Hoping/Helping Readers THINK

The kinds of books I like best are the ones that make me think. They stay with me days after I finish them, lingering like a light mist on an early spring morning.

When I drafted Keeping Stats, a slim, YA boy-book about the downsides of being a high school athlete, it was important to me that readers think about it, as I enjoyed doing with other fiction.

But how could I write a complicated novel that promoted evaluation, in less than 200 pages?

So I read Chris Lynch's Inexcusable, and David Levithan's Love is the Higher Law.

I found that first, complexity was in theme--an original, abstruse, contemporary theme--and that theme could be shown in the main character's actions, reactions, thoughts, and dialogue.

Second, the MC had to wrestle with an intricate, intrinsic conflict. Which isn't all fixed at the end. So the reader has to do the work. There would be choice. Would the reader agree? Disagree? Understand?

How would the reader feel?

There would be questions--that the MC asks, that other characters ask of him, and that don't go completely answered. The conclusion wouldn't tie everything up, but would end with an implied projection, or another question, or a scene that would lead to the reader's assumption.

Next, the MC's voice would be unreliable. The reader would have to weigh the validity of the MC's narration to find his/her own truth. Which could be done through dialogue.

And finally, it had to have irony. The trick of all tricks, right?

In drafting Keeping Stats, I came across many more questions about writing than answers.

Does length affect depth?

Do certain genres lend themselves to more critical thinking? Or can any genre provide that possibility?

Do readers want to think? Or would they rather have the writer think for them?

And, is this thing GOING TO GET PUBLISHED???

Love and David Levithan

David Levithan strolled into A Children's Place bookshop in Portland with a blue backpack strapped to his back, and shoes that were nice, but which had pounded a lot of pavement.

He talked mostly about the World Trade Center memorial lights: how he had first seen them while driving back from the airport after flying in from London, how they illuminate the city during the anniversary of 9/11.

He said that Claire's pilgrimage mirrors his own, that she was the character hit hardest by the tragedy. The passage Levithan chose to read was "The Lights," narrated by Claire.

He explained the reason his climatic scene starts in the first chapter.

There were no books to buy; the store had run out before the visit began. But Levithan, in his well-ironed shirt, was unruffled; he crammed wisdom and his autograph onto skinny strips of stickers.

And he gave me a CD of songs he had made. I listened to it all the way home, partial to tracks 4, 6, and 10.

Before I left, though, I had asked Levithan about the conclusion. I teach my college students there are only so many kinds, I said, and I've tried and I've tried, but I can't figure this one out.

That's because there is no real end, he told me, It's like the tragedy itself; it's just not all wrapped up.

Then he put his arm around my daughter for a picture, and I thought, this man is love. He writes about love and he talks about love and he walks love, walks it right in those nice but well-worn shoes.

Doing the David Levithan Dance

It took some serious finagling, that's for sure.

To get to see my new fave, David Levithan, author of the deep and redeeming Love Is The Higher Law, I've had to cover two boys overnight, plus an entire class of writers.

But I did it.

I had to.

This guy has blown me away. I used this novella in my community college class, to show the integration of fiction into research, to prove that fiction is worthy of critical thought.

And speaking of "critical," Levithan's timeliness is. The novella debuted two weeks before the eight-year anniversary of the World Trade Center's collapse. It packs three teens' self-searches in a destroyed New York into a slim 163 pages, narrated by three voices.

I know. Crazy.

How does Levithan do it? Along with being clean and tight, the plot is simple: under 9/11 rubble, these kids struggle before finding community. And humanity. And hope.

Every word is chosen meticulously. Here's Claire: "I want to have faith in strangers. I want to have faith in what we're all going to do next. But I'm worried... Wouldn't it be wonderful if we really came together, if we found a common humanity? The hitch is that you can't find a common humanity just because you have a common enemy. You have to have a common humanity because you believe that it's true."

Who could not love the honesty, the wisdom there?

Oh, I hope Levithan reads that part in Portland tomorrow. That, and pages 105 and 106. And of course page 153.

"One..." Singular Sensation

I have a new hero and his name is David Levithan. He wrote this little sliver of a YA novel that I haven't been able to get out of my head: Love is the Higher Law. It's about three New York City teens whose lives are changed by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Like all teens, Jasper, Claire, and Peter had been searching for their selves. But after what Jasper calls "the tragedy," that search becomes critical; the emptiness needs fulfilling. Purpose needs to be realized.

These are wise kids, yes, but they're also just kids. They live for music, and they hang out and talk, and they have heaps of hope.

I particularly love Peter's early chapter, "The Date"--one, ten-page paragraph. One stream of consciousness, one string of events.

I also love that the novella begins and ends with Claire.

While gobbling up this morsel, I had no doubt that Levithan knows kids, that he knows gay kids, that he knows New York. That he understands suffering and the search to end it.

This book makes me want more out of my own life: more meaning, more depth, more substance.

It is one of those fiction pieces that makes you want to tell all the nonfiction believers in the world, "Hah! Take that! This book made me think! I mean, really think. So, it wasn't true, exactly. But try to get all that out of an encyclopedia."

Love is the higher law. And Levithan is the Supreme Justice.