Dear Kim,
As I mentioned on Saturday in our 7th grade-picture-tastic post about Brooks Benjamin, my letters to you will return next week. This week is all about featuring debut authors during the 2016 Debut Authors Bash.
Today we welcome Kenneth Logan to the blog and his debut, True Letters From a Fictional Life. He received our letter (below) and wrote back answering our questions about his book.
Read on.
Love,
Alison
MY LETTER TO KENNETH
Dear Kenneth,
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY! We are
thrilled to share True Letters From a
Fictional Life on our blog on this momentous day! What better than a letter
to you, the super cool creator of the book, to celebrate?
Not only is True Letters
From a Fictional Life a brave coming out story, it is also the story of an awesome family and true friends. It is a book about knowing
who you are at the core and being confident (and supported) enough to live your true self.
 |
| You can get your copy here or enter to win a copy from Kenneth in his #Giveaway. |
The book’s main character,
James, begins the story stuck in a life that he is “supposed” to live. He has a
sort-of girlfriend, he hangs with his teammates, he is a good brother, he tries
to please his parents. But on the inside James feels trapped. He wonders if he
is doomed to live a fictional life forever? Or if maybe, just maybe, he can be
honest with himself and the people that he loves.
James sits at his desk and
writes letters that he never intends to send. He writes the truth about his
feelings in these letters to everyone he cares about: his mother, to that
sort-of girlfriend, to other boys, his coach, and even God.
I am a huge fan of Simon vs.
the Homo Sapiens Agenda and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. In
both books there was the added element of email correspondence that I just
loved. I hoped that True
Letters From a Fictional Life would
feed me in the same way the previous titles had. In True Letters, James wrote his
hopes, dreams, fears, and wishes. These letters couldn’t provide the
write-and-response that I loved in Simon or Will
Grayson, but I held on, knowing that there would be a response. SPOILER ALERT: I knew that the letters would get out. James would have to do some
face-to-face apologizing and unveiling of his true self. NONFICTION James would
finally come to life.
Kenneth, I hope you will
tell us more about how you decided on the order of the letters. Why did you
start with Mom? I’m dying to know. Why did you include the letters that you
did? Was there ever a draft of the book where you started on page one with a
letter? I guess you can tell that I want to know everything about the letters
and more!
Thank you for the gift of
this book. For writing a book with a courageous character like James. Oh, and REX….
Thank you for writing Rex!!
Once again, Happy Book
Birthday!
Much love,
Alison
P.S. Write Back Soon!
Hi
Alison,
I
hope other readers share your excitement about my book. Thanks for the kind
words. You asked me to write a little bit about James’s letters, so guess which
of the following is true:
A. Read
backwards, the letters contain messages from Santa.
B. The
letters’ supplementary coloring book, My
Tears Taste Like Cerulean Blue, will be published later this summer.
C. One
of my friends secretly wrote all the letters when we were in high school. I
stole them from his desk drawer and have waited years to publish them.
D.
There was no particular order to the letters, other than the way they lined up
with the plot.
Probably
not too hard to figure out which one’s true. So, if you’re reading this post
right now, man, I imagine you’re pretty annoyed with me. Ultimately, though, I
think I’ve done you a big favor. I’ll take you for ice cream to make up for it.
Actually, early on,
the book was entirely letters. It
wasn’t much fun to write, and I’m sure the stilted prose and wandering plot would’ve
been even less fun to read. Later, I considered ditching the letters
completely, and although I’m glad I scrapped many of them, I do think the remaining
ones serve a good purpose: They’re little snapshots of what James really thinks
about as a gay kid growing up in a straight world. I hope, anyway, that the
letters make two points clear: (1) People don’t choose to be gay, and (2) for
some kids, at least in their own heads, the decision to come out means risking
the loss of everyone they love.
 |
|
I’m 16 or 17 in this photo, hiking (and
panting) in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park.
|
For some other kids, the decision to come out seems
even heavier than that—it feels like they have to annihilate the person they
believed themselves to be. Some of those boys choose to kill themselves rather
than live with the shame of being someone so many people hate. I hope the book
goes a little ways toward helping readers empathize with kids working up the
courage to come out. It will be easier for boys to be honest with themselves
and everyone in their lives if being honest doesn’t seem so dangerous.
I started with the
letter to James’s mom, in which he expresses doubts about ever marrying a
woman, because I think it demonstrates the way that “what’s normal” can be
established and enforced through completely innocent, casual, even affectionate
comments. The book’s not autobiographical—I grew up in suburban New Jersey, not
rural Vermont, I didn’t write anguished letters, and my soccer career peaked
when I was ten years old—but I do remember people making offhand remarks about
my distant wedding day. I would just go quiet. This happened back when the idea
of gay marriage sounded about as realistic as time travel. The fear that I was
going to disappoint everyone, to put it mildly, and that I could avoid that humiliation
if I just tried harder, was part of what kept me silent for so long. I think
that experience is still common for a lot of gay kids, especially the ones who
don’t tick the boxes on people’s mental checklist of how gay people behave.
Thanks
again for hosting me on your blog, Alison! Hope your summer’s long and
relaxing.
Take
care,
Kenneth
WIN TRUE LETTERS FROM A FICTIONAL LIFE
CLICK HERE TO ENTER
One winner will be selected at random.
Comments
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting!