Jennifer Egan is Inspired (and Disturbed) by Edith Warton

The House of Mirth by Edith Warton does all the things I'm interested in doing in my own fiction: it tells a great, wrenching, hilarious vortex of a story; it raises huge questions about the culture in which it takes place (specifically about the intersection of money, beauty, and social class for women in early 20th Century America); and it reaches beyond its own time and place to resonate in a deep, timeless, human way. That's the inspiration part. The disturbing part is that its protagonist is ground to a pulp by the world in which she finds herself, and ultimately commits suicide. I've read the book four or five times, so at this point the central character, Lily Bart, feels like part of my literary DNA. It's almost as if she were actually a relative of mine: a distant aunt who taught me a lesson about how not to live by revealing to me her own tragic example.

Jennifer Egan's latest novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, is out now.

Photo: Pieter Van Hattem/Vistalux

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