K.E. Semmel, author of The Book of Losman – debutiful

The Book of Losman, the debut novel from K.E. Semmel follows Daniel Losman, an American living in Copenhagen, whose life is marked by solitude after his longtime girlfriend leaves him. He spends time with his three-year-old son, worrying the boy may have inherited his Tourette Syndrome. The hilarious and clever novel is slim and packs a punch on every page.

Semmel is a former Literary Translation Fellow from the National Endowment for the Arts whose own fiction and nonfiction has appeared in Ontario Review, Lithub, The Writer’s Chronicle, HuffPost, The Millions, The Southern Review,  and The Washington Post. He has translated the works of Naja Marie Aidt, Karin Fossum, and Jussi Adler Olsen.

We asked the writer to answer our recurring A Life of Books questionnaire so readers could get to know him better and get a few book recommendations to add to their own TBR Pile.

Is there a book or series that, when you think back, helped define your childhood?

Like many readers whose formative elementary school years were in the 1980s, I greedily wolfed down Choose Your Own Adventure novels. There was something about being an actor in a narrative, the person responsible for moving the character around, that appealed to me. I loved playing chess in elementary school—I was very good at it back then—and these stories reminded me of the strategy employed during a game. To play chess, you are circumscribed by the size of the board (64 squares) and the specific direction each piece is allowed to move. This is the essence of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, with its circumscribed tale leading you through the story, either to another chapter or to your untimely demise. Of course, I read all the usual classic books that kids read in school, like The Chronicles of Narnia or The Chocolate War or My Side of the Mountain, but it was these Choose Your Own Adventure Tales that stimulated my reading the most.

Would you want any children in your life (yours or relatives’) to read those too? Or, what’s your philosophy on what children read? 

Yes and no. A few years ago I found a trove of Choose Your Own Adventure novels at a garage sale. I picked one up and began to read, and I confess I was a little taken aback at how shoddy the writing was. Obviously my reading and my tastes have grown more sophisticated over the years, so I don’t want to graft an adult’s sensibility and knowledge onto a book meant for young readers, but I think there are so many other great books for kids to read. These stories feel dated to me now. 

That being said, I’m a huge believer in kids reading whatever stimulates them to read more. In elementary school I read the sports page religiously, every day, and I think my love of reading comes from that ritualized experience. If a kid picks up a Choose Your Own Adventure novel and becomes hooked, wanting to gorge more, then I’m all for it. 

I discovered some of my favorite writers in high school. What writers did you discover then? Either ones that were assigned for class or ones you found on your own.

I didn’t discover my favorite writers in high school. Over the years, I’ve found writers who really inspired my imagination and whose worlds I completely immersed myself in, but this often goes in phases: I get sucked in to a writer’s work and read as much as I can, then I move on to another writer. Probably my first “favorite” writer—someone I discovered with the help of my father—was Herman Hesse. I read everything he wrote, then started to learn German so I could read him in the original. Eventually, I fell off the Herman Hesse wagon, and replaced him with another Herman: Melville. At various points in my life I’ve absorbed the writing of Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Helle Helle, Matt Haig, Günter Grass, Per Olav Enquist, Margaret Atwood, and others. 

But the one writer I return to again and again, day after day, is arguably not a “writer” at all (though I would certainly call him a writer). Bob Dylan. More than any other artist, Dylan and his work have shaped me as a person and as a writer. Not a single day goes by that I don’t listen to his music, his brilliant voice. You want to learn how to tell a story? How to use cadence and rhythm in language? How to pursue a singular linguistic and artistic vision? Listen to Dylan. I don’t have an MFA in fiction. Dylan is my MFA in fiction.

I would take this one step further and add that there are numerous singer-songwriters who can teach writers how to be better writers. Nick Cave, John Prine, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams all come easily to mind (and probably date me). But there are many, many others. 

Are there any books that you read while writing your debut that helped shape the direction you took your own book?

Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow, Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (the entire series), and Edan Lepucki’s Time’s Mouth were very important to me while I was writing The Book of Losman. I love all these writers generally—and have read all their books—but these novels were specifically good for Losman. Each novel does the thing I absolutely love with fiction: they bend reality and give readers a new way of viewing the world. They also use fictional vehicles to explore existential questions significant to every one of us. Who am I? Where do I come from? What if I could go back in time, say, and alter this one thing? How might that change me? 

I would love for The Book of Losman to be mentioned in the same breath as these outstanding novels.  

What is a book you’ve read that you thought, Damn, I wish that was mine?

Don DeLillo’s Underworld. I love all of Delillo’s work, but much of it—even White Noise, a brilliant novel for sure—feels by comparison like apprentice work leading to this one, his magnum opus. The novel that allows him to unfurl his truly awesome talent. 

What have you been reading lately that you can recommend to Debutiful readers?

I typically read three books at a time. I wake up very early and read either in Danish or a nonfiction book, and of late my morning read has been Merete Pryds Helle’s novel Vi Kunne Alt (We Knew It All). Helle is an amazing writer whose work ought to be translated into English. Throughout the day, I read an audiobook while I’m driving or futzing around the house, and my current audiobook is my friend Sadie Dingfelder’s terrific Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey Into the Science of Sight, Memory, and the Imagination. And at night, before bed, I grab what is usually a lighter book—currently Mary Oliver’s American Primitive. I highly recommend all these books!

Other recent reads I’m particularly thrilled to recommend include Thomas Halliday’s Otherlands, a nonfiction book about deep time told in a wonderfully dramatic way; Ben Goldfarb’s two books Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter and Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet; and E. Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog, and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis. In fiction, I gotta give props to Sejal Shah and her latest book, How to Make Your Mother Cry. I also loved Kristen Gentry’s collection of stories, Mama Said, and Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen’s Copenhagen Trilogy (translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman). Two excellent debut novels that I recommend: Irish writer Soula Emmanuel’s Wild Geese and Danny Goodman’s Amerikaland. 

And, finally, I have to ask… I’m sorry. What’s next? But wait! Only use three words.

Write another novel.