Larry Marx is CEO of The Children’s Agenda, a Rochester-based organization advocating for policy change and evidence-based solutions for the health, education, and success of children. Larry has been an organizer and leader of political campaigns and social change organizations for the past 30 years, working in more than one hundred issue and election campaigns in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and New York. Larry co-chaired the board of the national Partnership for America’s Children for three years, a network of 56 state and local children’s advocacy organizations in 44 states. He is an appointee to the Governor’s Early Childhood Advisory Council and the New York State Child Care Availability Task Force, and serves on the Executive Committee of ROC the Future and the Steering Committee of the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative. Larry received the awards named after the founders of Action for a Better Community and the Rochester chapter of the National Council for Jewish Women in 2016. He is married to Deb Rosen and has two college-age daughters, Natalie and Naomi. They make their home in the Neighborhood of the Arts in Rochester.
What character or author would be the librarian in your personal literary paradise?
It would have to be Tintin, the intrepid reporter from the Hergé series of what we now call graphic novels. The literary paradise he would bring me would be based on truth-telling, unfaltering moral purpose, travels to faraway lands, known and unknown, and breathtaking adventures with thrilling escapes. Plus, there would be lifelong friendships along the way with Chang, Captain Haddock, and my ever-faithful dog Snowy.
How do you treat the books you read? Do you make notes in them? Dog-ear the pages? Keep every page (and the spine!) pristine?
If they’re nonfiction, then quite likely I’ll write marginalia. It used to be a point of pride to mark those books up, kind of like an animal scent-marking its turf – Larry was here! I think of it as places , connections and thoughts I might want to return to, especially for work. But fiction, good fiction, is indelible in itself, so I like to leave those books untouched and immaculate.
Do you ever judge a book by its cover? What attracts you to a cover?
Wow, definitely. If I don’t know the author, then an intriguing title is my first and foremost point of attraction, followed by cool cover art.
What was the first book you read by yourself as a child?
Truly can’t remember. I’m old.
Is there a book you’ve read that you wish you didn’t?
I majored in political science and philosophy, and several Germans – especially Heidegger’s Being and Time – plunged me into both quandaries and depression. Also Stephen King’s It. I was so profoundly angry and disgusted at the turn the book takes at the end, I almost threw it away. It completely ruined for me what had been a great read over a long time.
What is the funniest book you ever read?
Jim Harrison had a series of novellas about a character named Brown Dog, an indigenous man from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula . His bawdy antics are wonderfully LOL and enlivening.
Have you ever decided NOT to do something based on what you read in a book?
Yes, continue reading philosophy.
What book marks a major milestone in your life?
A glorious summer when I lived in D.C. and read War and Peace. I bought a used hardback, 50th anniversary translation, that included a bookmark/booklet comprised of maps, character lists, and timelines that I referred to constantly. I was fully immersed for the summer summer in a deep, moving experience. And I think of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Wendy Mogel’s The Blessings of a Skinned Knee. . . The chapters of my life are definitely book-marked.
Do you have a favorite picture book? What and why?
In addition to everything Tintin, there’s a gorgeous graphic novel called Habibi, by Craig Thompson, which we read in my book club. The images are Islamic-influenced, exquisite black-and-white pen lines swirling on the page – a real feast for the eye.
What was the last book you read that challenged your world view?
I read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation as a 19-year-old and became close to being a lifelong vegetarian ever since. White Fragility – mirrors are hard on the eye (of the beholder). More recently, Ruth Ozecki’s The Book of Emptiness and Form and Grace Cho’s Tastes Like War both changed my understanding of the “madness” of people who hear voices. The Book of Emptiness and Form also has beautiful scenes of a library as a place of sanctuary, belonging and sanity, where books whisper rather than shout.
Have you ever read a book by your favorite author that you did not enjoy?
Yes, I devoured Jim Harrison’s works for many years. The language in his poetry and his nonfiction writing about food and wine stayed fresh, but the themes and language of his late novels got repetitively stale, unfortunately.
Is there an author or a book that you think is highly overrated? Why?
Sorry, Henry James is booooring.
What book would you recommend to heal a broken heart?
Pretty much anything ever written by the magnificent Louise Erdrich: Love Medicine, LaRose. . . I cannot read her without getting choked up, my heart cracking open, like Leonard Cohen’s “Ring the Bells:”
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
Is there a book you’re embarrassed to have read? What and why?
No longer being a teenager, I shall pass on this question.
What is a favorite quote from a book?
Is this cheating? Richard Wagamese, an Ojibwe author and journalist, had this to say on a wall I spotted in July at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario:
“All that we are is story. From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here: you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time.”
If you had a Narnia closet, what literary world would it lead to and what’s the first thing you would do there?
Probably David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. And I would immediately scream, run and hide for my life from the evil lurking there.
You’re on a dating app and all your matches are literary characters. Who do you select?
Can I please date authors? Padma Lakshmi, Louise Erdrich, Jesmyn Ward, Elena Ferrante (blind date), Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Nora Ephron, Jennifer Egan. . .
Where do you get your book recommendations?
I like to follow certain authors, so once I find a book I really like, I’ll start running after them until I either catch up or I’m out of breath. I’m part of a book club, too, and those become my reading priorities. And then I also like the New York Times book review, and whatever flotsam gets kicked up to my phone by the various algorithms tracking my every online move.
If you enjoyed this Reader Profile and are interested in doing one yourself, please contact me at patricia.uttaro (at) libraryweb.org.
It's All About the Book 