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Author 411 February 2007 - Dana Reinhardt Photo © 2006 Chelsea Hadley
There
was a man. He had a knife. He attacked us down by the river. AUTHOR 411
Q. What inspired you to write Harmless? A reader from Allegan, Michigan—named Mariah, as a matter of fact—commented, “The story line is something that would be shown on Court TV. Did you base it off a real event?” Furthermore, in what ways does the novel reflect events, situations, or relationships from your life? A. There’s a certain kind of news story that always grabs my attention. It has a headline that looks something like this: "Local Kid Commits Bad or Horrible or Even Unspeakable Act." When I read these stories or see them on the news (but not on Court TV because I never watch Court TV!), I find myself asking the same questions every time: Who are these kids? What kinds of families are they growing up in? Who are their friends? What circumstances contributed to this moment when there was a chance to do the right thing, and instead they plunged headfirst into darkness? As I writer, I think when you find yourself asking the same questions over and over again, you probably have something worth writing about. Also, I think the public tends to write off these kids as bad seeds. But I always look at these stories as stories about good kids who have made bad choices, and there’s a difference there that I was interested in exploring with this book. As far as how this novel reflects events or situations or relationships from my own life: making bad choices is part of growing up and I was certainly no stranger to the art of bad decision making. Morality is still a work in progress in the teenage years. It’s probably always a work in progress, but it’s particularly inchoate during adolescence. I did things I knew were wrong when I was doing them, and then there were the things I did where I wasn’t able in the moment to see the entire chain of events that would follow such a poor choice. Sometimes those bad decisions were influenced by the actions of others, and sometimes they were entirely my own doing. I never did anything quite as terrible as what these girls do here, and also, I was never caught, so I’m fortunate enough to be able to keep those stories to myself.
Q: Why did you choose to write Harmless from three different perspectives? Did you consider writing in third person, or from just one girl’s point of view? I’ve noticed that these kinds of stories, the ones where kids do terrible things, more often than not seem to happen in groups, and I was interested in exploring the group dynamic of poor decision making. I certainly thought about all different kinds of ways to tell this story, and there were moments in the middle of writing this book where I wished I’d taken a different approach, but I’d guess every writer feels this way in the middle of anything he or she is writing. Ultimately, I settled on writing from all three points of view because, like any narrator, each of these girls is unreliable. Because you only see the events filtered through her own perspective, letting each character tell her own unreliable version of the events gives a more complete (but still not entirely complete) picture of what happened and why. This is a story about telling the truth, and in my opinion, there is no absolute truth to anything, so the more versions you get, the closer you come to knowing what is true and what is not.
Q: Readers were impressed by how relatable the characters are in Harmless. How did you get into the minds of teenagers? Do you have any background in psychology from which you gained insight on how teens behave when they realize they’re in trouble? In your opinion, are the characters in Harmless representative of typical teens today, or would you characterize them more as archetypes? A: I don’t have a background in psychology, I simply survived my own adolescence, and when I sit down to write about being that age, it doesn’t feel so far away from me. I would argue that the way these girls react when they realize they’re in trouble isn’t too far off from how anyone reacts when he or she is in trouble. It’s just that the older you get, the more control you have over your initial impulses. I still get that panic, that terrible rush, when I realize I’m about to get caught in a lie, and the best you can hope for in growing older is to recognize that that’s usually the hardest moment, and once you face up to it, things get easier from there. But there will still be those times in life, those instances when you choose to continue to stand by your lie, no matter where it takes you. And as far as whether these girls are archetypes: archetypes never feel like real flesh and blood characters to me, so I’d like to think these girls are just typical teens of today or any time.
Q: Emma, Anna, and Mariah have very different personalities, which evolve in unique ways as the novel progresses. How did you come up with each character, and how did you envision the nature of their friendship from the beginning? How do the girls’ relationships with each other influence their roles in maintaining the lie? How do the girls’ respective relationships with their families affect how they behave? Of the three girls, with whom do you identify most? A: Initially, I imagined these girls occupying three different positions on the moral spectrum. I saw Anna as the conscience of the trio, Mariah as the one who pulls the others toward darkness, and Emma as someone trapped somewhere in the middle. Obviously they didn’t quite turn out this way. And the reason they didn’t turn out the way I imagined them initially is probably because that is an unrealistic and overly simple (archetypal, even!) way to think of 14-year-old girls. Or anyone, really. Nobody is the moral one. Nobody is the evil one. I think all three of them are somewhere in the middle, and that’s where most of us are. I’ve probably been each of these girls at one point or another. There are friendships where I felt like Anna, others where I was the Mariah. And there were times growing up where I was Emma, where something was happening to me that felt too big for me to understand, where I was too afraid to talk to anyone about it, and so I retreated into myself.
Q: Why did you start the novel with Anna’s voice, and end it with Mariah’s? A: I wanted them each to have equal time to tell their versions of events and that’s why it started with Anna and ended with Mariah, and the order in which they appear is the order in which their characters came to me.
Q: Readers had a lot to say about the reactions of Emma, Anna, and Mariah’s parents. Many were struck by how clueless they are about what their daughters are doing outside of school, given the small size of their town. As the author of Harmless—and as a parent, yourself—how would you explain the depiction of the girls’ parents in the novel? A: I hope my own parents don’t make a habit of reading Author 411, because what I want to tell you is that even though they were fantastic parents, and even though I was a pretty decent kid, and even though we talked about lots of things that teenagers don’t often talk about with their parents, I think it’s safe for me to say that they had no clue about what I was doing half the time. I think deceiving your parents is an essential rite of passage, so I don’t fault the girls for that. By the same token, I can’t fault the parents for not knowing their daughters were sneaking off to a party they shouldn’t have been attending. Where I think the parents come up short, however, is in not paying enough attention to what happens after the girls tell the lie. They too easily take their word about what happened, without monitoring their emotional states following the incident or paying attention to the signals the girls are sending out that something is terribly wrong. But then again, speaking as a parent now, it’s hard to imagine not taking my own daughter’s word if she were to tell me that kind of story. I would want to support her in any way I could, and probably wouldn’t be looking to poke holes in her version of events. Being a parent is tough, it’s almost as tough as being an adolescent, and the parents in this book make mistakes, just like the girls do.
Q: Why do Emma, Anna, and Mariah perpetuate such an outrageous lie? Did you intend for the lie to be interpreted by readers this way? Why does it take so long for the girls to come clean? Do you think they were prone to lying prior to the incident? A: I don’t think the lie felt outrageous to them in the moment. It does to a reader because as a reader you observe the actions of these characters from a great distance. In that moment, these girls believed the fallout from telling the truth would have been harder to face than the fallout from the lie they conjured. They thought they were taking the easy way out. What the girls failed to understand was that they would be taken so seriously. It’s shortsighted, for sure, not to realize that people will take a report of an attempted rape seriously, but I believe that none of the three girls was accustomed to being taken seriously. They each, for different reasons, felt small and insignificant, so I don’t think they imagined that their words could yield such power. And sure, they don’t want to get in trouble, so that may account for some of why it takes so long for them to come clean, but also, when they find their words do have power, that they can be taken seriously, they’re inhabiting this new world that is at turns frightening, exhilarating, and confusing, and they’re a bit lost in it.
Q: Why is David Allen so forgiving? A: David Allen has spent his life on the wrong side of other peoples’ forgiveness and kindness. That can make people bitter. Or it can make people deeply empathetic, and that’s where David Allen has wound up. I hope that if I were David Allen, I’d react the way he does. I know it’s how I feel when I read about these stories and the end result is that the kids are being shipped off to juvenile hall. I always think: what good does that do anybody? It doesn’t help the victim. And it certainly doesn’t help the kids. I guess I’m not a big believer in our criminal justice system, that it does much in the way of rehabilitating people, especially juveniles. I’m not saying kids who do terrible things shouldn’t face punishment; I’m just saying that there are better ways to learn lessons at a young age than to become a part of a broken system. And I think David Allen knows this firsthand.
Q: Some readers observed that many of the male characters mentioned in Harmless are, well . . . jerks. Was this portrayal deliberate? How would Harmless have been different if it were written from the perspective of teenage boys? A: Ouch. Jerks? Really? I don’t see them that way at all. I think the male characters in this story are normal, average people. Carl and Raymond come off as cold and irrational at times, but remember, they’re both filtered through their daughters or stepdaughters or their daughters’ friends, and part of being an adolescent is finding the faults with the adults around you. Yes, they have faults, they could be better fathers, but they aren’t terrible people. Are they jerks? Sometimes. Okay, so maybe you’re right about them. Maybe they are jerks, but they’re human. DJ is sort of the villain of the story, but really, I think unfairly so. He’s just a typical teenage boy. He has deep ties to his friends. He likes to have fun. He likes Mariah, but he’s not as emotionally invested in her as she is in him, and if you take a look at that relationship, I think it’s pretty clear that he’s never really promised her anything. Mariah makes assumptions about their commitment to each other, about how deeply DJ feels for her, because that’s what she wants to believe. Perhaps he should have picked up on this imbalance and been more clear about his role in the relationship, but I think that’s asking a lot of a high school boy, even a senior. As far as Owen goes, I think it’s too easy to blame him for what happens with Emma in the story. What happens between them shouldn’t have happened, but it isn’t Owen’s fault. Again, I think Owen is a typical teenage boy. He went to a party on a Friday night. He met a cute girl. She turned her attention to him. She sent every signal that she was a willing and eager participant in what transpired between them. He could have stepped back. He could have questioned her, tried to determine if she was really ready to have sex. He could have suggested they wait until they know each other better, he could have sensed her vulnerability, but again, I think that’s asking a lot of someone his age. And remember, he’s interested in pursuing Emma afterwards, but she shuts him down. And find me anyone who thinks Silas is a jerk! He’s a good boy. A good son, and brother, and even a good boyfriend, who, like everyone else, makes some mistakes.
Q: How significant is the looming presence of sex, drugs, and underage drinking to the story? In what ways do the consequences that stem from such matters influence the characters’ resolve to lie?
A: Sex, drugs, and underage drinking are an inevitable part of growing up. Every kid is going to come face to face with all three, even if only to make the choice not to engage. The decision of these characters to make up a lie that night is inextricably tied to the sex and underage drinking: if they’d gone off to a party where they drank Kool-aid and played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, they wouldn’t be feeling so panicked in that moment when they realize they’re about to be found out. They each desperately want to preserve something about themselves that has changed since they decided to experiment with sex or drinking, whether it’s their image, or familial peace, or an uncomfortable secret.
Q: By the conclusion of Harmless, do you think the girls have learned their lesson? Is their punishment appropriate? All in all, what overarching message would you like readers to take away from this book? A: I try not to write with messages in mind. I think books with messages feel preachy and didactic. What I try to do is to write a story in which the characters go on some kind of emotional journey that is authentic, and in which they learn something about themselves and the world. I do think they’ve all learned their lesson at the end. I think they knew what they’d done was wrong the moment they did it, they just hoped they could get away with it quickly and quietly. But when David Allen is arrested, they know on some level that they have to come clean, that he can’t be punished for their lie, but they’re each afraid of what they’ll lose when they stand up to tell the truth. In this book, its Emma who finally cracks. But I think if she had kept quiet much longer it would eventually have been Anna or Mariah. They were all moving in this direction, just at different paces.
Q: We’ve all found your novel—and your writing style—very inspiring. How and when did you decide to be a writer? What and who are some of your favorite books and authors? What kinds of stories are you most interested in writing? Are you more inclined to explore powerful life lessons like in Harmless, or do you enjoy a range of writing themes and styles? How long did it take you to write Harmless? What can we expect from you in the future? A: I decided to be a writer first when I was about nine. Then I realized it would be too hard to write a book. So I decided I’d be a veterinarian. But then I realized that being a veterinarian isn’t just about petting cute puppies, that there’s a whole blood and guts element to that too. So veterinary medicine was out. In high school and college, I took creative writing classes and loved them, but I couldn’t imagine how to make a career out of it, so I did what many young people do who can’t figure out how to make a career for themselves and I went to law school. Then after many jobs and different professional paths, I finally sat down to try and write a book while taking a break from work. I learned that 1) writing a book isn’t taking a break from work, it is work and 2) there is no other way to become a writer other than taking that leap and sitting down to give it a try. Each book is different. I wrote my first novel very quickly, in about two and a half months. Harmless took me longer, probably about six months of real work and several more months of pretending to work. It’s so hard to answer that question about favorite authors and books because I have so many, but for me, a perfect book is To Kill a Mockingbird. If it were published today, it might even be a characterized as a young adult novel, but it’s a universal story that just gets better and better every time I read it.
Q: Finally, can you offer any advice to up-and-coming teenage writers? A: Read. Read a lot. Read all kinds of stuff. It doesn’t even matter all that much what it is as long as you’re reading. The same goes for writing. Write. Write stories. Write in a journal. Write letters to your friends. Write down funny things you see or hear someone say to someone else when they don’t know you’re listening. Write down things that strike you as odd or interesting or moving or sad. When the sound of words, or phrases, or some lyrics to a song get stuck in your head, write them down. There’s probably a reason they’re stuck in your head and you may not know why until you look at them later. Take chances. Try different voices. Try various styles. Try outrageous ideas. Put words together that don’t seem to have any business sitting side by side. Read what you’ve read out loud. How does it sound? Here comes the hard part: after you’ve written something you like, let someone else read it.
Thanks to the following Teen Book Groups for participating! Galley
Group
Hobbs Middle School Book Group Milton, FL
The Lunch Bunch Book Club Pinedale, WY
Teen Literacy Initiative Eau Claire, WI
Young Adult Advisory Board Lawrence, KS
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