How many times have we finished a great book and asked ourselves, "Did the events in this story actually happen?" In today's guest blog, Jo Knowles --- author of LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL and JUMPING OFF SWINGS --- explores the truths behind her fiction, and shares what she hopes people take away from the act of reading.One of the most common questions I’ve received when talking to readers about LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL is, “Where did you get your idea?” Often when I give the usual answer, I can see a bit of disappointment on some faces. Or is it suspicion? I think this is because the real question some people want to know is, is the book “true”? In other words, did it happen to me?
And that is such a difficult question to answer. So much of what I write is a part of me --- my memories, my questions, my journey to who I am, and who I’m yet to become. There are so many truths. Which one is it you’d like to know?
In LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL, was it the memory of a childhood friend who pinned down my arms and spit in my face because she thought it was funny? My two best friends who dared me to scream in the middle of our English class in ninth grade? The friend who thought it would be hysterical to chase my sister and me around the house with a butcher’s knife one night when my parents were out? Or the girl whose bruises I saw when she undressed after gym class, when she thought no one was looking.
In JUMPING OFF SWINGS, was it the conversation I overheard my senior year between four boys who were bragging about who did the kinkiest sex act with same girl? Was it the rumor about my friend’s sister, who was reported to have had two abortions? Or the classmate I hardly knew, who one night at a party, pulled me into the bathroom and told me it was her child’s second birthday, but she’d given him up for adoption and didn’t know where he was.
These and many other memories that have found their way --- however transformed --- into the pages of my books, are fragments of my life that pressed into my heart and left lasting imprints. Some were thrilling! Some were heartbreaking. Some were the most tender moments of my life. And they all shaped how I see the world and the people in it.
Almost always, what’s followed these powerful moments have been questions I can’t easily answer: Why did she do that? Why did he say that? What on earth were we thinking??? What follows these questions is my attempt to answer them. I often do this by exploring the answers through stories. I want to understand the girl who slept with all those guys in high school when it was clear she had no interest in any of them. I want to understand the boy who seemed so angry all the time. I want to know why that girl never raised her hand in class even though something in the way she looked at me when our eyes met said she had something to say. And while I can never know the “true” answers to any of these questions, I can gain some compassion and understanding by exploring some possible ones.
What my favorite books do best is tell the truths I want or need to know and understand myself. No matter what the story, I think I always see the world a little differently after I’ve walked in the shoes of another in the pages of a book. That’s what books like THE CHOCOLATE WAR, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE and A SEPARATE PEACE did for me as a young reader, and what they still do now. They make me feel less alone.
So to get back to the original question. Did it happen to me? The honest answer is yes, and no. I am not Laine. And I am not Ellie. But we share similar injustices. Similar heartbreaks. And similar triumphs. I know this won’t be the most satisfactory answer to some, but that is as true as I can make it. And really, whether any of these things happened to me doesn’t matter to --- or change --- the story. And it doesn’t change the reader, or the person asking the question. What matters is whether the person has gained some compassion, some deeper understanding of how someone might be silently suffering. And how he or she will use that understanding to look at the world a little differently, too. And especially for those people asking the question because something similar happened to them, I truly, deeply hope they feel less alone.
-- Jo Knowles
