Fourth Grade Journey

A Fourth Grade Teacher's Journey Through the World of Books

Monday, April 22, 2019

An Inside Look #86 (Author Interview)

Inside Look with Shaun David Hutchinson
(Author of The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried)

*During the summer of 2016, I added this feature to the blog which was called "Season #ONE".  This first season ran from June of 2016 to March of 2017.  

*I started up the interviews again in June of 2017.  It was great to get back to Season #TWO.  This season ran throughout the summer.  

*Season #THREE ran during the school year of 2017/2018.  


*The next season (season #FOUR) of interviews took place during the summer and fall of 2018.  With each interview I became more and more impressed with the authors I was having interactions with.  


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

*This is the FIFTEENTH interview of what I'm calling Season #FIVE.

*Thank you to Shaun David Hutchinson for being the Eighty-Sixth author that I've had the pleasure of interviewing.  I truly appreciate it.  


*Here are links to the first Eighty-Five interviews…


SEASON #ONE (2016-2017)

























SEASON #FOUR (Summer 2018)






















SEASON #FIVE (2018/2019)












*Shaun David Hutchinson was kind, gracious, and giving with his answers to the questions.  It is an honor to post his responses here on the blog.  

*Thank you Shaun for writing this incredible and thought-provoking book.

*Here are my thoughts about Shaun's newest novel...

My Book Review


The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried

by Shaun David Hutchinson (February 18, 2019)



How did you come to know Dino and July?
Dino and July first came about while I was writing We Are the Ants.  I needed a fake movie for Henry and Diego to see on their date, and I’d been toying with an idea that I’d described as “Cyrano de Bergerac…with zombies.  Dino and July were born from that.  But it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I really got to know them.  I’d floated the idea to my editor, and she’d loved it, so I sat down to flesh them out.  Why had July come back to life? What was her importance to Dino? Why did Dino care about her? I moved away from the Cyrano de Bergerac conceit to a story about estranged best friends, and it grew organically from there.
What do you think are Dino and July’s most admirable qualities?
I think Dino’s most admirable quality is that he’s thoughtful.  He thinks about the repercussions of his actions, how the things he does might affect the people around him.  Taken to the extreme, it’s also his worst quality because it causes him to be indecisive and to avoid making decisions in his own life.  

July’s most admirable quality is her belief in herself.  July plows through life like she’s in charge, and she doesn’t have much time for regret.  Like with Dino, her best quality is also her worst, because it can cause her to be insensitive and to hurt others.  But I also think it pairs well with July’s second best quality, which is her capacity to grow.  A lot of people probably won’t like July at first (heck, they may not even like her by the end!), but I think part of life is accepting that we’re going to screw up and being prepared to apologize and accept the consequences of our actions, and I think July does that by the end.
Is there anything you wish they would have changed or done differently in their story?
Been honest with each other!  I drew a lot on my own friendships, and sometimes just being honest with the people you care about is the hardest thing in the world to do, but it’s almost always the right thing to do.  I lost a lot of time with my best friend when we were growing up because we had hurt each other but weren’t honest enough to say so.  Those hurts festered and grew until they were almost too much to overcome.  Dino and July could’ve saved a lot of pain and time if they’d just been honest with one another.  Of course, then there wouldn’t have been a story to tell.
What do you think these two characters can offer to other children that are experiencing similar situations to what they went through?
I think they offer the ability to see someone else’s pain through their eyes. I initially had written the book through only Dino’s point of view, but I realized I needed July’s story if I was going to tell the whole truth.  Things that Dino remembers as minor were massive to July, and vice versa.  And I think that’s important to consider.  I think, when dealing with another person’s hurt, we have to try to see how they’re experiencing that pain.  Something that might not be a big deal to you could be everything to someone else.
How did you research them and the circumstances they found themselves in?
I did some research on the funeral industry, though I took a lot of liberties and creative license. Mostly, I drew on my own personal experiences.  Many of the situations Dino and July found themselves in were from my life.  The late-night trips to Walmart, running into a group of Rocky Horror Picture Show cosplayers late night at Denny’s.  I raided my young adult life for a lot of their adventures.
Do you and these two share any similarities?  
Dino and July’s friendship is primarily inspired on my friendship with my best friend of nearly 30 years.  I had to compress decades into a much shorter time frame, but the core of who Dino and July are came from that.  However, my best friend is more like Dino and I’m actually more like July.  Not in the sense that I’m loud and aggressive, but in the sense that I sucked up a lot of the emotional oxygen in our friendship.
What was the hardest scene to write about them?
The end.  But I don’t want to spoil it.
Who do you think were their biggest supporters and why?
I think they were each other’s biggest supporters, though it might not have always seemed like it.  I’m sure a lot of readers will probably question why Dino and July were even friends to begin with, but that’s the funny thing about friendship.  Sometimes it doesn’t make sense.  Sometimes friendships end naturally, sometimes we have to end them because they’re toxic, and sometimes they endure even when it seems like they shouldn’t.  The book takes a peek at one small slice of their friendship, and not the most flattering part, but I don’t think July would’ve come back from the dead for someone she didn’t care deeply about, and I don’t think Dino would’ve put up with July’s shenanigans if he didn’t love her.
Why do you think it takes “life and death” situations for humans to be real with each other, speak their truth, and come to peach with each other?
Because human beings, while often fascinated with death, seem wholly unprepared for it.  We ignore it in our day-to-day lives, ignoring that each interaction we have with another person could theoretically be our last.  That causes us to treat the people around us less carefully than we might otherwise treat them.  It prevents us from really exposing ourselves until, often, it’s too late.  And being truthful makes us vulnerable, right?  Sharing the truth gives someone power over us.  If we share the truth with someone who’s dying, they take that power with them when they go, and they can’t use it against us. But when we share the truth with someone who isn’t dying, they always have it, and that’s scary.  But I think we have to get over that fear.  What’s the point in being with people if we’re not going to be honest with them?
What do you think Dino, and maybe July, are doing at the present time? 
Well, I think Dino’s probably hanging out with Rafi, being dragged to one volunteer project or another—and probably complaining about it even though he secretly loves it—and I think July is absolutely, definitely haunting Dino in the shower.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)