*Thank you Lisa for writing this incredible and thought-provoking book.
*Here is my book review...
Zenobia July
by Lisa Bunker (May 21, 2019)
How did you come to know Zenobia?
As with many of my characters, Zen
started as a “what if” – in this case, what if there was a teenage trans girl
who was a coder/hacker prodigy – and quickly took on a life of her own in my
mind. When I am writing a rough draft, I often feel like I’m watching a movie
on the screen of my imagination and describing what the characters say and do. I
get to know them by recording their words and actions.
What do you think is Zen's
most admirable quality?
Like all real humans, Zen is far from
perfect. She has a temper, she tends to jump to conclusions, and she can judge
other people harshly. But she has a core of steel, a deep inner strength that
has sustained her through patches of hard living that might have broken other
people.
Is there anything you wish
she would have changed or done differently in her story?
Nothing particular springs to mind so
far. That said, I intend to write a whole series of Zenobia books, and I’m
aware that my choices going forward will be constrained by the choices I have
already made. I can easily imagine running into puzzles as I craft later books
in the series. Say, for example, in the drafting of book three, I might
discover that it would be super-useful if Zen had a sibling. Alas, I’ve already
said she is an only child. It could get challenging!
What do you think Zenobia
can offer to other children that are experiencing similar situations to what
she went through?
In telling Zen’s story I tried to
show her strength in a realistic way. She’s not a superhero. She’s a mere
mortal human. She gets sad, and angry, and frustrated, and she makes mistakes.
But she just keeps trying again.
How did
you research Zen and the circumstances she found herself in?
A lot of the story is pretty close to
home for me, so mostly I drew from my own experience – the things I’ve been
through as a trans person and the community that has helped me. I had to do
some research when it came to depicting realistic, un-stereotyped Christian families.
I specifically wanted all my characters to be well-rounded humans, doing what
they do for reasons that make sense to them. No cardboard cutout villains. And
I took some care and got some appropriate help in crafting the character of
Dyna, who is an immigrant from Africa, since her life is so far outside my own
experience.
Do you and Zenobia share any
similarities?
Well, sure, the whole trans
experience. And I gave her a version of my own geeky intensity. But we’re
different, too. I feel more like she’s a fictional child of mine, rather than a
version of myself.
What was the hardest scene
to write about Zen?
There’s a scene where she makes a
wrong assumption about a close friend, and I had to redo it several times to
make it feel right – to have the actions and reactions of both characters seem
real and true to who they are.
Who do you think was her
biggest supporter and why?
Zen’s biggest support is not a single
person, but the family of choice and friends groups that she finds when she
moves to Portland, Maine, just before the book begins. This was one of my
clearest goals in writing this book: I wanted to depict the power of rainbow
community to help young people who have begun to realize that they don’t fit
neatly into the standard binary categories.
Why do you think some
people, like Zen, are born into the wrong body and have to deal with the transition process and all
the difficulties that brings?
Many trans folks take exception to
the “born in the wrong body” trope, and while I’m not militant about it, I see
their point. It’s more like: perfectly good body, perfectly good brain, but
they don’t quite match. I don’t know why people are born trans, but at this
point it’s beyond question that they are. It’s also clear that each trans person
has every chance of living a full, happy, vibrant life if they are given the
support they need to resolve their dysphoria in a way that works for them.
What do you think Zen is
doing as the present time?
Sleeping off a
three-days-with-no-sleep summer gaming and hacking marathon. :-)
