Susan Straight shares something no one knows about ‘Sacrament’ – Orange County Register
Susan Straight, whose books include “Mecca,” “In the Country of Women” and more, is the author most recently of “Sacrament.” A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Straight has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, Granta, Ploughshares and more. A Riverside native, Straight is the Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. She’ll be appearing on the Nov. 21 episode of Bookish, and here she takes the Book Pages Q&A.
Q. Please tell readers about your new book.
“Sacrament” is a novel about a group of nurses working in San Bernardino during the late summer of 2020, when they’re taking care of patients in critical condition during the pandemic. Larette Embers works in the ICU and sings to patients in coma state so they won’t feel alone; Marisol Manalang, born in the Philippines, takes care of her fellow nurses as well as patients. But it’s also about their teenaged kids, who are separated from their mothers for safety.
It’s a love story, as well, featuring Johnny Frias, the CHP officer from my previous novel, “Mecca,” who has been searching for the right woman and who might find her this time. There’s a teenage romance, too, in the Coachella Valley on a date garden in Oasis. Also, a runaway bull in Carbon Canyon …
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Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
I always recommend James Welch’s novel “Fools Crow,” which is a panoramic view of Montana Territory in the 1870s, and Helena Maria Viramontes’ novel “Under the Feet of Jesus,” which is about a family of migrant workers in the Central Valley of California.
Q. What are you reading now?
Right now, I’m reading Michael Connelly’s novel, “Nightshade,” set on Catalina, and “Sounder,” the classic novel about a boy and his beloved hunting dog, set in Louisiana.
Q. How do you decide what to read next?
My Fence Library, which I started during March 2020, when schools and libraries closed, is still going strong! Hundreds of books are dropped off and chosen from the ten shelves I maintain along my sidewalk, and that’s where the traveling nurses told me stories about their shifts at Riverside Community Hospital during that long year. I gave them books and snacks while they were walking to work. I still find great titles every week along my fence, including this month the original Girl Scout Handbook and a new Marcie Rendon mystery.
Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?
The first book that I felt changed my life was “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” as the daughter, Francie, was in love with books and the library, and her mother was an immigrant, like mine, struggling to work hard and keep her family alive, and her younger brother was a beautiful dreamer, like my own brother.
Q. Is there a book or type of book you’re reluctant to read?
No! I read everything from literary novels, poetry, mysteries, historical fiction, and YA.
Q. Do you have any favorite book covers?
I love the cover of Steph Cha’s “Your House Will Pay,” and also Alex Espinoza’s “The Sons of El Rey.”
Q. Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, are there any titles or narrators you’d recommend?
(I’ve never listened to one.)
Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?
I took a summer school class at Riverside City College when I was only 15, and it was Creative Writing. The professor, Bill Bowers, a native of Long Beach, read my first short story and told me I was a writer. That changed my life.
Q. What do you find the most appealing in a book: the plot, the language, the cover, a recommendation? Do you have any examples?
For me, it’s always the voice, the character’s tone and perspective and emotion that draw me in. For example, in my favorite mysteries by Walter Mosley, it’s Easy Rawlins’ observant, wry tone; in Manuel Muñoz’s stories, which I love, there’s always a haunting melancholy quality to the voices of the characters which immediately draws me in.
Q. What’s something about your book that no one knows?
A great question! I have a friend who has longhorn cattle in Reche Canyon, and I’ve watched how they move, to learn how it would be for Johnny Frias and his father to rope a longhorn bull. And my nurse friends told me the detail of how tenderly they turned the bodies of COVID patients from back to stomach, and how soft the back always feels, no matter how strong the man.
Q. If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?
I would ask my readers how we grieve when we lose a loved one, and how closure might, or might not, ever happen when we continue to live while missing that loved one with an intensity that stays.
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Next time: Susan Straight discusses “Sacrament” and John Freeman talks about “California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State’s New Literature.” Nov. 21, 2025, 4:00 P.M.Register at scng.com/virtualeventsMissed an episode? Catch up on previous Bookish shows.
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