Books to Guide You Out of the Dark: A Fictional Therapy Reading List

These novels are essential for emotional survival

Woman Reading by Ulisse Caputo

This is a guest post by Emma Hemingford, a playwright, screenwriter and bookseller from London. Emma runs an advice column on Substack called Fictional Therapy, which uses insights from classic literature to shed light on people's modern-day dilemmas. So, you might learn what Jane Eyre can teach us about self-reliance, or what Antigone reveals about complex family dynamics.

Today she’s sharing a reading list of novels that address the most common problems sent into her column. Hope you enjoy!

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I’ve run an advice column on Substack for almost a year now, and here’s what I’ve learned: we’re all worrying about the same things. Seriously. People submit secrets to me from every corner of the globe, and while each letter is highly specific (like this one about a neighbour with no boundaries), the same handful of emotional concerns lie at the heart of every message. Being an agony aunt is like battling Medusa: each week, you’re slaying new problems, but it’s the same tricksy monster underneath.

So today, instead of providing Reading Cures for individual worries, I’m going to provide a reading list for the five overarching Categories of Pain I’ve observed in my year as an agony aunt. In this way — not to make grand claims or anything — I’ll be providing a reading list to cure all the pain in the universe. My suggestions are novels, poems and plays, rather than self-help books, because Fictional Therapy is all about reading fiction as a way of understanding the self.

Brief disclaimer: I don’t think literature needs to be moralistic or saccharine in order to offer comfort. In fact this kind of literature is my least favourite, and many of the books I’ve suggested on this list are tragic, dark and painful. The point is they offer a strikingly original insight into the issue at hand, or else remind us we are not alone in our suffering. (I have also only included books that I genuinely loved reading, because getting lost in a good book is a cure for pain all by itself.)

1. Ageing

From the seventy-year-old reader who asked me how to face mortality, to the mid-life reader who asked me how to find purpose while waiting alone for the foot doctor, we’re all thinking about what it means to get old and, eventually, to die. Fortunately, humans have been thinking about death since the dawn of time, and using fiction to puzzle through the incomprehensibility of it. I have always been scared of dying, and I can truly tell you that reading has made me feel — a little — more at peace. Here is some of the fiction that’s helped.

• Ulysses, Crossing the Bar, In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Victorian poet Tennyson wrote a lot about dying. This was partly because he wrestled with his faith, meaning the concept of an afterlife was fraught; and partly because he lost a close friend early in life, which is what the poem ‘In Memoriam’ is about. ‘In Memoriam’ gave us the famous line 'Tis better to have loved and lost’, often misattributed to Shakespeare — and that’s not even the best bit. It’s long, though, so if you want to start somewhere shorter, Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’ — a dramatic monologue told from an elderly Odysseus’ perspective — celebrates living fully even (especially) in your later years. Finally, ‘Crossing the Bar’ is a metaphorical meditation on death, tinged with uncertainty but infused with great bravery, too.

• Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion is Austen’s tender romance about reconnecting with the one that got away. The novel reminds us that aging brings wisdom, maturity and self-knowledge — yet also that, at any age, we can still fall giddily in love.

• The Man Watching (translated by Robert Bly) by Rilke

It’s no exaggeration to say this poem changed how I feel about dying. If you’d like a deeper analysis, I talk about it in this post. To me, this poem is about coming to terms with — even taking comfort in — our inability to answer all of life’s questions.

• Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner

Zauner’s slender memoir is so wonderful: it weaves together the author’s experience of losing her mother to pancreatic cancer with her struggle to reconnect with her Korean heritage, using food as a conduit. Even though it’s sad, be warned: it will also make you hungry.

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2. Rejection

The threat or reality of rejection can feel existential. I’ve had a few fascinating letters on this topic: someone asked how to cope with being rejected by a girl they’d crossed the world to declare their love to; another wondered how to get over a co-worker’s rejection without becoming bitter. Here’s a few novels I’d recommend if you’re feeling spurned:

• Youth by J. M. Coetzee

Coetzee was writing auto-fiction before it was trendy. In this fictionalised memoir, a young man (perhaps, the author) tries to establish himself as a writer in Cape Town and then in a bleakly drawn London. The narrator is rejected professionally, romantically, socially — the works. It’s extremely funny, and I remember feeling very Seen when I read it in my early twenties.

• The Seagull by Chekhov

Everyone in my favourite Chekhov play is being rejected by someone: by their mother, their desired lover, or by the literary establishment at large. So how is it that this play is so very funny and humane? You have to read The Seagull — it will make you laugh and break your heart.

• Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

Like Coetzee’s novel, Lerner’s smart debut is about a young writer struggling to establish himself, but this time on a poetry fellowship in Madrid. It’s so funny, filled with self-doubt and insecurity, and worth reading just for the scene where its protagonist gets lost going to buy coffee for the woman he’s sleeping with: ‘I wasn’t capable of fetching coffee in this country, let alone understanding its civil war. I hadn’t even seen the Alhambra.’

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3. Navigating Friendship

I’ve received so many letters about friendship during my tenure as an agony aunt: one reader asked what to do about a best friend she no longer liked; another told me she’d got the ick after her friend had an affair with a married man. Such is our culture’s obsession with romance that navigating friendship can feel like mapping uncharted waters — but these two modern classics chronicle platonic relationships beautifully:

• My Brilliant Friend (and The Neopolitan Quartet) by Elena Ferrante

A gorgeous, complex, gritty, lyrical meditation on the friendship between Elena and Lila, two girls growing up in working-class Naples in the 1950s. This is hardly an original recommendation, but my god it’s good. It captures the intensity of friendship like few novels I’ve read.

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Again, this is a novel that has been on a lot of must-read lists, but I’d argue that’s because you simply must read it. Zevin’s story follows two friends who start a video-game company together. What I love about it is that it segues between Sadie and Sam’s perspectives with effortless grace, reminding us that there are two sides to every story; a vital lesson when navigating friendship. I love it for its realism too: Zevin understands both the passion of a true friendship, and the fallow periods; as well as the inevitable distance that comes with age. I love it.

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4. Feeling Stuck

There are many ways to be stuck: you can be stuck at work, like this reader, or stuck romantically, unsure whether you should leap back into the dating pool or not. Whatever the case, these novels will speak to you:

• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Moshfegh’s ironically titled novel reads like a thriller: it’s about a disaffected young woman in early 2000s New York who attempts to escape her emotional numbness and the world’s chaos by drugging herself into a year-long hibernation. It’s a terrifying novel, really; but one you can’t put down.

• Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

As an antidote to Moshfegh’s disassociative masterpiece, I recommend Philip Pullman. Really, if you are feeling stuck, I recommend any brilliantly written children’s book — you could try Katherine Rundell too. This is because although there is moral ambiguity in all (good) children’s novels, there are also characters who know what must be done, and try to do it. Northern Lights — a fantasy novel in which human souls exist outside the body in the form of animal companions — is an epic adventure that spans universes.

• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Beckett’s tragicomic absurdist drama is about two men who are literally stuck, waiting for Godot. They can’t leave, or they might miss him — but will he ever arrive? Beckett is so good at finding kernels of hope and humanity amidst the confusion and suffering of existence.

• And as a bonus, here’s my favourite poem about embracing the unknown, by Sheenagh Pugh.

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5. Finding (the right person to) Love

One reader asked how to trust again after getting her heartbroken. And my first ever problem came from a reader asking what counted as a red flag on a date — we all want to know who, how and when to love. And novels have been asking that question for centuries…

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

In this classic, gothic bildungsroman, a resilient governess overcomes hardship to find independence and true love on her own terms. Jane Eyre inspires as a heroine who stays true to her principles while also loving passionately, refusing to sacrifice either desire or integrity.

• All Fours by Miranda July

July’s explosive novel has taken the world by storm and you should read it too. Its middle-aged narrator sets out on a journey to redefine what love and romance might look like in her life.

• Jack by Marilynne Robinson

I’ll admit that I haven’t read the other novels in Robinson’s Gilead quartet, but Jack — a romance set against the backdrop of segregated, mid-century St Louis — might be the most beautiful romance I’ve ever read. I love how much time its lovers spend just talking, something that often gets bypassed in zippy movie rom-coms.

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And — as a catch-all cure for pain — I always recommend reading Pride and Prejudice. Austen’s best novel offers us something invaluable: a way of seeing the world that is playful, without becoming cynical; morally serious, yet never lecturing. It is always a good time to read a masterpiece.

Do you have novels you’d recommend in any of these categories? I want to hear about them in the comments! And, if you’ve enjoyed this post, I’d love you to subscribe to my Substack, Fictional Therapy. Happy reading.