me: Green Dot, by Madeleine Gray, and I soon settled myself onto my window-seat, where I began to read.
After ten pages I was hooked, and I wolfed it down in less than four hours. By the time I finished, I was bereft. I was obsessed. I couldn’t stop thinking about Hera, her dog, her dad, about Arthur. About the green dot. I was consumed by the idea of morals, and affairs, and the nuance of being human. Barely a day has gone by since I finished in which I haven’t thrust it into the hands of a friend, a fellow reader, a (somewhat alarmed) stranger at the bookshop. Almost a year after reading about it, I still want to bellow about this book from the rooftops, I want everyone to read it.
Like every other person who has read it (Gray counts the likes of Nigella Lawson and Gillian Anderson among her fans), I became immediately obsessed with Green Dot - its characters, its propulsiveness - I loved Hera, and I wanted to hold her hand through every disastrous decision she made - knowing that - had I been in her shoes, I most probably would have made the same decisions too.
I love championing debut authors – especially those whose books are as tender and wise and dark and hopeful, and hilarious as Green Dot is, and so I was thrilled when Madeleine agreed to talk to me about her favourite books.
From the poems she wants to recite rum-drunk on an island, to the erotic thriller that keeps her on edge, read on to find out which books made Madeleine’s final cut.
And for anyone who is yet to read Green Dot - or may want to add a signed copy to their collection - you’re in luck. Each week, paid subscribers are automatically entered to win a signed book by the guest from my Desert Island Books series.
Like by Ali Smith
To me, this is the perfect novel. It’s about desire, yearning, art, growing up, class, queerness, motherhood – it has everything. It’s a novel told in two distinct halves, and only at the very end of the novel does the whole puzzle click into place. The first story is Amy’s. The second story is Aisling’s. They are two women from different class backgrounds whose lives are intertwined - but is their relationship important to one or to both? Is it cruel to be friends with someone who is in love with you? Is that even what’s happening here? I re-read this at least once a year.
Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird
I can just so viscerally imagine myself rum-drunk on a desert island reciting these poems to myself, laughing manically and then crying and then laughing again. Bird’s poetry delights in stretching bizarre similes as far as they’ll go, comparing falling in love to being set on fire in a haunted wheelbarrow, etc. There are poems about lust, about love springing again just when you thought it was gone from your life forever, about bisexual chaos – all the best things.
The Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
I’m aware that in listing this I am becoming a caricature of myself, but sue me, you know? Plath’s journals start when she’s a teen and go all the way up until her final days, and we follow the self-penned journey of a woman who is so deeply, deeply in love with life but who also finds living simply unbearable. She is funny, she is sharp, she just wants. From Boston to Smith College to Cambridge Uni to Saratoga Springs to London and beyond – Plath’s is a life that beguiles and inspires, and I would want her as my morose island companion.
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
I do not ever want to be stuck by myself without a Victorian lesbian erotic thriller to hand. This book will keep me horny and on edge. Waters is the queen of lesbian historical fiction, but this one is my favourite of hers as it is so full of twists and turns and hot, hot sex. Our protagonist is Sue, a guileless petty thief who attempts to trick a rich heiress into giving up her fortune, only to discover that it is she who is being played. Or is she?? Come for the excellent plotting, stay for the vivid Victorian smut.
What Maisie Knew by Henry James
If I’m stuck on an island for ages I’m going to want to read about a young girl whose life gets totally destroyed by her warring divorced parents, right? I’m a big James stan* generally, but this one locks me into a state of complete empathetic despair every time, because it’s all told from the perspective of this innocent child, Maisie, whose parents use her like a weapon against each other. All she wants is to love and be loved, and these self-obsessed adults cannot reckon with her as a person with needs and desires of her own. It’s spectacular writing that gets me so fired up.
* excessively enthusiastic and devoted fan for anyone who might need to look this up
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
This speculative fiction masterpiece becomes more and more real every year since it was published. In a world destroyed by climate change and overrun by violent gangs fighting for resources, protagonist Lauren is at a disadvantage, because she can feel the pain of others. However, as the journey unfolds, what she originally perceives to be a handicap might come to be her biggest strength. A story about hope in the darkest of times that does not shy away from the painful realities of human nature – there’s a reason Butler is lauded as a genius prophet. Plus, some good survival tips in here for my desert lifestyle.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
This is a kind of memoir-in-tableau, charting Machado’s way through a toxic queer relationship. It’s about the parts of ourselves that we change for the chance of love, and the insidiousness of domestic abuse. It’s also about the architecture of the mind and of memory – how and why do we reallocate certain feelings to certain parts of our lives, how do we re-structure the rooms in our brains? Whenever I re-read this I get something new from it.
An empty notebook
This is cheating maybe but for my final book I would obviously bring an empty notebook?? What better way to pass the time than to write a book of my own? In fact, forcing myself to write my next book by purposefully stranding myself on a desert island honestly sounds like a great idea to me right now. Watch this space.
About Madeleine Gray
Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. She has written arts criticism for SRB, Overland, Meanjin, The Lifted Brow, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, etc. In 2019 she was a CA-SRB Emerging Critic, and in 2021 she was a finalist for the Walkley Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism, a finalist for the Woollahra Digital Literary Non-fiction award, and a recipient of a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel grant. She has an MSt in English from the University of Oxford and is a current doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester, researching contemporary women's autobiographical literary theory. Green Dot is her first novel. You can follow her on Instagram here, and find out more about her here.
If you’d like to buy any of Madeleine Gray’s Desert Island Books please consider doing so from Bookshop.org (US) here, and Bookshop.org (UK) here. If you’re in Australia, please consider buying them from my favourite independent bookshop, Gertrude & Alice.