Heather o neill biography

Interview by Daryl Sneath

Portrayal—if we take the word at its origin, to draw or to paint, to depict in words—may well be the aim of any novelist.

Heather o neill father

Few have mastered portrayal the way Heather O’Neill has. In O’Neill’s novels, clusters of words move across the page the way tiny black spiders might dance across the keys of a forgotten piano: carefully, quietly—their mystical inner strength somehow enough to sound out the resonant notes to a melancholy song.

Her uncanny, astonishing skill with metaphor unsettles the regularity of the world; and we find ourselves seeing in ways we previously could not have imagined. It was my great pleasure to speak with Heather about her latest novel, When We Lost Our Heads.

Daryl Sneath: I’ve heard you mention that you’re always reading, even while you write.

I’m wondering: what were you reading when you wrote When We Lost Our Heads—a work which seems to be, in part, in conversat