ReadWonder: An Inside Look #277 (Author INTERVIEW)

An Inside Look with Gayle Forman

(Author of Not Nothing)

*Season #ONE (June of 2016 to March of 2017)

*Season #TWO (Summer of 2017)

*Season #THREE (School Year 2017/2018)

*Season #FOUR (Summer/fall of 2018)

*Season #FIVE (School Year 2018/2019)

*Season #SIX (Summer 2019)

*Season #SEVEN (Fall 2019)

*Season #EIGHT (Winter/Spring 2020)

*Season #NINE (Fall 2020)

*Season #TEN (Winter/Spring 2021)

*Season #ELEVEN (Fall 2021)

*Season #TWELVE (Winter/Spring 2022)

*Season #THIRTEEN (Summer 2022)

*Season #FOURTEEN (Fall 2022)

*Season #FIFTEEN (Winter/Spring 2023)

*Season #SIXTEEN (Fall 2023)

*Season #SEVENTEEN (Winter/Spring 2024)

*I'm excited to present season #EIGHTEEN with brand new interviews/authors.

*It has been such an honor to connect with authors and "chat" about their novel, characters, and thoughts about the story.

*This is the FOURTH interview in which I'm calling Season #EIGHTEEN.

*Thank you to Gayle for being the Two Hundred Seventy-Seventh author I've had the pleasure of interviewing. I truly appreciate it.

Not Nothing

by Gayle Forman

(August 27, 2024)

How did you come to know Josey and Alex?
Joey, the 107-year-old narrator of the book was part of the inspiration of the book. I knew I wanted to write a book about a very old man who had lived through the Holocaust and his relationship with a child who had done something that might seem unforgivably wrong, except that I don’t believe—and neither does Josey—that any thing a child does is unforgivable. Alex took a bit longer. I wrote a draft of the book with Alex as a 17-year-old girl that did not work. But when I realized Alex was a 12-year-old boy, the book came to life.

What do you think is Josey and Alex's most admirable quality?
Josey’s most admirable quality is his spirit, which even after so much hardship, remains open and optimistic about a person’s capability to change and rise to the occasion. Alex has so many admirable qualities—curiosity, caring, resourcefulness— but they have gotten squashed over the years because of his life experience and at the start of the book he is very shut down. Josey encourages some of Alex’s curiosity to come out and this leads Alex to rediscovering some of those old parts and really rising to the occasion to become his better self.

Is there anything you wish they would have changed or done differently in their story?
Alex begins the story steeped in anger and resentment, which is really masking his shame. There is so much he would’ve done differently. Josey understands this regret, even before he knows Alex’s story. Josey also understands you cannot change the past, only use those experiences to inform how you act in the future He encourages Alex not to be defined by the worst thing he’s done but by the so many better things he is now doing and may well do in the future. Neither would have grown to where they are without making mistakes. That’s the thing about mistakes: they are the building blocks to growth and it’s so important to have space and grace to make them and learn from hem.

What do you think Alex can offer to other children that are experiencing similar situations to what he went through?
Alex believes he is defined by his worst act (and it’s a truly bad thing). He is not. No child is. He believes he is nothing. He is not nothing. No child is. While very few young people have done what Alex has done, they all have done things that they wish they hadn’t. It’s important to own up to these acts, to make amends when possible, and to grow from them. And it’s important for all of us to allow other people this grace and forgiveness to do that whenever possible.

How did you research Alex and Josey and the circumstances he found himself in?
For Alex, most of my research was into the legal system and what would be at stake for a 12-year-old boy who’d committed such an act. I reached out to my legal friends and spoke to people in the juvenile justice system. For Josey, I did a ton of research about Krakow Poland before and during the war. I knew the broad strokes of the Nazi regime because my German Jewish grandparents fled Hitler in 1938 but I wanted the specifics to Poland where things happened much quicker than in Germany. And I have spent a lot of time in assisted-living facilities, as a volunteer, visiting my nurse sister where she worked and then my mother-in-law so I didn’t really have to research that part so much as remember it.

Do you and Alex or Josey share any similarities?
I think that like Alex, like most people, shame is my worst enemy. When I feel ashamed of something, it shuts me down and I treat myself terribly and I move away from my better self.

And like Josey, I like to think that I am open and forgiving to almost everyone because I truly don’t believe anyone is inherently bad and certainly never a child.

What was the hardest scene to write about them?
The scene where Maya-Jade finds out what Alex has done before Alex has a chance to tell her himself. It broke both characters’ hearts and by extension, mine.

Who do you think was Alex's biggest supporter and why?
Josey is Alex’s biggest supporter. He breaks a five-year-silence to speak to the boy and by telling him the story of Olka, the young woman who went from small and bitter to heroic and loving, he changes Alex’s life—and his own. He sees potential in the boy. He invites the boy to rise to the occasion of his life. No one had done that for Alex before and this invitation changes everything.

Why do you think some young people can show such resilience, strength, and courage during difficult life situations; sometimes even more than the adults in their lives?
That is such a good question and one I’m not sure I have a complete answer to. Maybe because they have had fewer disappointments and fewer people telling them something cannot be done, cannot be changed. If that’s the case, it’s a shame. I want every young person to develop resilience, optimism, their own power, courage and compassion by witnessing it all around them, in friends, neighbors, community members, teachers, and peers. Maybe that’s naive, but young people should not have to do this on their own.

What do you think Alex is doing at the present time?

Book Pages

Monday, October 21, 2024

An Inside Look #277 (Author INTERVIEW)

No comments:

Post a Comment