Book Date No. 23
A trip to McNally Jackson Rockefeller Center with writer Nelio Beidermann,
By the time I met Nelio Biedermann, I’d been hearing a lot about his debut novel Lázár. It’s an intergenerational story about an aristocratic family in Hungary. Things get shaken up when a baby is born into the family that looks nothing like him. The novel has been widely praised which made me curious, because Nelio is both very young and writing in German. I think both of those things bode well for literature—a sign of room for new voices and ambitious debuts.
We met at McNally Jackson Rockefeller Center—my first time at that location—where we talked about the books he read while writing Lázár, Toni Morrison, and how Camus changed his life.
Can you state your name for the record?
What do you do?
I’m an author, the author of Lázár.
What role did reading play in your life growing up?
I always read a lot. We went to the library with our mother every week and just picked up tons of books. I kind of lost reading when I got into school and higher education. Now I read a lot because I think if you write, you also have to read.
What were you reading as a kid?
Detective stories and ancient stories.
Was there a book that got you back into reading?
The Stranger by Albert Camus. It was one of the most influential books for me. After reading this, I also wanted to write. I didn’t really have that urge before. I liked it so much, I wanted to create something that comes close to it. I just wanted to create something as well. The character is so special. It’s this man Meursault and he has a very ordinary and organized life. Then his mother dies and he kills an Arab man. It’s set in Algeria. He gets sentenced to death, but really he gets sentenced to death for his relationship with his mother. In court they say that he hasn’t been loving towards her, not really for the crime that he did. It’s very philosophical, but in a way that is very easy to read about. The language and the style is so, so special. I listen to it via audiobook every year again and again because I love it so much.
How did it shape your approach to writing?
You can’t tell that it is one of my favorite novels because my writing style is very different from it. It’s very sparse and not a lot of words. The writing isn’t complex at all, which I think is really strong but really difficult to achieve. It kind of reminds me of Hemingway.
How has your taste evolved since you returned to reading?
I read more and in more directions. My interest has widened. I’m interested in more, different things. The more you read and the more you get to know, the more you also realize how many things you haven’t read. It can be kind of overwhelming but I love that you have so many possibilities.
Is there a book you’ve read recently that feels far away from your original interests?
I just read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Flesh by David Szaslay. What interested me the most in both of them was the writing style. What really fascinates me about Toni Morrison is that she is able to be so well known and critically acclaimed, but her work also has this experimental touch to it. She really experiments, especially in her first novel with different approaches to telling the story. Flesh kind of reminded me of The Stranger because it’s so condensed. It’s really broken down to the most existential questions.
Are there any books that informed your approach to writing your book?
I read a lot of books about the period of time I’ve written about in Lazár, novels from the beginning of the 20th century until the 1950s. Hungarian literature but also German literature from this period, Thomas Mann and Joseph Roth’s The Radetsky March were very important for the book. I was very much influenced by other books, especially because I didn’t experience this period of time myself, so I had to get back to these novels.
How is your reading life looking now that you’re balancing author life?
I don’t have as much time as I used to to read, but I still try to read as much as I can. I read while I write. I tend to read in a certain direction. I couldn’t read something that is completely different in style or a theme to the thing that I’m working on at the moment. I probably could not read Blood Meridian because it has this very specific style and theme that’s so different from the things that I’m writing about.
What are you reading now?
Just Kids by Patti Smith. I’m meeting her on Saturday so I kind of have to. I love it. Flesh. I think if you read books while writing it can inspire you. After I read The Bluest Eye, which was also very different, but so strong, I immediately had the urge to rewrite everything that I had. It’s so humbling. I can’t read anything else from her until I’m done.
Are there any books on your TBR that kind of circle the direction that you’re trying to go in your second book?
