Summer Reading: Author and Actor Ron McLarty

Summer Reading: Author and Actor Ron McLarty

If you don't recognize Ron McLarty's face, you must not have turned on a TV. The East Providence native has appeared in countless television shows (as well as films), perhaps most recognizably as Judge Wright on Law and Order. But the actor is also a novelist, and has also applied his narrative skills to creating compelling audio books from his published works. GoLocalProv nabbed McLarty at home in NYC between post-production work on a film and recording his newest audiobook to get his five favorite books... well-chosen classics perfect for late-summer reading.

The Moon & Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham

This novel was composed ninety years ago but it might as well be hot off the press mainly because of Maugham's flawless storytelling. It's really a re-telling of Gauguin's story only in this novel the tortured spirit is an Englishman who abandons his family and friends to pursue painting. It's funny and sad and often cruel but a wild page turner.

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The Americans: A Social History of the United States, by JC Furnas

It's a history of the U.S. without the politics. When I re-read it (as I often do) I'm struck by the wildness and bravery of everyone who got to this country by hook or by crook.  It's just great (and surprising) history.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is my favorite Fitzgerald. The great critic and teacher, Matthew J. Bruccoli says it better than I ever could, "The Great Gatsby does not proclaim the nobility of the human spirit; it is not politically correct; it does not reveal how to solve the problems of life; it delivers no fashionable or comforting messages. It is just a masterpiece."

Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather

I think Willa Cather is as great a novelist as we have had in this country. In this book she re-interprets the role that the great French priest (and later Bishop of Santa Fe) Juan Bautista Lamy, played in re-establishing the Catholic Church in New Mexico several hundred years after the Spanish evacuated their own priests. It's the journey of a young man in France to an old man in the west of America. It says more about us as a people than any book I can think of.

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This one begins in the 19th century and moves into the early 20th century.  Set in the Caribbean Court of South America it follows three amazing personalities in a lifelong search for ideal love.  This book rocks and the author received the Nobel Prize in 1982.