Monday, May 29, 2017
Dear Michael a letter to Michael Grant about GONE
Dear Michael a letter to Michael Grant about GONE
Note from Debbie on Nov 20 at 7:30 AM: This "Dear Michael" post is now a conversation between myself and Michael Grant. Heres a Table of Contents. Michael Grants is submitting his comments/responses to me by email.
November 17: Debbies letter to Michael about GONE
November 18: Michaels response (submitted by email on Nov 18)
November 19: Debbies response
November 20: Michaels response (submitted by email on Nov 19)
November 20: Debbies response (about erasure)
November 21: Debbies response (Lanas identity)
November 22: Debbies note to Michael on dialog
__________
November 17, 2016
Dear Michael Grant,
Our conversation yesterday at Jason Lows opinion piece for School Library Journal didnt go well, did it? I entered it, annoyed at what you said last year in your "On Diversity" post. There, you said:
Let me put this right up front: there is no YA or middle grade author of any gender, or of any race, who has put more diversity into more books than me. Period.Then you had a list where you were more specific about that diversity. Of Native characters, you said:
Native American main character? No. Australian aboriginal main character, but not a Native American. Hmmm.You do, in fact, have a Native character in Gone. Id read it but didnt write about it. So when you commented to Jason in the way that you did, I responded as I did, saying youd erased a Native character right away in one of your books. With that in mind, and your claim that youve done more than anyone regarding diversity, I said youre part of the problem. You wanted to know what book I was talking about. Indeed, you were quite irate in your demands that I name it. You offered to donate $1000 to a charity of my choice if I could name the book. You seemed to think I could not, and that I was slandering you.
In that long thread, I eventually named the book but you said I was wrong in what Id said. So, heres a review. I hope it helps you see what I meant, but based on all that Ive seen thus far, Im doubtful.
Heres a description of the book:
In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out whats happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents�unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers�that grow stronger by the day. Its a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: on your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else. . . .Chapter one is set at a school in California. It opens with a character named Sam, who is listening to his teacher talk about the Civil War. Suddenly the teacher is gone. It seems funny at first but then they realize that other teachers are gone, and so is everyone who is 15 years old, or older. In chapter two, Sam, his friend Quinn, and Astrid (shes introduced in chapter one as a smart girl) head home, sure theyll find their parents. They dont.
Partway through chapter two, you introduce us to Lana Arwen Lazar, who is riding in a truck that is being driven by her, grandfather, Grandpa Luke, who is described as follows (p. 19-20):
He was old, Grandpa Luke. Lots of kids had kind of young grandparents. In fact, Lana�s other grandparents, her Las Vegas grandparents, were much younger. But Grandpa Luke was old in that wrinkled-up-leather kind of way. His face and hands were dark brown, partly from the sun, partly because he was Chumash Indian.At first, I thought, "cool." You were bringing a tribally specific character into the story! If hes Chumash, then, Lana is, too! Theres whole chapters about her. Shes a main character. But, you didnt remember her. Or maybe, in your responses at SLJ, you were too irate to remember her?
Anyway, I wasnt keen on the "wrinkled-up-leather" and "dark brown" skin because youre replicating stereotypical ideas about what Native people look like.
As I continued reading, however, it was clear to me that you were just using the Chumash as decoration. You clearly did some research, though. Youve got Grandpa Luke, for example, pointing with his chin. Thing is: Ive been seeing that a lot. It makes me wonder if white people have a checklist for a Native character that says "make sure the character points with the chin rather than fingers."
Back to chapter two... Grandpa Luke pointed (with his chin) to a hill. Lana tells him she saw a coyote there and he tells her not to worry (p. 20):
�Coyote�s harmless. Mostly. Old brother coyote�s too smart to go messing with humans.� He pronounced coyote �kie-oat.�Hmmm... Grandpa Luke... teaching Lana about coyote? That sounds a bit... like the chin thing. Im seeing lot of stories where writers drop in coyote. Is that on a check list, too?
Next, we learn that Lana is with her grandpa because her dad caught her sneaking vodka out of their house to give it to another kid named Tony. Lana defends what she did, saying that Tony would have used a fake ID and that he might have gotten into trouble. Her grandpa says (p. 21):
�No maybe about it. Fifteen-year-old boy drinking booze, he�s going to find trouble. I started drinking when I was your age, fourteen. Thirty years of my life I wasted on the bottle. Sober now for thirty-one years, six months, five days, thank God above and your grandmother, rest her soul.�Oh-oh. Alcohol? That must be on the checklist, too. Ive seen a lot of books wherein a Native character is alcoholic.
Lana teases her grandpa, he laughs, and then the truck veers off the road and crashes. Grandpa Luke is gone. Just like the other adults. Lana lies in the truck, injured. Her dog, Patrick, is with her. The chapter ends and you spend time with the other characters.
His being gone is what I was referring to when I said that you erased him. At SLJ, you strongly objected to me saying that. You interpreted that as me saying youre anti-Native. You said that "every adult is disappeared." That you did that to "African-Americans, Polish-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Norwegian-Americans, French-Americans, Italian-Americans..." Yes. They all go away in your story, and because they do, you think it is wrong for me to object. Thats when I said to you that youre clearly not reading any of the many writings about depictions of Native people. It just isnt ok to create Native characters and then get rid of them like that. Later in the SLJ thread, you said:
"I threw the reference to the Chumash in as an effort to at least acknowledge that there are still Native Americans in SoCal. That was it. Its a throwaway character we see for three pages out of a 1500 page series."Really, Michael? Thats pretty awful. I hope someone amongst your writing friends can help you see why that doesnt work!
Lana is back in chapter seven. A mountain lion appears. Patrick fights it and it takes off, but Patrick has a bad wound. Lana drifts off to sleep again, holding Patricks wound to stop the blood. She wakes, part way through chapter ten. Patrick isnt with her but comes bounding over, all healed! Lana wonders if she had healed him. She glances at her mangled arm, which is now getting infected. She touches it, drifts off, and when she wakes it, too is healed. Next she heals her broken leg. All better, she stands up.
So---Lana is a healer, Michael? That, too, is over in checklist land (Native characters who heal others).
In chapter fifteen, Lana and Patrick set out to find food and water and hopefully, her grandfathers ranch. After several hours of walking in the heat, they find the wall that is an important feature of the story, and then, a patch of green grass. Theres a water hose and a small cabin. They drink, and she washes the dried blood off her face and hair.
In chapter eighteen, Lana wakes in the cabin, and remembers the last few weeks. She remembers putting the bottle of vodka in a bag with "the beadwork she liked" (p. 203). My guess, given that her grandfather is Chumash, is that the bag were meant to imagine is one with Native beadwork designs on it.
Lana hears scratching at the door, like the way a dog scratches at a door, and she hears a whispered "Come out." Oh-oh (again), Michael! Native people who can communicate with animals! That on the checklist, too? Patricks hackles are raised, his fur bristles. They finally open the door and go out out but dont see anyone. She uses the bathroom in an outhouse. When Lana and Patrick head back to the cabin, a coyote is standing there, between the outhouse and the cabin. This coyote, however, is the size of a wolf. She thinks back on what she learned about coyotes, from Grandpa Luke (p. 207):
�Shoo,� Lana yelled, and waved her hands as her grandfather had taught her to do if she ever came too close to a coyote.It didnt move, though. Behind it were a few more. Patrick wouldnt attack them, so, Lana yelled and charged right at them. The coyote recoiled in surprise. Lana was a flash of something dark, and the coyote yelped in pain. She made it to the cabin. She heard the coyotes crying in pain and rage. The next day, she found the one who shed charged at (p. 207):
Still attached to its muzzle was half a snake with a broad, diamond-shaped head. Its body had been chewed in half but not before the venom had flowed into the coyote�s bloodstream.What does that mean? Does Lanas healing power mean snakes will defend her? Or, that she can summon them to help her? Or is the appearance of these snakes just coincidental and has nothing to do, really, with Lana?
In chapter twenty-five, two days have passed since Lanas encounter with the coyotes. Lana and Patrick eat the food they find in the cabin, and learn that it belonged to a guy named Jim Brown. He has 38 books in the cabin. Lana passes time reading them. At one point, she realizes theres a space underneath the cabin. In it, she finds gold bricks. She remembers the picks and shovels she saw outside, and the tire tracks leading to a ridge and thinks that, perhaps, Jim and his truck are there. She fills a water jug, and the two set off, following the tire tracks.
In chapter twenty-seven, Lana and Patrick reach an abandoned mining town. She look for keys to the truck they find, and, they peek into the mine shaft. Suddenly they hear coyotes. It seems Lana can hear them saying "food." Lana and Patrick enter the mine, but the coyotes dont follow them. Then, one of them talks to her, telling her to leave the mine. They rush in and attack her but then stop, clearly afraid themselves. Shes now their prisoner. They nudge her down, deeper into the mine. She senses something there, hears a loud voice, passes out, and wakes, outside.
In chapter twenty nine, the coyotes push her on through the desert. She thinks of the lead coyote as "Pack Leader." Hes the one who speaks to her. She asks him why they dont kill her. He says (p. 326):
�The Darkness says no kill,� Pack Leader said in his tortured, high-pitched, inhuman voice.That "Darkness" is the voice she heard in the mine. It wants her to teach Pack Leader... She asks Pack Leader to take her back to the cabin so she can get human food there. Later on, Darkness speaks through Lara.
Ok--Michael--Ive spelled out how your depictions of Lana fail. Theres so much stereotyping in there. I gotta take off on a road trip now. I may be back, later, to clarify this letter. I think it is clear but may be missing something in my re-read of it. If you care to respond, please do!
Sincerely,
Debbie Reese
American Indians in Childrens Literature
__________
November 18th (Michael Grants response to Debbie Reese):
Hi, its Michael Grant. But feel free to call me Satan.
Im writing this at Ms. Reeses kind invitation because weve had a . . . well, a bit of a thing. Which I think we both find distressing because we are on the same side. So, anyway, I apologize for this being so long. (Bear in mind I write 500-page books, so youre getting off easy.)
You know the running gag on The Simpsons where Marge will look at Homer and ask him what hes thinking? And then we get a cutaway to a cross-section of Homers head and see that inside is a toy monkey banging a tin drum? Thats sort of the level of disconnect we have here.
Basically, what you believe I thought or knew is not even close. Partly it may be the way I write. If you had a number line from seat-of-the-pants writers (pantsers) to planners I would be so far over on the pantser side thered be no one to my left. Its almost all improvised.
So, things you (and probably most people) see as a plan, I know to be improvised. I write big, densely-plotted books with big casts and multiple concurrent plot lines. I also write series, and in my approach to a series, the whole thing is essentially one long book. I like doing this because (among other reasons) I like plenty of space to play out character arcs. My series are built like a TV mini-series. I know thats not indicated in any way on the book, but I dont design the covers.
So the little toy monkey in my head is worrying from Page 1 about the plot primarily. Not that its the only thing, its just the hardest thing, so most of my thinking is on that. Second comes character.
As I always tell aspiring writers, theres no right way to do this job. Theres only your way, which is whatever it takes to get you from Page 1 to the little hash marks at the end. But civilians - people who are not writers - are told a lot of nonsense by writers trying, usually unsuccessfully, to explain how we do what we do. The true answer is: we dont know. But thats unsatisfying, so we make up a bunch of reasonable-sounding nonsense, and civilians come away with all these notions of inspiration and falling in love with your characters and tearing your soul open (which sounds painful) and they think its real. Its mostly not. Writing is not inspiration so much as problem-solving. (And typing.) A series of if-then propositions. Constant reliance on imagination, over which I, at least, have very little conscious control.
You need to understand that whatever image we put out there, we are scared little children trying to cajole the mute beast in the back of our heads into giving us the ideas we then type up. Im not complaining - its the best gig in the world. I have a ridiculously great life. (Now.) Ive done real work, Ive been poor, I know and remember and thank the universe daily for giving me this, instead of what I started out with. So, not complaining; explaining. But an overwhelming amount of our mental resources is spent convincing ourselves that we are doing something real. That we arent just delusional. Yes, I should be over that. But Im not. I dont know a writer who is.
So, with that aside, Im going to respond with some specifics re: Gone. Heres your review and my notes. Not sure how the layout will work...lets see [note from Debbie: Grant copied portions of my review and followed the copied parts with his comments, in bold. For everyones convenience, Im inserting my initials in front of the copied portions.]:
DR: Chapter one is set at a school in California. It opens with a character named Sam, who is listening to his teacher talk about the Civil War. Suddenly the teacher is gone. It seems funny at first but then they realize that other teachers are gone, and so is everyone who is 15 years old, or older. In chapter two, Sam, his friend Quinn, and Astrid (shes introduced in chapter one as a smart girl) head home, sure theyll find their parents. They dont.
Partway through chapter two, you introduce us to Lana Arwen Lazar, who is riding in a truck that is being driven by her, grandfather, Grandpa Luke, who is described as follows (p. 19-20):
He was old, Grandpa Luke. Lots of kids had kind of young grandparents. In fact, Lana�s other grandparents, her Las Vegas grandparents, were much younger. But Grandpa Luke was old in that wrinkled-up-leather kind of way. His face and hands were dark brown, partly from the sun, partly because he was Chumash Indian.
At first, I thought, "cool." You were bringing a tribally specific character into the story! If hes Chumash, then, Lana is, too! Theres whole chapters about her. Shes a main character. But, you didnt remember her. Or maybe, in your responses at SLJ, you were too irate to remember her?
MG: Im author or co-author of, give-or-take, 150 books, 13 series, over 27 years. Ballpark, thats, say, 30,000 pages. Probably, what, 1000 named characters? Probably more, I have no way to add it up. Deb, I have forgotten entire series, let alone characters. I could not name the main characters in Everworld, for example, or Remnants. You know why I always say something vague like "its around 150 books?" Because every time I count it comes out different. I have frequently forgotten that I am the author of the Barf-O-Rama series. Okay, maybe forgetting that is deliberate, but I actually loved Magnificent 12, and with a gun to my head I couldnt tell you a third of the characters.
Id be concerned its old age, but my memory has never been good for those kinds of things. Dont take my word for it, ask anyone who knows me in kidlit. Quick story: I used to wait tables and was damn good at it, too, but only because I was organized. People skills? Well, I waited on this couple, chatted, got to be friendly, they paid and left. I went to the front to seat a couple I saw there. Same people. I did not recognize them.
So, TL;DR: forgetting the background of one out of at least 1000 characters? Not only possible, inevitable.
DR: Anyway, I wasnt keen on the "wrinkled-up-leather" and "dark brown" skin because youre replicating stereotypical ideas about what Native people look like.
MG: Actually, I was thinking Native Americans are darker-skinned on average than white folks, but mostly I was thinking: old dude who lives in the desert.
DR: As I continued reading, however, it was clear to me that you were just using the Chumash as decoration. You clearly did some research, though. Youve got Grandpa Luke, for example, pointing with his chin. Thing is: Ive been seeing that a lot. It makes me wonder if white people have a checklist for a Native character that says "make sure the character points with the chin rather than fingers."
MG: You know when I first learned about the pointing thing? Just now, reading your note. I had literally no idea. He points with his chin because hes driving.
DR: Back to chapter two... Grandpa Luke pointed (with his chin) to a hill. Lana tells him she saw a coyote there and he tells her not to worry (p. 20):
�Coyote�s harmless. Mostly. Old brother coyote�s too smart to go messing with humans.� He pronounced coyote �kie-oat.�
Hmmm... Grandpa Luke... teaching Lana about coyote? That sounds a bit... like the chin thing. Im seeing lot of stories where writers drop in coyote. Is that on a check list, too?
MG: Sorry, nope. Everyone hears the coyotes because theyve mutated. (Incidentally, not my best choice for the book, but, live and learn.) The coyotes are there because they are typical large fauna in the SoCal desert. (And sometimes here in Tiburon at night.) Basically I had to decide whether the mutagenic effect of the FAYZ worked on animals as well as humans, and I thought this might be fun.
DR: Next, we learn that Lana is with her grandpa because her dad caught her sneaking vodka out of their house to give it to another kid named Tony. Lana defends what she did, saying that Tony would have used a fake ID and that he might have gotten into trouble. Her grandpa says (p. 21):
�No maybe about it. Fifteen-year-old boy drinking booze, he�s going to find trouble. I started drinking when I was your age, fourteen. Thirty years of my life I wasted on the bottle. Sober now for thirty-one years, six months, five days, thank God above and your grandmother, rest her soul.�
Oh-oh. Alcohol? That must be on the checklist, too. Ive seen a lot of books wherein a Native character is alcoholic.
MG: My best friend at the time (thats over) is a recovering alcoholic. My father-in-law is a recovering alcoholic. (Loooong time sober.) It was in my head. Luke is an alcoholic to signal that maybe Lana has a genetic predisposition, and to explain why Luke is upset with Lana. Am I aware that alcoholism rates are high on Native American reservations? Of course. Can I see where youd think thats where I was going?
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