A real page-turner

I WAS PRETTY CERTAIN MY GIRLFRIEND CRITICIZED MY WRITING

- BY JOE MULLICH

HENIASK my girlfriend about the book she’s reading, it's a given I'll spend the next couple of minutes in utter confusion.

Yesterday Ami responded to my query by saying her latest read made her “fall in love with horses.”

The night before, she'd been lost in André Gide’s “The Immoralist.” I knew the novel was about hidden desires, but I had no idea Gide had taken things into the stable.

After a lot of back-and-for-thing, it turns out she was referring to Cormac McCarthy's “All the Pretty Horses.”

That’s because whatever book I last saw her reading has invariably been finished and replaced by three new books.

She reads six books at any given time. Classics to sci-fi potboilers. The latest bestsellers to ancient Greek poems. And she inhales them at a rate that makes me wonder if she actually has the job she claims to have or spends all day curled up with the Modern Library.

Her “ideal day” is to go to the Iliad Bookshop in North Hollywood, “visit” the cat who sits on the register and prowl the aisles until she finds three books to bring home.

Given that I've made my living as a writer for 45 years, you might think it’s wonderful to have a partner who shares an adoration of the written world.

Actually, it’s a torment.

Many professional writers limit their reading. George R.R. Martin and Joyce Carol Oates “quarantine” themselves so other voices don’t creep into their work, as was the case with McCarthy and J.D. Salinger.

Like my literary betters, I sometimes worry that reading distracts me from writing. But unlike them, I live with someone who consumes words at an unimaginable pace.

When I see my girlfriend devour books faster than the popcorn she keeps within arm’s reach, I feel guilty — and envious. It jolts me into remembering how much I love the printed page.