Alice Cary

Fiction

Alice McDermott

Interview by Alice Cary

No one can deny that Child of My Heart is an important novel for Alice McDermott. Readers have been waiting for a follow-up since she won the National Book Award for Charming Billy in 1998. McDermott, however, isn't one to be ruffled by all the hoopla that descended upon her after the award or the resulting pressure to publish.

She's got more pressing, day-to-day worries: a fourth-grade son, a 15-year-old daughter, a 17-year-old son, their homework, after-school activities, a neuroscientist husband, a house to run in Bethesda, Maryland, and writing seminars to teach at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Despite all this, McDermott is easy to talk to and, yes, completely charming. She seems a woman who can be relied on to remain calm and resolute amid almost any storm.

Certainly a storm of publicity rained upon her when she won the National Book Award, a big surprise to many in the literary world, who expected Tom Wolfe to walk away with the honor for A Man in Full. McDermott was so unassuming she didn't even have an acceptance speech prepared.

But then, lots of things happen unexpectedly for McDermott—like her latest novel. The author is quick to admit that Child of My Heart isn't the novel she intended to publish. She was working on two other books, as is her habit (if one isn't going well, she'll switch to another). And then September 11 happened.

As for many of us, McDermott found the world as she knew it turned upside down. Gradually, she started to write again, abandoning the two books she had been working on and launching a new project. Child of My Heart took only six months to complete.

"This was definitely the fastest I've ever written a book," she says. "I had the voice," she adds, and the words came pouring out. The voice belonged to a teenage girl, but McDermott didn't quite know how to categorize what she was writing. "At first I wasn't sure what this was: a short story, a novella, a novel."

Then her longtime agent, Harriet Wasserman—to whom the book is dedicated—stepped in. "I have a wonderful agent who has been by my side my whole publishing career," McDermott explains. Wasserman asked what she was working on, heard her discuss the story, demanded to see the manuscript and decided to publish it right away. McDermott remembers sitting in New York with Wasserman and having her shuffle through the pages, deciding immediately on the title by pointing to a phrase that appears early in the novel.

The book is definitely a child of McDermott's heart, and in the aftermath of 9/11, it's a story about mothering and nurturing, as well as the absence of those things. While nothing in the book is related to terrorist events, many of the themes seem to make sense when viewed from those shadows.

Child of My Heart takes place in East Hampton during a long-ago summer, a season of innocence, comfort and change. There's a pervading sense of melancholy—a sadness that appears in much of her writing, McDermott admits, despite her exceedingly cheerful demeanor. With no chapter divisions and few breaks, the novel reads much like a long short story, a sort of time capsule of a forgotten summer. Unlike her previous novels, it's a purely chronological narrative, but like the previous books, it's all about memory and storytelling.

"Yes, the story really did come out chronologically," McDermott says, "which is also very unusual for me." McDermott shares several traits with her protagonist, a smart, literary 15-year-old named Theresa, the only child of doting parents who left the city so their daughter might have better opportunities in life. (McDermott was born in Brooklyn in 1953, the daughter of first-generation Irish Catholics who later moved to Long Island.) Theresa is named after a saint, and she definitely has saintly qualities. As she explains in the book's first sentence, she is a nurturer: "I had in my care that summer four dogs, three cats, the Moran kids, Daisy, my eight-year-old cousin; and Flora, the toddler child of a local artist."

Theresa, Daisy and Flora form the heart of the novel. Daisy is the ignored and resented middle child of a big Irish family, who is further plagued by ceaseless bruises and an ongoing fever that no adult notices. McDermott acknowledges that Child of My Heart shows the influence of many of her favorite writers. First and foremost is Nabokov and Lolita, as Theresa becomes Lolita to young Flora's father, a famous, aging painter at the end of his career.

"This was a great opportunity for me to pay homage to some of my favorite writers, especially Nabokov. I think of this book as how Lolita herself might have told the story," McDermott explains, adding, "It's also a story that's all about high summer and enchantment.

But all is not fun and games as Theresa's budding sexuality takes control of her relationship with Flora's father. McDermott admits with a laugh that even she, the mother of a teenage girl, became a bit uncomfortable with the way the plot unfolded at times. "My daughter hasn't read the whole thing yet," she says, apparently thankful.

Just as she didn't plan to write this novel, McDermott didn't exactly plan her literary career. She wrote plenty of skits as a student in Catholic schools, and her mother always encouraged her to write down anything that was bothering her. Nonetheless, she claims she wasn't a particularly good student and chose to attend the State University of New York in Oswego only because she heard it was a good party school.

After graduation, McDermott went to work as a typist for a vanity publisher. Later she received a graduate degree in writing from the University of New Hampshire, and the faculty there put her in touch with Wasserman, her agent. In 1982, Random House published her first book, A Bigamist's Daughter, a novel about an editor at a vanity publisher who falls in love with a Southern author.

Today, after two decades of success as a novelist, McDermott remains gentle and approachable, unlikely to intimidate. Asked, for instance, whether she belongs to a book group ("yes") and what they are reading, she doesn't spout literary theory or try to sound scholarly. Instead, she replies, "Oh, just the same things other fourth-grade moms are reading."

When told that many will soon be flocking to read Child of My Heart, she says with heartfelt gratitude: "Thank goodness for book groups!"

 

Writer and outdoor enthusiast Alice Cary is the author of Parents' Guide to Hiking and Camping.

No one can deny that Child of My Heart is an important novel for Alice McDermott. Readers have been waiting for a follow-up since she won the National Book Award for Charming Billy in 1998. McDermott, however, isn't one to be ruffled by all the hoopla that descended upon her after the award or the […]
Children's & YA

Kathi Appelt

Interview by Alice Cary

"I think I've been writing this book since I was in the third grade," says Kathi Appelt of her new picture-book biography, Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America.

While growing up in Houston, Appelt often helped her grandmother an ardent Democrat at party headquarters, especially during the Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign. "My grandmother was so fond of Lady Bird," Appelt recalls. "She felt that Lady Bird was the epitome of a Southern woman. She loved her, even though they never met."

Later, as an adult, Appelt realized how influential Lady Bird had been. Speaking to BookPage from her home in College Station, Texas, Appelt noted that "Lady Bird is a tiny woman, very quiet. As diminutive as she is physically, she made a huge difference." An advocate for the environment, Lady Bird had a special love for wildflowers, and she worked to preserve them first in her home state of Texas, and later through the Highway Beautification Act, passed by Congress in 1965 after Lady Bird went head-to-head with the billboard lobby. "If you look at First Ladies," Appelt says, "nobody has impacted legislation the way that Lady Bird did . . . none of them with the exception, perhaps, of Eleanor Roosevelt." Ironically, when Appelt proposed her picture book five years ago, her editor said she was interested, but commented that a college intern in the office didn't know who Lady Bird was.

Even those who are familiar with Lady Bird might be surprised to learn about her dramatic childhood. Born in 1912 in an East Texas mansion, Claudia Taylor earned her unusual nickname from a nanny who called her "purty as a lady bird" (which happens to be a colorful beetle). When the little girl was five, her mother fell down the mansion's grand stairway and subsequently died from blood poisoning. After her mother's death, Claudia's father often took his little girl along to his general store, but when he had to work late, she slept upstairs on a cot beside the coffins he sold. Thankfully, her father soon sent for her Aunt Effie to help.

Appelt discovered so many rich details in Lady Bird's childhood that they threatened to take over the book. "You can't imagine how much I took out," she recalls. "[Her childhood] was so interesting that I just hated to cut." As a result, she admits, "It's my most heavily revised book ever. I think I probably rewrote it 50 times." Appelt was overjoyed to collaborate with her good friend, Joy Fisher Hein, as illustrator. Hein is a certified Texas Master Naturalist, an accomplishment that definitely came in handy for this project. Her lavish illustrations brim not only with wildflowers, but also with the Texas swamps of Lady Bird's childhood, a vibrant Mexican scene from her honeymoon and the cherry blossoms that adorn Washington, D.C., every spring. "Joy's love is wildflowers," Appelt says. "The details and her exquisite attention to small things are what make the book so beautiful."

At the end of the book is a helpful page identifying various wildflowers, as well as a page about the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin. Both author and illustrator visited the center and did extensive research. Although they didn't meet their subject (Lady Bird, now 92, has suffered a stroke and no longer gives interviews), the former first lady sent a letter after she saw a proof of the book. "She very graciously thanked us and said she loved the book," the author notes.

Appelt has written many children's books, several books of poetry and short stories, but now she's trying her hand as something new an animal fantasy for middle-grade readers. She is tentative about the book in these early writing stages, but chuckles when asked about her popular, hilarious Bubba and Beau series, three picture books illustrated by Arthur Howard. The books feature very short chapters guaranteed not only to make preschoolers cry for more, but also to leave adult readers chuckling. Three more Bubba and Beau adventures are under contract, Appelt reports, and the next will likely feature her Down-South duo going trick-or-treating. "I would love to write nothing but Bubba and Beau," Appelt admits, "because I have so much fun writing them."

Alice Cary's favorite place to see wildflowers is beside mountain trails.

"I think I've been writing this book since I was in the third grade," says Kathi Appelt of her new picture-book biography, Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America. While growing up in Houston, Appelt often helped her grandmother an ardent Democrat at party headquarters, especially during the Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign. […]
YA FictionYA

Suzanne Fisher Staples

Interview by Alice Cary

Every time Suzanne Fisher Staples hears about fighting in Afghanistan, she worries. I wonder about people I have known, she says. I always hope they are safe. Her latest book for young readers, the deeply touching novel Under the Persimmon Tree, is set in Afghanistan and Pakistan, countries she knows well. She worked for 10 years as a reporter for United Press International, based in Hong Kong and then India, and later spent four years in Pakistan on assignment for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). No doubt some reviewers will compare Under the Persimmon Tree to Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the bestseller set in Afghanistan, Pakistan and America. Staples says she loves Hosseini’s novel, adding, The Kite Runner gives you an idea of the suffering of people no matter what class they come from, and this very ancient Persian sensibility that is so beautiful and so essentially Afghan. Staples first visited Afghanistan in the late 1970s, just before the Russian invasion. I left the region in 1982, she says, and have been haunted by the plight of the Afghan people, the terrible suffering they have endured ever since. After returning to the States, she began writing young adult novels. Not surprisingly, much of her fiction takes place in lands where she once lived and reported: Shiva’s Fire is set in India, while Newbery Honor-winning Shabanu and its sequel, Haveli, are set in Pakistan. Staples discovered that writing fiction was a way to deal with the many incidents she witnessed during her reporting years. It’s a funny thing, she says, I think when you’re a newspaper reporter, you really have to set your emotional reactions aside to be effective. My way was saying, well, I’ll sort this out later. Under the Persimmon Tree began as a short story for a young adult collection called 911: The Book of Help Authors Respond to the Tragedy (Open Court). On September 11, 2001, Staples was already immersed in her own family tragedy her mother had just died at midnight, and she was on the phone with a funeral director when her brother told her to look at the television. She spent much of the next 18 months lecturing about the areas of the world that were suddenly in the headlines.

She also started writing. I set aside the stories people told me about living in a war zone, Staples says, a war that they didn’t want and that they felt no personal connection to aside from the fact that it was destroying their land and taking away everything they had. By the end of the story, she realized she had the skeleton for a novel. Under the Persimmon Tree alternates between two narrators: Najmah, a young Afghan girl whose father and brother are unwillingly taken away by the Taliban to fight, and whose mother and newborn brother are blown up in an air raid. She makes her way to Pakistan, where she meets Nusrat, an American woman married to an Afghan doctor who is missing. While the book is fiction, Staples says most if not all of the incidents are based on stories Afghans told her, including the story of a young girl who witnessed the death of her mother and brother.

She gathered much literary fodder while working in Pakistan with USAID and interviewing women. Staples recalls, At the end of the day we would sit down and build a fire and prepare a meal and eat, and afterward, while the fire was dying down, they would tell stories. They told me extraordinary stories about themselves, and the stories were sometimes mixed with mythology. I realized that Americans really need to hear these stories. Staples now works in a more bucolic setting, on a piece of Pennsylvania farmland where she and her husband recently built a new home. Does she miss her reporting days? You know, there’s not very much of me that misses it. For one thing, I’m older. I’ll be 60 this year and I know that we’re not invincible. And now that I’ve been writing fiction for a while, I realize that I’m so much better suited to writing fiction. What interests me most is basic human motivations. I think that we all have the same motivations, but we all have different circumstances.

Every time Suzanne Fisher Staples hears about fighting in Afghanistan, she worries. I wonder about people I have known, she says. I always hope they are safe. Her latest book for young readers, the deeply touching novel Under the Persimmon Tree, is set in Afghanistan and Pakistan, countries she knows well. She worked for 10 […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Paula Danziger

Interview by Alice Cary

Paula Danziger owes a slice of her success to a pizza party. Her popular books about Amber Brown were inspired by a phone conversation with her then seven-year-old niece, Carrie, who was obviously upset.

"She was a crazed person," Danziger remembers.
"Aunt, we're having a pizza party at school," Carrie told her.
"Calm down," Danziger said. "You've had pizza before. What's really going on?"
"It's a going-away party for my best friend, Danny," Carrie confessed.

The result of that exchange was Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon, about Amber and her very best friend Justin, who is about to move. The feisty, pigtailed heroine has taken on a life of her own ever since, and young readers can now find this title in paperback. The latest installment is Amber Brown Goes Fourth, in which Amber enters fourth grade and looks for a new best friend. Next month Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit will be published, and more of her adventures are in the works.

Danziger's niece, now 13, is sometimes embarrassed by her literary counterpart, especially her hair. Carrie notes that the Amber shown on the cover of the paperback editions "has split ends," and, frankly, "shouldn't be wearing those stupid pigtails in the fourth grade."

In response, Danziger may grant Amber a haircut in a future book. Unfortunately, the new do will be "a bad one," she adds. Of course, Amber has always been wise beyond her years. Danziger originally envisioned her story in picture book form, but during the revision process discovered that it needed an older voice. As a result, the novels are chapter books for beginning readers, an audience often neglected in the publishing world.

Even Danziger has a literary counterpart in the series in the form of Amber's pal and confidante, Aunt Pam. The second book, You Can't Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown took off after Danziger invited her niece to London and Carrie came down with—well, you guessed it.

Despite the many real-life details tucked into the fiction, there are important differences between Carrie and Amber. Carrie's parents remain happily married, while Amber's have divorced. What's more, Amber is an only child; Carrie has three brothers, who have given Danziger literary fuel for other books.

While much lies in store for Amber, Danziger has vowed never to write about her niece after she graduates from sixth grade. "It just gets too complicated after that," Danziger says. "It's already complicated enough. In the book I'm writing now, she's much angrier than I ever thought she would be."

In contrast, the author comes across as a warm woman overflowing with ideas and energy. She divides her time between New York City, Woodstock in upstate New York, and London. She takes time out from writing to host a monthly literary segment for a BBC children's show called Live and Kicking. (Her popularity is secure in Great Britain. She was nominated for the British Book Award for children, but native Ann Fine, of Mrs. Doubtfire fame, edged her out.)

Perhaps some of Amber's newfound anger is rooted in Danziger's childhood, which had its share of complications, described in the well-received 1974 book that launched her career, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, about 13-year-old Marcy Lewis.

"[The book] is very much my growing up," she says. "At age 12, I was put on tranquilizers when I should have gotten help," she continues. "There was nothing major and awful, I just didn't feel [my family] was supportive and emotionally generous. My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother is very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood."

Danziger sums up the subject with one of her trademark quips: "I always say that the family would now be called dysfunctional; back then we were just Danzigers."

One of the things that's seen her through good times and bad is her sense of humor. She even names many of her characters after favorite comedians, such as Ernie Kovacs.

The origin of Amber Brown's name, however, is a joke between fellow writers. When author and illustrators Marc and Laurie Brown-the creators of a multitude of best-selling books about Arthur the Aardvark and his sister D.W.-were expecting a child, Danziger suggested that they name their baby Amber.

"Then everyone would call her Crayola Face," Danziger told them. Instead, the Browns named their daughter Eliza, and now she receives advance copies of the Amber Brown books for critique.

Before turning to writing, Danziger was a junior high school teacher. While her students provided plenty of raw material for the beginning writer, she strongly recommends that anyone interested in the craft take acting lessons, as she did, on the advice of a teacher.

"They're wonderful for anyone who wants to learn about characterization and motivation," she explains. "No matter what age you are, if you want something more than anything else, but can't have it, to me, that becomes a plot."

As for her own plots, she says, "I think my books talk about kids learning to like and respect themselves and each other. You can't write a message book; you just tell the best story you know how to tell."

An important mentor was poet John Ciardi, whose children Danziger babysat during her college years. After learning of their sitter's literary interests, Ciardi and his wife took Danziger to literary conferences.

"He taught me a lot about language," she remembers. He suggested that she analyze one poem by underlining the funny lines in red and the serious lines in blue. By the end of the poem, Ciardi said, you get purple.

"That's what I always write toward," Danziger says, "that mixture. I think that's why Amber Brown works: the books are funny and sad, and that's what people respond to."

Danziger's titles alone are often enough to catch the attention of adults and young readers alike. Take, for instance, Remember Me to Harold Square and its recent sequel set in London, Thames Doesn't Rhyme with James. Although written for an older audience than the Amber Brown books, they have the same witty humor and quick phrasing that appeal to kids today.

Of course, appealing to kids and appealing to their parents is not always the same thing. Danziger has noticed this at book signings for Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? Some parents have told her they would never buy such a book for their child; others say they can't wait to get it in the hands of their son or daughter.

"You know [the latter] are probably pretty good parents," Danziger says, "because they've got a sense of humor and they're not afraid."

Alice Cary has interviewed many writers for this publication.

Paula Danziger owes a slice of her success to a pizza party. Her popular books about Amber Brown were inspired by a phone conversation with her then seven-year-old niece, Carrie, who was obviously upset. "She was a crazed person," Danziger remembers."Aunt, we're having a pizza party at school," Carrie told her."Calm down," Danziger said. "You've […]
Children's & YA

Kevin Henkes

Interview by Alice Cary

A baby brother gets all the attention. A weekend visitor acts conniving and rude. A little girl gets lost. Kevin Henkes’ picture books and novels are a celebration of the ordinary, written and illustrated with extraordinary aplomb.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Wisconsin native and resident describes his childhood and adult life as ordinary, saying: "It’s amazing how certain things in everyday life can turn into a book, and the people who inspired it never know it."

Such is the case with Henkes’ latest creation, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse in which Lilly, one of his indomitable mouse heroines, receives a spectacular present from her Grammy: a purse that plays music when opened, along with "movie-star sunglasses" studded with rhinestones and hung on a chain. The accessories are the perfect complement to Lilly’s trademark red cowboy boots and a crown.

Inspiration for the story struck several years ago when Henkes was on a book tour, waiting in an airport. He believes he was in Boise, Idaho, when he spotted a girl with a pocketbook just like Lilly’s.

"She was driving her father crazy," Henkes says. "It was one of those moments when the light bulb really goes off. I thought the pocketbook would be perfect for Lilly. So I got on the airplane and began writing."

In the plot that evolved, life is pretty wonderful for Lilly. In addition to her new purse, she loves school and idolizes her hip teacher, Mr. Slinger, who greets the class with "howdy," not hello, wears "artistic" shirts, and believes rows of desks are boring. Instead of rows, Lilly’s offbeat instructor suggests: "Do you rodents think you can handle a semicircle?"

Mr. Slinger is definitely cool. That is, until he is forced to take Lilly’s purse away, after she refuses to stop showing it off and disturbing the class. And thus a new mouse predicament is born. Lilly doesn’t take any challenge lightly, as readers discovered in Julius, the Baby of the World, in which she torments her baby brother by proclaiming him the "germ of the world." (Henkes was inspired for this one when his niece didn’t like her new role as an older sister.)

Lilly is part of an entire Henkes Mousedom, whose inhabitants can also be found in the Caldecott Honor winner Owen; Chrysanthemum; Chester’s Way; Sheila Rae, the Brave; and A Weekend with Wendell. None of Henkes’s mice, by the way — even the quieter ones — could ever be described as meek. While some characters reappear in several books, Lilly has yet to cross paths with the fearless Sheila Rae, who would definitely be a worthy match.

"They haven’t officially met," Henkes says, "but I think about [such an encounter] a lot. It seems like there’s a lot of possibility there. And I get letters from kids asking when they’ll meet."

Henkes’ fondness for rodents doesn’t stem from personal experience. He has never had a pet mouse, only uninvited house mice. In fact, his first four books featured people. As his writing became more humorous, he decided animals would help tap into this fun, so he used rabbit characters in Bailey Goes Camping, in which a young rabbit is left behind when his older siblings go camping. Next, he switched to mice in A Weekend with Wendell, and also in Chester’s Way, in which Lilly makes her debut.

"I liked Lilly in a way that I had never liked a character of mine before," he says. "I thought there was more about her to tell, so I stuck with it."

Older readers know yet another side of the creator, whose novels include Protecting Marie (just published in September), Two Under Par, Words of Stone, and The Zebra Wall — books that Henkes says feel like "very separate worlds" from his picture books.

"I’ve always thought of myself as an artist," he says, "but now I’m beginning to like the writing more — although it’s nice to go back and forth."

Henkes describes his novels in terms that apply to all of his books: "quiet family stories that mirror my life as a child pretty closely."

Henkes was the fourth of five children, for six years the baby. No, he didn’t torment his youngest sibling as Lilly does Julius, but says he clearly remembers feeling jealous.

The Henkes clan made regular visits to the library, where Henkes fell in love with many works, chief among them the illustrations of Crockett Johnson, Garth Williams, the works of William Steig, and a book called Rain Makes Applesauce, by Julian Scheer, illustrated by Marvin Bileck.

He and the other kids in his family also took art lessons at a nearby museum. But it was Kevin’s older brother, not Kevin, who was considered the artist of the family.

"I was frustrated," Henkes says, "because he is six years older than I am and could always draw and paint more realistically. And he always took the nice, fine brushes, while I got stuck with the fat, scraggly ones."

Their paths eventually diverged, however. The older brother now owns a print shop. Kevin continued to draw and paint. And lest you wonder where his characters get their confidence and tenacity, listen to how his career began: At age 19, Kevin gathered "his life savings" and spent a week in New York City, showing his portfolio to his favorite children’s publishers.

"I was convinced," he says, "I would come home with a book contract." He started making the rounds on a Monday, and by Tuesday morning had a contract with Susan Hirschman at Greenwillow, his first choice of a publisher. Yes, even ordinary lives are not without their crowning moments.

"I was excited," he says, "in a way that maybe I haven’t been since in my book life. It is still a very big deal when Susan calls."

Now, however, the person most likely to call is his 14-month-old Will — Henkes’ and his wife’s very own baby of the world. Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse is dedicated to Will. Henkes shares child care shifts with his wife, a painter, each working about four hours a day in separate studios, both in spare bedrooms. Although Henkes works fewer hours than he did before becoming a father, the books keep coming. When we spoke, he had just finished a novel, Sun and Spoon, to be published in the fall of 1997. For his next project, he’s mulling several ideas, including another Lilly book, another Owen book, and a novel.

"I need to just let things simmer for a while," he says, "and see what’s going to come to the surface."

Alice Cary is a writer in Groton, Mass.

A baby brother gets all the attention. A weekend visitor acts conniving and rude. A little girl gets lost. Kevin Henkes’ picture books and novels are a celebration of the ordinary, written and illustrated with extraordinary aplomb. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the Wisconsin native and resident describes his childhood and adult life as ordinary, saying: "It’s […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Rosemary Wells

Interview by Alice Cary

Rosemary Wells is one busy lady. Her prolific career as a children’s author has spanned more than 40 years and produced at least 120 books that are cherished by children around the world. However, her latest novel, On the Blue Comet, took a bit longer than most to complete—30 years, to be precise.

Three decades ago, Wells created the book’s hero, Oscar, an 11-year-old who lives in Cairo, Illinois, in the 1930s. She wrote several chapters, only to reach a moment when Oscar comes close to being killed in a bank robbery. That’s when he somehow ends up on a train—and not just any train: a Lionel electric train.

The creator of Max and Ruby turns her talents to a time-travel adventure that doubles as a history lesson.

At that point, Wells was stuck. Very stuck. “I knew that he had jumped onto the train, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I didn’t know that it was a time-travel book,” she remembers.

That changed three years ago, when a revelation about Oscar came to her in the shower. “It occurred to me, and I immediately went to the computer and rewrote the whole thing. I just wrote it out flat,” Wells says by phone from Connecticut, where she lives, writes, illustrates and makes creative sparks fly.

On the Blue Comet was well worth the wait. This thrilling adventure and takes young readers across the country in the 1930s and ’40s. “It’s about Oscar, it’s about the Midwest, and it’s about how we were during the Depression, and how people lived through it,” Wells explains. “It’s about history and the war coming.”

She adds, "Although I was born during the war, in 1943, I still had enough contact, as most of us did back then, to know the Depression age, and to connect with the first half of the twentieth century pretty easily."

Wells, whose books include the novels Lincoln and His Boys and Red Moon at Sharpsburg, loves to dig deep into history. "There are all kinds of guessing games in the book," she says of On The Blue Comet. "There are, I think, 15 presidents mentioned. I had a lot of fun having an 11-year-old John Kennedy appear."

After Oscar’s mother dies, he and his father immerse themselves in creating elaborate Lionel train layouts. However, when his father loses his job, they are forced to sell their house and beloved trains. Dad heads to California to find work, leaving Oscar in the care of his fussy aunt and prissy cousin. The boy’s salvation comes from a kind stranger he meets, an encounter that eventually leads him to the bank on the day of the robbery. Once launched on his page-turning adventure, Oscar meets many more strangers, including Alfred Hitchcock and a kindhearted young actor nicknamed Dutch.

Of Dutch, Wells exclaims: “Oh my goodness, that’s Ronald Reagan! He was a friend of my father’s and was the head of the actor’s union in Hollywood for a number of years. My father was a playwright, and was his co-chairman, and knew him well.”

Well draws an intriguing comparison between the stage and screen and the creative process she taps into each day: "A writer has to create is an entirely different world from the reality of their own life, and enter it much as an actor has to. It's like being in a completely different world, one that's made up by yourself, and that could end also in madness. There are people who do this and . . . end up completely insane, and it is hoped that doesn't happen. Writers really create entire worlds and then walk into them and illuminate them."

That's pretty heady stuff coming from a children's author who's beloved for bringing to life such characters as Max and Ruby, Noisy Nora, McDuff and Yoko, as well as entire kindergarten classrooms. What draws all her characters and books together? Emotional content, Wells says. “It’s the center of my writing. And this is why it works. I have to make sure that the emotional content is valid, and something that is wholesome and worthwhile, even if noncompliant.”

Noncompliant?

“All my heroes are noncompliant in one way or another,” she responds. “I’m a very noncompliant person, but with very conservative standards. I have the belief system of a typical person born in 1943. As far as kids go, I believe in good citizenship, good behavior, kindness to others, no time spent in front of the television, and all kinds of things like that.”

When creating her cheerful, colorful illustrations, she works with pastels, color pencils, ink, watercolor, gouache—all kinds of different media, she says, except acrylics and oil. However, Wells wasn't about to tackle the more complicated illustrations planned for On the Blue Comet, which were done in full color and wondrous, glowing detail by Bagram Ibatoulline.

"Oh heavens, I can't do that!" Wells says. "Bagram Ibatoulline is a fabulous illustrator. I can't draw stuff like that anymore than you could. I draw Max and Ruby, but just because I'm an illustrator doesn't mean I can do all kinds of illustrations, and this required something very different from what I do."

The artist's directive was to make Oscar's world look like one drawn by Norman Rockwell. "Everybody who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s would wait on Saturday afternoon for the Saturday Evening Post to come and see if Rockwell had a cover,” Wells says. “I would sit looking at the cover for an hour, because it was the age of high-definition, representational art that was done by real artists, not from photographs, and it was wonderful."

Years ago, in an essay called "The Well-Tempered Children's Book," Wells wrote: "I believe that all stories and plays and paintings and songs and dances come from a palpable but unseen space in the cosmos."

Wells notes: "I said those things when I was 30, and now I'm 67 and they're still true." I'm not an original thinking brain, but I do have this window that I can open. So I use that all the time."

Wells looks back fondly on what she calls the “Golden Age of Childhood,” from about 1920 to 1968: “I think there was a time there when children were taught better manners, there was very little sense of entitlement, they were expected to behave themselves and work. They were also greatly loved, and everybody had more time. I think there’s a lack of time now that marks childhood in the Western world.”

Rosemary Wells—the extremely talented, noncompliant and inexhaustible children’s author—sums up her ongoing career with eloquence: “I do my best to contribute to what I consider to be the only legitimate part of American childhood culture left, which is books.”

Rosemary Wells is one busy lady. Her prolific career as a children’s author has spanned more than 40 years and produced at least 120 books that are cherished by children around the world. However, her latest novel, On the Blue Comet, took a bit longer than most to complete—30 years, to be precise. Three decades […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Jeff Kinney

Interview by Alice Cary

One night last summer, author Jeff Kinney was astounded to see that the upcoming book in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, The Ugly Truth, was number two on Amazon’s bestseller list.

“I didn’t even know what ‘The Ugly Truth’ was yet,” he remembers. “They’re printing five million of these things, and I hadn’t even decided.”

His series chronicling the adventures of middle school student Greg Heffley is definitely a publishing phenomenon, having sold more than 37 million copies in the U.S. and millions more in 30 countries around the world, inspired a movie and eagerly anticipated sequel (for which he is executive producer) and catapulted this quiet cartoonist to sudden fame.

“It feels like I go off and pretend to be an author, and pretend to make movies, and then come back to my normal life.”

“It’s been a strange life so far,” Kinney says.

And no doubt getting stranger. On November 8, the day before The Ugly Truth goes on sale, Kinney will share the podium with Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice at Barbara Bush’s “Celebration of Reading” in Dallas. Later in the month he’ll watch a Wimpy Kid balloon float by in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.

All of this might not have happened had not a savvy editor, Charles Kochman of Abrams, recognized his talent. While a student at the University of Maryland, Kinney cartooned for the campus newspaper and studied (of all things) computer science and criminal justice. He planned to become a federal law enforcement agent until a hiring freeze squashed that idea. While trying to break into syndicate cartooning, he collected several years’ worth of what he calls “soul-crushing” rejection letters.

The problem was his drawing style: “I could never get a consistent line,” Kinney says. “My hand would never obey what my mind wanted it to do. And still, it’s very hard for me to draw.” That’s why he draws Greg as a middle schooler, although he originally had an adult audience in mind. After Kochman saw Kinney’s work at Comic-Con in 2006, Abrams decided to publish Diary of a Wimpy Kid as a children’s book, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The resulting hoopla feels “make-believe,” Kinney says, adding, “It feels like I go off and pretend to be an author, and pretend to make movies, and then come back to my normal life.”

His normal life takes place on a quiet street in Plainville, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and two sons, ages five and seven. From there Kinney heads off to a day job as executive producer and creative director of a website called Poptropica, and returns to be assistant soccer coach for his son’s team.

Through it all, Kinney remains remarkably grounded, seeming as if he has all the time in the world, despite the fact that a film crew from CNN would soon arrive on the cloudy autumn day when we talked. At times, however, the balancing act is worrisome. “If I were throwing the football with my son and hurt my hand, then that would really send everything upside down,” Kinney says.

Now that he’s finished writing, what is The Ugly Truth?

“If I said that, it would blow the ending,” Kinney says, “but I’ll say that this book is about growing up. The book is sort of a metaphor for my decision on whether or not to move forward. . . . Is Greg going to move on, or is he going to stay in a state of arrested development forever?”

Will there be more Wimpy Kid books?

“I truly haven’t decided that,” Kinney says. “I’m trying to take a few weeks to really think about this. These books look like you could put them together in a day or two, but they take about nine months of really hard work.”

The work takes place in his small upstairs office, usually at night or on weekends. The walls are purposely bare to minimize distraction, and Kinney’s concentration method is decidedly unconventional.

“I sit right here,” he says, pointing to a corner of a small couch. “I usually put a blanket over my head.”

A blanket?

“Sensory deprivation,” he explains. “I’ve tried all sorts of different things . . . to help get my mind into a thinking mode. To make a good book I need maybe 700 ideas, so it’s about four hours a night of just thinking, for about four months. Most of the time I fall asleep.”

Kinney next labels each idea A, B or C, depending on how he judges its worth. He tries to throw out all of the “C” ideas, and then strings the rest together. Finally, he’s ready to draw, necessitating another four months of 8- to 12-hour days, and sometimes 13- and 14-hour days. He listens to books on tape, usually history or historical fiction, or sometimes political books about the CIA and terrorism. “It’s very strange,” he notes of his selections. “It doesn’t really compute with what I’m drawing.”

“I do all of my drawings on that tablet,” he says, pointing to a device that links to his computer. “I just draw like mad. In fact, my eyes still can’t focus even though it’s been about 10 days since I drew my last drawing [for The Ugly Truth].”

The merging of text and drawings comes late in the process, much like a giant puzzle, Kinney says. “A drawing might end up falling halfway on one page and half on the other, so sometimes you’ll change the story itself just to make the drawings fit.”

After a tour to promote the new book, Kinney looks forward to getting back to his daily routine, putting his sons on the school bus each morning, and waiting for them when they get off.

“I’m happiest when I’m leading a normal life,” he says. “That’s what I strive for.”

One night last summer, author Jeff Kinney was astounded to see that the upcoming book in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, The Ugly Truth, was number two on Amazon’s bestseller list. “I didn’t even know what ‘The Ugly Truth’ was yet,” he remembers. “They’re printing five million of these things, and I hadn’t […]
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

James Howe

Interview by Alice Cary

Best-selling children’s author James Howe had written many books, but suddenly he was stuck. Really stuck. 

Howe was determined to write a book about Addie Carle, one of the main characters in The Misfits, his 2001 novel about four middle school friends. He had already written one sequel, Totally Joe, about a gay seventh-grader in the group. But he had spent two unsuccessful years trying to capture the voice of the strong-willed and extremely outspoken Addie.

“Her voice can be kind of off-putting,” Howe admits during a call to his home in Yonkers, New York. “I had tried so many different approaches, and nothing was working.”

Finally, a letter from an eighth-grade fan put Howe on the right path. The girl wrote: “Addie’s got such a strong personality, but sometimes I think readers don’t actually know what her soft side is.”

Howe realized he had been ignoring Addie’s soft side, and decided to explore what he calls her “inside voice.” He also decided that the best way to explore this part of Addie’s personality would be to write his novel in poetry. This presented yet another hurdle, since Howe had never written a book in poetry. He enjoyed the writing, but soon realized that all of his new poems needed to form a narrative whole.

A letter from a young fan helped Howe discover the softer side of an outspoken character.

“At one point my dining room table was covered with all of these printed-out poems,” Howe remembers. “I was rearranging and physically trying to find where the story was. So it took a good two years to get the shape of the book.”

If all of this sounds like a giant puzzle, Howe isn’t fazed. “I like to draw, and I love to do collage,” he says. “And I used to direct theater. I think there are connections in all of these things. I like taking pieces and making something out of them.”

The result was certainly worth waiting for. Addie on the Inside is immensely readable, with an active and conversational tone.

What did Howe end up learning about Addie, who was, as he puts it, “such a tough nut to crack?”

“I learned that she’s much more tender than I thought she was,” Howe says. “And I learned more about where her outside voice came from, and how connected it is to her own insecurities. I also learned, and this was a surprise, that she did have some desire to be popular and be cool.”

Howe is best known as the author of books for younger children, having gotten his start in 1979 with a beloved series about a vampire bunny named Bunnicula. A struggling actor and director at the time, he began writing for children by accident.

“I was doing what a lot of actors do and staying up too late and watching movies on TV,” Howe recalls. “It was watching all those bad vampire movies in the ’70s that led to the idea of Bunnicula. I can’t say that it’s my proudest moment when I tell young children how I got the idea for still my most popular book.”

He and his wife Deborah co-wrote the first book, but sadly she died of cancer before their book was published. Ever since, Howe has had an intriguing literary and life journey, having now embarked on what he calls “almost a second career” writing for middle school students and young adults.

Howe eventually remarried and became a father to Zoey, now 23. His editor at the time remarked that Howe would probably begin writing board books for his daughter. Instead, Howe felt compelled to head in the opposite direction. “These very powerful feelings that come with being a parent were pushing me to write work that was more personal and deep,” he says, “for older readers.”

Zoey’s eventual complaints about middle school social dynamics prompted him to write The Misfits. Another important event helped trigger Howe’s writing for middle school students. When Zoey was in the fifth grade, he divorced his second wife and came out as a gay man. Howe has now been with his partner for 10 years, and they plan to marry in September.

One of Howe’s immediate reactions upon coming out was anger. “I thought, I cannot believe I have put so much energy and have lived with this inner turmoil for so long and feared all of this rejection,” he says. “I wanted to write a book in which there’s a kid who’s growing up and gay and feels fine about who he is.”

The publication of Totally Joe ended up sparking a few controveries about its gay protagonist. “I was referred to as the openly gay author of The Misfits,” Howe recalls. “After years of being in the closet, that was actually pretty thrilling.”

Howe is especially gratified that The Misfits inspired an annual event called No-Name-Calling Week, which began in 2004.

“It’s gotten big,” Howe says. “There’s a curriculum for it. It’s -really taken off and it makes me feel very good.”

Best-selling children’s author James Howe had written many books, but suddenly he was stuck. Really stuck.  Howe was determined to write a book about Addie Carle, one of the main characters in The Misfits, his 2001 novel about four middle school friends. He had already written one sequel, Totally Joe, about a gay seventh-grader in […]
NonfictionMedicine

Alexandra Robbins

Interview by Alice Cary

Best-selling journalist Alexandra Robbins has gone undercover again, exploring the world of The Nurses: A Year with the Heroes Behind the Hospital Curtain. While investigating a profession she calls a vital and grossly undervalued "secret club," she has unearthed a multitude of no-holds-barred truths and anecdotes revealed in interviews with nurses across the country. Now that Robbins' research and writing are complete, she reflected on the experience, explaining how this latest project surprised and changed her.

You’ve written previous books about geeks, overachievers and sorority sisters. What prompted you to write about nurses?
Nurses had been asking me to write about them for years. They wanted to get their views and stories across in a way that both nurses and the general public would find entertaining. I had initially resisted because I was on the education beat. But once nurses began telling me their stories, I was hooked. I think every nurse in the world has some incredible stories.

You write that “contemporary literature largely neglects” nurses. What’s the reason for that neglect?
My guess is that people make assumptions based on medical TV shows, which get the picture wrong. I don’t think the general public realizes just how much nurses actually do and how vital they are. They’re not just the folks who administer medicine, flitting in the background as the doctor pines by the patient’s bedside (“ER,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” etc.). The nurses know patients far more intimately than doctors do. They’re skilled and educated; they’re scientists, detectives, liaisons, advocates, teachers, diplomats, and so forth. But TV would have us believe they’re “Yes, Doctor”ing background minions rather than a critical part of the healthcare team.

"Nurses’ voices mostly go unheard, and this was an opportunity for them to get their messages across—their hopes, fears, concerns, frustrations, joys."

What was your most surprising or shocking discovery as you researched this book?
I was shocked repeatedly throughout my reporting. There are so many things that people can do to get themselves and loved ones better care—and in some cases lifesaving moves—in the hospital. But if I were to pick one shocking item, I’d say I was most surprised by some of the doctor misbehavior that goes on behind the curtain. Many doctors are wonderful, of course. Some, however, have done some pretty staggering things to patients (twisting nipples while patients are under anesthesia, pushing them to get surgery they don’t need, ignoring Do Not Resuscitate orders) and to nurses (throwing scalpels and other instruments at them, ignoring their pleas that a patient needs help, groping them, berating them). That was pretty eye-opening.

What do you think is the most common misconception about the profession?
I think the biggest misconception is that they aren’t a major part of the healthcare team. As one nurse told me, “We are not just bed-making, drink-serving, poop-wiping, medication-passing assistants. We are much more.”

Your book features profiles of four nurses and gives readers a “you-are-there” look at their experiences over the course of the year. What research process did you use to capture their stories? Did you shadow them on the job?
The process included interviewing, shadowing, and even some undercover reporting. I wrote the book this way so that it would have a fun, beach-read kind of feel for both nurses and for the general public. That’s the kind of nonfiction I like to read, anyway.

You use pseudonyms for these four nurses, and don't identify where they live or what hospitals they work for. Was this a difficult decision to make? Did you know from the start that you wouldn't be able to use identifying details?
Oh sure, I knew from the start. I was asking nurses to peel back the curtain to show us things that hospitals don’t want people to know. For the nurses to be able to share freely, they had to trust that their identities—and those of the doctors, other nurses, etc. in the hospital—would be protected. I have offered sources this kind of privacy in all of my books, from Pledged on forward. It’s important that my “main characters” are completely open, without fear of reprisal, so that they can share honestly and thoroughly with readers.

How did you go about winning the trust of those you profiled? Were nurses eager to share their stories? Were some reluctant to talk to you for fear of reprisals?
All of the nurses I spoke to were eager to share their stories; I had more nurses who wanted me to follow them as “main characters” than I had room for in the book. Nurses’ voices mostly go unheard, and this was an opportunity for them to get their messages across—their hopes, fears, concerns, frustrations, joys. I guess by now I have a reputation for protecting my sources, so trust never came up as an issue.

I think The Nurses would be fascinating and helpful to nursing school students, but I also worry that some of the harsh realities you describe might be discouraging. What advice do you have for those about to enter the field?
You make a good point; someone described the book as a One L for nurses. The Nurses makes clear, I hope, that even though nursing is not an easy job, it’s a rewarding, fulfilling, life-changing job that nurses feel passionately about. They told me repeatedly, “Nursing isn’t a job. It’s who I am.” I think students who want to go into nursing already feel that pull. There are challenges to every job, but nursing school students are well-prepared to anticipate them and to manage them. And the incredible moments of connection or healing that warm their hearts really carry them through their days.

I love all of the testimonials at the end of the book from nurses who adore the profession, but one that they told me frequently was along the lines of “I make a difference in someone’s life every working day.” How many people can say that? That’s just awesome.

One reason I didn’t romanticize the profession is because nurses need people to help them fight for better working conditions. We all do, actually, because better nurse environments (especially better nurse:patient ratios) translates to fewer patient deaths, infections, complications, falls, etc. But many hospitals haven’t been willing to hire more nurses and treat them right. How can we improve hospital care if we don’t talk about the issues? Glossing over them doesn’t serve anyone.

My advice to nursing students is to remember that there are many, many different types of nursing jobs. Nurses are everywhere—not just in hospitals. They can talk to seasoned nurses to try to figure out which nursing path is right for them.

How is your experience writing this book likely to change your thoughts when you enter a hospital, either as a patient or a visitor?
I’ve always brought treats for and expressed gratitude to nurses anyway, but now I want to give them all hugs, too. They are truly amazing. And the tips they gave me for my own or my loved ones’ hospital stay are invaluable. I have a list now that I pulled from the book that I will take with me whenever I visit a hospital, because you never know which tip will come in handy.

RELATED CONTENT: Read our review of The Nurses.

Author photo by David Robbins.

 

Best-selling journalist Alexandra Robbins has gone undercover again, exploring the world of The Nurses: A Year with the Heroes Behind the Hospital Curtain. While investigating a profession she calls a vital and grossly undervalued "secret club," she has unearthed a multitude of no-holds-barred truths and anecdotes revealed in interviews with nurses across the country.
NonfictionMemoir

Lucy Kalanithi

Interview by Alice Cary

Although Paul Kalanithi dreamed of becoming a writer, he first planned to spend 20 years as a neurosurgeon-scientist. Tragically, however, in 2013—during his last year of residency at Stanford—the nonsmoking 36-year-old was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. 

Soon after, he wrote a powerful New York Times op-ed piece, “How Long Have I Got Left?,” describing his diagnosis and struggle to make the best use of his remaining time. “Tell me three months,” he wrote, “I’d just spend time with family. Tell me one year, I’d have a plan (write that book). Give me 10 years, I’d get back to treating diseases.”

In the months before his death in March 2015, Paul managed to do all three. He received treatment, continued to perform surgery as long as feasible, spent precious moments with his wife and family, became a father for the first time, and wrote a thought-provoking memoir about his life, illness and mortality, When Breath Becomes Air.

“He was working really hard,” recalls his widow, Lucy Kalanithi, a Stanford internist who met Paul while the two were in medical school at Yale. “He was suffering physically and of course emotionally. But he was very, very tough and thoughtful, and somehow coped and kept going.”

She describes her husband as “unbelievably smart, and, to top it off, the funniest person I’ve ever met, while at the same time, soft-spoken and subtle.” The couple often sat or lay side by side during his illness and Lucy’s maternity leave, with Lucy sometimes reading Paul’s words as he wrote. His manuscript afforded the couple a natural opportunity to communicate about what was happening and how Paul was feeling.

“It was exhausting, but we were having a really good time,” Lucy says. “It was very purposeful; we loved each other and we loved Cady [their daughter]. We knew that Paul’s time was limited and we were in pain . . .  but it was kind of an amazing time. It’s a weird word to use, but also very fun.”

Lucy notes that her husband was “uniquely positioned” to write this book, and that she, as a physician, was also uniquely positioned to help take care of him, along with their families and friends.

“And it still took everything I had,” she says. 

In the book’s foreword, Stanford physician and author Abraham Verghese aptly describes Paul’s writing as “stunning” and “unforgettable,” noting: “See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words.”

Paul thought deeply before he wrote, and then his words flowed; his wife recalls that he wrote his op-ed piece during an airplane flight. “He wrote very quickly,” Lucy explains, “and didn’t spend a lot of time going back over it, partly because he didn’t have a lot of time and he knew it. Literally, he was racing to finish.” 

The beauty of his prose is hardly a coincidence, because Paul earned graduate degrees in English, history and philosophy before turning to medicine. Early in the book he declares, “I knew with certainty that I would never be a doctor.” Pages later, he eloquently traces his unforeseen career trajectory, explaining, “I realized that the questions intersecting life, death, and meaning, questions that all people face at some point, usually arise in a medical context.” 

Paul didn’t expect to face his own intersection so soon. Summing up his transformation from physician to patient, he writes: “Shouldn’t terminal illness, then, be the perfect gift to that young man who had wanted to understand death? What better way to understand it than to live it? But I’d had no idea how hard it would be, how much terrain I would have to explore, map, settle. I’d always imagined the doctor’s work as something like connecting two pieces of railroad track, allowing a smooth journey for the patient. I hadn’t expected the prospect of facing my own mortality to be so disorienting, so dislocating.”

The book was nearly complete when Paul died. “One of the last things he said to me was ‘Please get this finished,’ ” Lucy remembers. She explains that all the words in the book are his: His editor occasionally supplemented his manuscript with passages written elsewhere in essays, his book proposal and lengthy emails to friends. 

Lucy also penned a powerful epilogue describing Paul’s last days in a sad but elegant coda to the book. “I’m not at all a writer like Paul was,” she admits. “But writing that epilogue—I just loved it. It was the most meaningful thing I’ve ever written.”

As she works part time at Stanford (planning to return full time in March), Lucy finds the grief process to be “unexpected and unpredictable.” She rejoices in every milestone of their daughter Cady’s life. “Paul would have loved that her first word was ‘dog,’ ” she says. “There are all these little things that are just so bittersweet because he’s not here.”

When Breath Becomes Air closes with Paul’s heartbreakingly beautiful words to Cady, who brought him so much happiness during his dying days. “I’m so happy that he wrote it for her,” Lucy says. “That passage is my prized possession. I haven’t memorized it. I didn’t even try. I’ve just read it so many times.”

In the midst of her grief, Lucy remains excited about the book’s publication. “I’m keeping a promise that I made to Paul, which feels really important and makes me feel purposeful.” 

“I’m very happy about sharing him with the world,” she adds. “This book will be on people’s bookshelves. I can’t believe it. Paul really wanted to be a writer. We worked so hard to make it happen.”

Nonetheless, she can’t help but lament: “I’d give anything for you to be talking to Paul rather than me.”

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the date of Paul Kalanithi's death.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Although Paul Kalanithi dreamed of becoming a writer, he first planned to spend 20 years as a neurosurgeon-scientist. Tragically, however, in 2013—during his last year of residency at Stanford—the nonsmoking 36-year-old was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Cameron McAllister

Interview by Alice Cary

British author Cameron McAllister was inspired to write The Tin Snail after seeing a newspaper photo of three prototypes for a car called the Deux Chevaux (or 2CV) that had been hidden in a French barn during World War II and remained there for 50 years. We spoke with the author to learn more about the fascinating true history behind this exciting middle-grade adventure.

Why did these 2CV prototypes stay hidden for so long?
The simple answer is that they were too well hidden and were forgotten about! You have to remember they were never supposed to be there at all. The boss of Citroen at that time, Pierre Jules Boulanger (Bertrand, in my book), had ordered that all trace of the experimental prototypes be destroyed so they couldn’t fall into enemy hands—not merely the invading German army, but also Volkswagen, their main rival (who were busy developing the Beetle at the time). So the story goes, the 2CV models were hidden by some of the engineers who’d helped build them, but who couldn’t bear to see them lost to future generations.

Were you able to unearth many more details about this story? Which were your favorite?
Where to start? The more I delved into the true story, the more wonderful nuggets kept turning up. I particularly liked that the car’s designer, Flaminio Bertoni (Luca, in my story) was wedded to his old BMW motorbike. When they were looking for lightweight parts to use on the first prototype, they cannibalized his beloved motorbike, stripping it of its engine and other parts. It really is also true that his boss, Boulanger, insisted that the car be capable of driving across a ploughed field with a farmer and his wife and two chickens without breaking a tray of eggs or spilling a flagon of beer. Unfortunately, the first model they built exploded! The more I discovered, the more charming the whole story became. It almost wrote itself!

Did you travel to the French countryside for fact finding? Were you able to see those prototypes unearthed in the barn?
I never found the original barn, but I pile my four children into our car twice a year and drive as far south through France as we can manage in a day. This usually gets us to the Bordeaux area, where I located the fictional village of Regnac. It’s almost exactly like a village we’ve often stayed in there. The map at the front of the book is pretty much a blueprint of the real place. However, I should say that there’s no evidence that the German army ever actually arrived in the real village—that was all my own invention. It seemed too exciting a story opportunity to pass up. I loved the thought of the German Panzer commander sitting in the local bar, determined to try and find where the locals have hidden the car, not realizing that the barmaid is pulling his glass of beer with the gear stick!

Where does the name "Tin Snail" come from?
The then-boss of Citroen, Boulanger, could be quite austere and insisted that the 2CV should be as functional as possible. This was vital if it was to be affordable to the poorest farmers and artisans in France—the vast backbone of France’s population who had been so woefully neglected by the car industry. The 2CV’s designer, Flaminio, kept trying to add little stylist flourishes, which Boulanger would insist on being removed. The final prototype was made out of little more than sheets of corrugated iron with just a single headlight, but its iconic domed shape reminded Boulanger of a snail. And so the nickname “the Tin Snail” stuck. For me, it perfectly captures the car’s quirky charm!

Tell us about your own fascination with cars.
As a little boy I loved Herbie, the movie about a VW Beetle with a mind of its own. The flying Ford Anglia in Harry Potter had a lot of the same qualities, though rather more mischievous. Strictly speaking, the car in The Tin Snail isn’t magical, of course, but it definitely has its own impish personality—especially when Angelo and Camille are being chased by a Panzer tank and it almost flies across a river.

I read that two books that inspired you were Danny, the Champion of the World, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Did you reread them as you wrote this novel? I was also interested to read your mention of Shirley Hughes’ novel, Hero on a Bicycle, which sounds fascinating.
Both Danny and Chitty feature children thrown into dangerous and extraordinary adventures to rescue their fathers—and in both cases they do so by driving cars! In Danny’s case it’s an old Austin Seven, which he uses to rescue his father from the clutches of the evil Mr Hazell. I loved the bond between Danny and his father as they outwit the local establishment. It’s very much the same plucky spirit Angelo shows in The Tin Snail as he tries to help his father’s ailing career and outfox an entire German Panzer unit! Hero on a Bicycle is set in the same era, a delightful story about a boy running daring missions during the German occupation of Italy, only this time riding a bicycle. Like The Tin Snail, the danger of war is never very far away.

"In the end the story is about heroism—the villagers are willing to lay down their lives to safeguard the Tin Snail because it represents the very best of French values."

You’ve written TV scripts before, but this is your first novel. Did you have any difficulties with the transition? Did your TV writing experience make it somewhat easier to write some of the great action scenes in your book?
I love writing action sequences—I think it’s part of the big kid in me. But oddly they can be the most boring parts of movies to watch, especially with the advent of CGI. If there isn’t enough character or suspense, and if it all seems too unrealistic, it doesn’t matter how many skyscrapers you knock down, I’m not gripped. So when it came to The Tin Snail, I was very conscious of trying keep the action believable (just!). One of the most obvious transitions I found from writing TV dramas to writing a novel was that I needed to write a lot more description. In TV scripts you might only have a few stage directions because the viewer will end up being shown everything. In a book, of course, the writer must conjure everything up in people’s imaginations, which I loved.

Tell us about the genesis of your main character, Angelo. Were you at all like him as a boy?
When I was the same age as Angelo, one of my uncles (who was a policeman at the time) gave me a pair of very old handcuffs with the strict instructions I was never to use them as the keys were long since lost. Naturally, the first opportunity I got I locked them round his wrists while he lay in bed one morning. I remember hiding in a tree for several hours as first one village police car, then two more, arrived to offer assistance. Despite the attempts of the entire local police force, no key could be found. This didn’t deter my mother who proceeded to serve pot after pot of tea, turning the whole thing into a social occasion. Eventually my father managed to saw the handcuffs off. So I’ll let you decide whether you think there are any similarities between myself and Angelo.

You do a great job of maintaining tension about World War II and the advancing Germans throughout the novel, yet you manage to keep a lighthearted tone in appropriate places. Was this a difficult balance to achieve?
I was keen for the book to be uplifting and fun, but it would have been irresponsible not to reflect the reality of war at some level. The sense of the German army approaching also provides an underlying suspense—not least because Angelo and his father know that the rival car company’s spies won’t be far behind. In the end the story is about heroism—the villagers are willing to lay down their lives to safeguard the Tin Snail because it represents the very best of French values. It was also important for me that the Germans weren’t all painted as the enemy. Despite working for rival car companies, Angelo’s father and Engel, his German counterpart, end up being united by a common bond . . . their love of cars!

What do you drive? Do you have any “fun” cars, or are there any special cars tugging at your imagination?
When I worked in London, I used to ride around on a Vespa scooter, which was great fun, if a little hair-raising. Now, because we have four children, I have to drive what feels like a large truck—made by the 2CV’s rivals, Volkswagen, no less! However, I’m always on the lookout on my travels for a 2CV to buy. It seems to be only dotty old aunties who still drive them in Britain, but I’ve seen some wonderfully preserved models in France and Italy. I think the nearest British-made car to the 2CV must be the Mini (now remade by BMW, of course, and originally designed by an Italian, just like the 2CV). Or perhaps the Morris Minor. Maybe one of these will inspire my next novel!

British author Cameron McAllister was inspired to write The Tin Snail after seeing a newspaper photo of three prototypes for a car called the Deux Chevaux (or 2CV) that had been hidden in a French barn during World War II and remained there for 50 years. We spoke with the author to learn more about the fascinating true history behind this exciting middle-grade adventure.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Kate DiCamillo

Interview by Alice Cary

Kate DiCamillo is a nervous Nellie. You’d think that after winning two Newbery Medals, the publication of a new children’s book would be old hat. “It’s like putting your kid on the bus for the first day of school, and you don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says. This time, the “kid” is Raymie Nightingale, her most autobiographical book yet.

DiCamillo, who launched her acclaimed career with the publication of Because of Winn-Dixie in 2000, quickly points out that writing such a personal book wasn’t part of her plan. “I thought I was going to write something funny and lighthearted about someone Ramona Quimby-like entering a beauty pageant,” she says during a call to her home in Minneapolis. “And then bit by bit, all of these pieces of me came in there, and it became a heavier story than I had intended.”

DiCamillo needn’t worry; her new novel is a gem, full of laugh-out-loud situations, heartfelt moments of kindness and genuine heartache.

The novel’s heroine, 10-year-old Raymie Clarke, is taking baton-twirling lessons during the summer of 1975 with the goal of becoming Little Miss Central Florida Tire. She hopes such acclaim might lure back her father, who has run off with a dental hygienist.

There are parallels aplenty between Raymie and the author. In a note at the beginning of the novel, DiCamillo writes: “Raymie’s story is entirely made up. Raymie’s story is the absolutely true story of my heart.” 

“Raymie’s story is the absolutely true story of my heart.” 

At age 6, DiCamillo moved with her mother and brother from Pennsylvania to Clermont, Florida (near Orlando), to try to end DiCamillo’s frequent bouts of pneumonia. Her father, an orthodontist, was supposed to sell his practice and join them, but he never did. 

As soon as DiCamillo realized that her manuscript-in-progress was becoming a story about a girl whose father had left, her response was, “Uh-oh.”

But that, it turns out, was actually good news.

“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that when the uh-oh shows up, I’m in business,” she says. “It means that the story is in charge and not me. So when something happens that I’m totally unprepared for, I also know that I’ve got something that matters.”

When she was 7 or 8 years old, DiCamillo competed in the Little Miss Orange Blossom contest, which, alas, she didn’t win. She remembers being at the pageant and thinking, “This is not where I should be.” And even before the pageant, during baton-twirling lessons, she realized, “This is just not who I am.”

Raymie’s baton lessons don’t go well either, but they introduce her to two lively, endearing characters: the tough-as-nails Beverly Tapinski, who plans to sabotage the contest, and the ever-optimistic Louisiana Elefante, who lives with her grandmother and claims that her parents were known as the famous Flying Elefantes. Before long, Louisiana has dubbed the unlikely trio the “Three Rancheros.”

Their subsequent adventures form the heart and soul of this novel, with madcap exploits that include secret nursing home visits and a night raid on the Very Friendly Animal Center in search of Louisiana’s beloved cat, Archie. (Animals are a necessity in every DiCamillo book!) But while the novel is full of action, the text has an exquisitely spare quality. Despite the outlandish predicaments they get themselves into, the Three Rancheros’ thoughts and dialogue always ring true. 

“Those characters,” DiCamillo says with a chuckle. “Just get out of their way because I don’t know what they’re going to do and what they’re going to say.”

It’s fitting that the words that pop out of these characters’ mouths—surprising even the author—are the actual seeds from which she begins creating their personalities. “As they talk to each other, that’s how I find out who they are,” she says. “Like when Beverly says at the beginning of the book, ‘Fear is a big waste of time. I’m not afraid of anything.’ I’m like Raymie; I just idolize people like that. I can’t conceive of not being afraid.”

That’s something DiCamillo shares with one of her literary heroes, E.B. White. “I’m super neurotic,” she says, “and I think that maybe he was, too, from what I’ve read about him. But he did things with words that very few people do, and I can’t figure out how he did it. And I think if I asked him, he wouldn’t be able to answer.”

DiCamillo says she wonders whether White’s apprehensions affected his writing. “It’s just that everything is burnished with love for him, and he manages to convey that to us. So the question is, does all the worry get in the way of the love, or does the love win over the worry? Because it looks like it did, from what he wrote.

“I sure would like to worry less,” she adds with a cheerful sigh.

DiCamillo believes the writing process helps her overcome certain personal shortcomings by keeping her eyes and heart wide open. “It’s my connection to my better self,” she says. “You have to pay such close attention to the world and people, and it changes how you look at the world.” Storytelling keeps her gaze outward, even as it teaches her more about herself. 

Does this process of paying attention mean that she’s always on the lookout?

“I am,” she admits. “And I think a lot about a friend that I grew up with named Kathy Lord, who is interested in everything and everybody. She liked to sharpen her pencil as much as she could in the classroom because that gave her a chance to walk to the front of the room, and not for something to do, but to look at what everybody else was doing. Other people were so fabulously interesting to her. I think of her sometimes when I’m out in the world. Pay attention that way. Make like Kathy Lord on the way to the pencil sharpener. Every little detail of somebody is interesting.

“And Kathy Lord’s mouth was always slightly hanging open as she did it, because she was just so gobstopped by people and what they were doing. And I think about that with me, and then I have to be careful sometimes to close my mouth as I’m staring at the world.”

As Raymie grapples with her father’s departure, she’s surrounded by a host of helpful adults. A young DiCamillo also benefited from such reassuring presences, including three kind, widowed ladies who kept close watch over the many children who lived on her dead-end street. “That’s one of the things that I was aware of consciously when the book was done,” DiCamillo says, “that this was kind of a tip of the hat to all those adults.”

When she tells fans about her childhood, DiCamillo is often delighted by young readers who come up to her and ask: Do you think that if your father hadn’t left that you would be a writer? Do you think that if you weren’t so sick all the time as a kid that you would have become a writer?

“I never say that explicitly,” DiCamillo says, “but that they get there is astounding.” These are her most satisfying encounters with kids, when a child walks away knowing that things that once seemed so hard and impossible actually helped shape her.

As for Raymie and her struggles, DiCamillo says, “The same thing that happened with Raymie happened with me. I found what friendship can give you. And there aren’t always answers, but there’s love and friendship.”

 

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Kate DiCamillo is a nervous Nellie. You’d think that after winning two Newbery Medals, the publication of a new children’s book would be old hat. “It’s like putting your kid on the bus for the first day of school, and you don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says. This time, the “kid” is Raymie Nightingale, her most autobiographical book yet.
NonfictionMemoir

Lee Smith

Interview by Alice Cary

The author of Fair and Tender Ladies and many other beloved novels reflects on her Virginia childhood and her beginnings as a writer in the new memoir, Dimestore.

At what point did you decide to collect these essays as a memoir? Was that something you had in mind from the start?
I can tell you exactly the moment I decided to publish Dimestore: the day when my childhood home—the house my parents built and lived in for over 60 years—was demolished as part of a massive flood control project. The only thing I have left is the brass doorknocker with the curly “S” on it, for Smith, which a kind neighbor salvaged and put in a homemade box frame for me to keep. My father’s dimestore had already been blown up along with about 60 other stores lining the main street of Grundy, Virginia.

Even though I’d known for a long time that all this was coming, I was devastated. Place has always been paramount to me as a fiction writer—especially this place, this little town, these mountains. Immediately I found myself writing sketches, like word photographs, of all the people and places that were gone. I kept it up. Eventually I had the long title essay “Dimestore,” and then I decided to write some more, also adding and expanding some other occasional pieces and talks I had written over the years.

Is it harder for you to write about yourself than to write fiction?
Yes! It’s much harder! I have always believed that I could tell the truth much better in fiction than in nonfiction: You can juggle the chronology, switch the facts around to make your points, emphasize some elements and ignore others, write a novel from several different points of view in order to present everybody’s motivations. With nonfiction, you’re stuck with the little old boring stick-in-the-mud piddly SELF (though I should add that many of these Dimestore essays are actually more about other people who have made a big impression on me and on my writing along the way.)

Did you ever feel as though your parents might be watching over your shoulder as you wrote?
No, I’ve never really felt that way. Since I was an only child born to them late in life—a big surprise since they’d been told they could not have children—they were unconditionally OK with whatever I did. If I’d told them, for instance, that I wanted to be an ax murderer, they would have gone out and bought me the ax.

Tell us about your "writing house" that your father built on the edge of the Levisa River.
My writing house kept changing because the river kept flooding—every time, my father would build it back or make me a new one, mostly little prefab storage sheds with a table and a chair and an old wooden box to keep my books and treasures in, perched on the side of the riverbank.

Do you have any memorabilia from your father's dimestore? Or something you wish you had?
I really wish I still had my own little typewriter which Daddy kept right there in his upstairs office on the long desk where I could observe the entire floor of the dimestore—all the aisles—through the one-way glass window, reveling in my own power—nobody can see me, but I can see everybody! I witnessed not only shoplifting, but fights and embraces as well. Once I saw a woman put a big old Philco radio between her legs, under her coat, and waddle right out of the store!

I have lived in North Carolina for many years now, so Grundy is no longer my literal “home,” yet psychologically—and speaking as a writer, now—it still is. I think we are forever formed by what we first see and the way we first hear language, in my case that rugged ring of mountains and the unique mountain dialect, the soft Appalachian speech of all those older family members telling stories on the porch while I was going to sleep in somebody’s lap. So, even today, stories still come to me in a human voice, and I just write them down. I’m not so much a writer as a listener and a storyteller.

If you could time travel, how would you spend a perfect childhood day?
It would be summertime and I would get up early and eat some of Mama’s biscuits and drink some coffee with a lot of milk in it and then run out the door and go sit under my "dogbushes" as I called them (a big clump of forsythia bushes). It was like a secret room under there—where a whole town of my imaginary friends lived. So I’d check in with them, find out what was going on with everybody. My best friend was Vienna, named for those little flat cans of Vienna sausages which I always took under there and shared with my dog Missy—Vienna herself had red hair and a very dramatic life, but my friend Sylvia could FLY! Then after a while I’d go get my best real friend, Martha Sue, and some of the other kids who all lived along the river there in Cowtown, too, and we’d head for the hills, literally, climbing up into the mountains across the road where we’d run like wild Indians all day long playing cowboys and Indians, forming club after club, climbing cliffs and outcroppings, building forts, swinging on grapevines, exploring caves, and enjoying a degree of freedom seldom found in childhood today. The only kind of twitter we knew about was birdsong. We’d stay there until somebody rang the big bell to call us home.

What was it like being a go-go dancer with Annie Dillard in your all-girl rock band, the Virginia Woolfs, at Hollins College?
It was wonderful. Hollins not only had an excellent creative writing program—long before most colleges—but encouraged (or at least tolerated) all kinds of creativity. We first performed at a Hollins literary festival, then went on the road to UVA, Washington and Lee, etc. We all had go-go names—mine was Candy Love. I wore a glitter top and white boots and a cowboy hat.

Is there a piece of advice you'd like to be able to give your 20- or 30-year-old self?
SLOW DOWN. (Which is exactly what Jerry Lee Lewis said to my good friend, the rock and roller Marshall Chapman, which she did not, and which I did not either.) As a young woman, I was just drunk on literature, on fire with novels and poetry and writing, I’d write all night long. Now I’d say, slow down, honey. Read. Just because you like to write doesn’t mean you’ve got something to say. Know what you’re talking about. Learn about history and psychology and science and everything else in this big world. It’s not all novels. And don’t throw yourself into everything so much, don’t fall in love all the time, don’t get married so fast . . . slow down. Life is long.

How did you manage to achieve the delicate balance of writing about both great joys and deep sorrow, such as the death of your son?
Thanks but I don’t think I’ve achieved “that delicate balance,” though I’m always trying, and I believe that the writing itself keeps me up on the tightrope. Writing is inherently therapeutic. It can be a source of nourishment and strength for us all. Simply to line up words one after another upon a page is to create some order where it did not exist, to give a recognizable shape to the chaos of our lives.

Writing is an addiction, you say, and early in a project you feel a "dangerous, exhilarating sense that anything can happen." What's been the most surprising thing to happen during your writing?
So many surprising things have happened during my writing that I don’t know where to start. Thing is, if a character really does “come to life” on the page as you write, she’s liable to do anything. Anything! Mine are always having religious fits or running off with men.

During the writing of Dimestore, the wonderful surprise has been that the more I wrote, the more I remembered—and at my age, memory is the best gift of all.

What's on your reading list these days?
Well, right now these books are not only on my reading list but actually on my bedside table: wildly different one from another, I just realized. But all fascinating. OK, here we go:

• American Housewife, stories by Helen Ellis, which I just finished—wild, hilarious, dark and subversive stories satirizing young American domesticity.
• The Poet, the Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, a Wedding in St. Roch, the Big Box Store, the Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All by the extraordinary poet C.D. (Carolyn) Wright, who recently died much too soon.
• Binocular Vision, stories by Edith Pearlman, just knocking me out. I have never read her before.
• The novel Stoner, by John Williams, kind of a cult book which people swear by and I haven’t read yet.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Dimestore.

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The author of Fair and Tender Ladies and many other beloved novels reflects on her Virginia childhood and her beginnings as a writer in the new memoir, Dimestore.

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