How Gwendoline Riley Makes Words Fail

The writer, who grew up in northwestern England, published her first novel, Cold Water, 20 years ago when she was 22. Since then, she has published five others, often to critical praise but muted commercial success; it’s only with her latest two, First Love and My Phantoms — now set to be released in the U.S. by New York Review Books — that she has begun to reach a wider readership.