Author Interview: Lyn Miller-Lachmann (part two!)

And now for part two of my interview with Lyn Miller-Lachmann, author of Gringolandia. In this part we discuss YA literature, what it is and how it is and all that good stuff.

jordyn: This is – if I’m not mistaken – your first book to be published as a YA title. How is publishing or writing for teenagers different from adults?

lyn: It’s actually my second YA novel, but my first, Hiding Places, was published in 1987. It was about a teenage runaway in New York City and was a fairly traditional problem novel. I stopped writing fiction for a while, and when I returned after 2000, the novel I wanted to write was adult fiction. Dirt Cheap, about a college professor who pursues the chemical company that he believes gave him leukemia and contaminated his upscale suburb, was published in 2006.

For me the characters and the story determine whether I write a YA or an adult novel. If the main character is a teenager and the story is about things that are important to the teenager, I’ll write it as a YA novel. For Gringolandia, I wanted the story of a family reunited to be from the teenage son’s perspective, since Daniel is the character who, more than any other, wants this relationship with his father to work. Yes, his mother wants it to work, but she’s done a good job of taking care of her family on her own. And Marcelo doesn’t care, because all he cares about is his comrades back in Chile. But Daniel needs for the relationship to work because he’s becoming an adult, and now that his father has returned, that relationship is essential to Daniel figuring out who he is and his place in the world.

If I had wanted to write Dirt Cheap from the perspective of the cancer-survivor professor’s 13-year-old son, it would have been a YA novel. But the central conflicts and relationships in the book involve the adults, including all the marital infidelities. Were I to rewrite it as a YA novel, from the 13-year-old’s perspective, it would probably focus on the fact that his father was treated for cancer and has hidden it from his kids, and what happens when the boy finds out. Not a bad idea for my next book…

jordyn: Since you’re relatively new to the YA genre (or have been gone so long that I’m sure everything has changed), what has surprised you about it thus far?

lyn: Coming back to YA fiction after 22 years, I’ve noticed a lot of changes. The main one is the number of blogs like this one, which have replaced newspapers as a principal source of reviews. And teenagers themselves are more active in reading and writing about books. It’s a great development, because you have influence on what gets published and read, and there are more opportunities to discuss what’s in the books among yourselves and with the authors.

jordyn: Do you think your book being published as YA instead of adult (when it could have gone as either and strikes me as more adult than YA) has helped or hindered the success of it? (I’m not exactly talking about sales – more about the reactions you’ve gotten from readers/reviewers.)

lyn: Definitely helped. I’ve gotten a lot more reviews and attention for Gringolandia as a YA book than for Dirt Cheap as an adult book. In fact, I see Gringolandia as a crossover, something that can be read and appreciated by both teens and adults.

With Gringolandia, I wanted to write a novel for teen readers that didn’t talk down to them or treat them as celebrity-obsessed consumers and nothing more. Many young people today have started or joined Amnesty International groups in their high schools and are speaking out against the genocide in Darfur or against the use of torture against prisoners in Guantanamo. A lot of high school students worked for Barack Obama’s campaign even though they were too young to vote. I see teens involved in politics as a primary audience for Gringolandia. Another audience that’s embraced the book is immigrant teens—and not only from Latin America but also from places like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and China—who see their experiences reflected in those of Daniel and Tina.

I break a lot of the “rules” of YA fiction in Gringolandia. Very few scenes take place in school or in typical teen venues like sports events and unsupervised house parties. Daniel and Courtney move in an adult world where the stakes are much higher. The subject matter is quite intense, even for a genre where edgy is usually considered a good thing. And I didn’t want the relationships among the characters to be simplistic or too easily resolved.

More broken rules: I didn’t want the antagonist to be a villain. Marcelo is the antagonist in that he doesn’t let Daniel have what he wants, but he certainly isn’t a villain—in many ways he’s a hero. And finally, I let him have the last word. Almost never in a YA novel do you see anything from the adult’s POV. But it’s really through Marcelo’s eyes that you finally get the full meaning of what Daniel has done and the person he has become over the course of the story.

The teenage years are a time of testing limits and breaking rules. So I think I’m really a teenager in spirit because I dislike rules and still question authority.

jordyn: This is something I’ve been thinking about and trying to get others’ opinions on for a while now, so I’d love to know: how do you define YA?

lyn: Unfortunately, in the literary world, YA is seen as a put-down, a lesser form of literature characterized by limited vocabulary, simplistic relationships, and formulaic characters and story lines. In fact, YA novels can be far more challenging and socially relevant that so-called literary fiction, which often has more to do with how many big words the author can use than with characters, plot, conflict, and relationships—all that stuff that makes a novel worth reading.

In general, YA novels are narrated from the teenage character’s perspective, often in first person POV. They explore concerns of people transitioning from childhood to adulthood—questions of identity, physical changes, relationships among peers, romantic relationships (usually for the first time), changing relationships with parents and other adults, the development of a personal philosophy and values, finding one’s place in the world, and sampling for the first time the risks, responsibilities, and privileges of adulthood. In that sense, Gringolandia is very much a YA novel.

So what is not YA? For the most part, any story that doesn’t belong to the teenager, whether it is that of a younger child or of an adult. A story about a teenager that has the feel of an adult looking back, where the teenager’s experience is explored in terms of how the adult main character got to be where he or she is today. Or the story in which the teenager doesn’t behave like any real teenager but is a device for the author’s larger purpose. The Lovely Bones is an example, and why it was published as an adult book, in contrast to If I Stay, which has been compared to it.

jordyn: Anything you’d like to add? (About your book, writing in general, or the YA genre?)

lyn: I’d like to thank you for interviewing me and for creating this excellent review site, with well written in depth analysis of each book and web pages that look great, too. I encourage those of you reading this to visit my web site, web.mac.com/lynml and to e-mail me at lynml@mac.com if you have questions or would like to discuss the book more. I’m also available to speak to classes, book clubs, political clubs, and church youth groups if you live nearby (Albany, New York; the Hudson Valley; New York City area; Connecticut; or Boston area) or I happen to be in your area. My speaking schedule is posted on my web site under “Speaking.”

No problem! Thank you for answering all my questions.

Lyn’s website.