Tell us about the title, Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best, and your connections to New Jersey.
Maria: I was born in New York City, but moved with my family to a small town in New Jersey when I was only five. My parents always made the distinction that while they were New Yorkers, their kids were from Jersey. They are very proud of being New Yorkers, so comments like that fed into some insecurities I had about being from The Garden State, where, as one of my main characters says, the “Jersey jokes probably outnumber Polish jokes and lawyer jokes combined.”
The title is from a T-shirt I owned when I was young. It’s a play on words, since tomato is slang for girl. So that T-shirt and yes, my title, essentially say Jersey Girls Are the Best. It’s the mantra for my two main characters, Henriette (Henry) and Eva, two teens who feel a tad defensive about being from New Jersey.
But while the setting and the background noise of the novel is largely New Jersey, the book is not about Jersey. Henry and Eva talk about being buffeted by jokes and escaping the cancers which are rampant in their home state, but the challenges they face are more profound and personal. These are talented kids facing extraordinary pressures, and the novel is about battling your demons, making healthy, life-affirming choices, and taking ownership of your future. For example, when Eva quips about “surviving” New Jersey, it’s actually code for a whole host of other things she’s struggling to survive.
You chose to tell the story of Tomatoes using two alternating, first-person narrators. Why did you write the book this way?
Maria: It didn’t begin like that! This was initially Henry’s story, and it was about her dream to become a professional tennis player. As I wrote, however, her best friend, Eva, kept elbowing her way into scenes. She was funny. She was a terrific counter to the super-intense Henry. And she was a very interesting, talented girl herself: a gifted ballet dancer. When I was writing the part in the novel where Henry heads to a summer camp in Florida, I commented to my teenage daughter: “My editor isn’t going to like this. I’m about to abandon Eva in New Jersey.” My daughter gathered an armload of her books, threw them on my bed and said, “You obviously need a two-narrator novel. Take a look at these.”
The entire book changed at that point. As I worked to create two distinct narrative voices, I began examining the importance of the inner voice which we all have … that personal voice which whispers in our ears. I began to understand that for Henry and Eva, inner voice is determinative.
This opened the door for me to explore Eva’s descent into full-blown anorexia in a way I hadn’t seen done in any other young adult novel. I did not want to paint Eva merely as a litany of symptoms and catalogue the relentless ticker tape of obsessive thought playing in her head. I wanted to chronicle her vulnerability and dramatize her descent in a way that made her sympathetic and real. By contrasting her inner voice with Henry’s, and also showing the stages she moves through in her illness, I could do that. I could also show the starkly different reactions Henry has to pressure and stress.
How did you research the sections which deal with anorexia?
Maria: I have never struggled with an eating disorder myself; however, my experience with eating disorders spans decades. Through high school, college and into my adult years I have known friends and family members who have struggled with eating disorders. They, along with professionals, have shared their stories and insights with me. I have been inside treatment centers and attended counseling sessions. I have wept with anguished parents who fear their daughters will die. I have been brought to my knees, watching helplessly as someone I care for disappears behind the veil of irrationality which is anorexia.
Despite all that is known about this illness and all the strides we have made in combating it, I have been bewildered by our ability to bear witness yet say nothing. Young people skip meals, become achingly thin, retreat from their friends and the rest of the world, and we say … nothing. We claim that we want to “respect their privacy.” We don’t want to “assume.” This situation, which must change, fueled my desire to tell Eva’s story.
You paint a vivid picture of the competitive worlds of both tennis and ballet. How did you research those parts of the book?
Maria: I play tennis, and still play competitively, although not nearly at Henry’s level! As a result, writing the tennis scenes was easy for me. I also had an opportunity to tour the Evert Tennis Academy in Florida, and speak with a representative there about the work they do with young players. Evert makes a real commitment to educating their players, helping them maintain a good balance in their lives, and keeping them healthy … unlike the fictional Chadwick Academy in Tomatoes.
The ballet sections took some real work, because I don’t dance and have never taken a single ballet class. I relied heavily on interviewing young dancers, reading books about ballet, combing through autobiographies of my favorite dancers, and even watching ballet how-to videos. I once tried standing en pointe in some borrowed slippers. That lasted about one excruciating second! Luckily, I’m a big ballet fan and have always attended the ballet, so getting up to speed on the dance sections was a real labor of love.
Everyone says, “Write what you know.” The fact that I don’t know how to dance would appear to fly in the face of that advice! However, while I can’t dance, I do know about performing. I was a classical pianist for many years, and actually prepared to compete as a teenager in a piano competition at New York’s Carnegie Hall. I believe my experience practicing and performing under pressure enabled me to write Eva’s sections of the book.
Where did you get the idea for Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress?
Maria: For me, stories don't begin in just one place. They come at me from a lot of different directions. I was recently going through my writing journal ... that's where I take notes or just scribble stuff in order to "find" stories ... and I found one of the beginnings for my novel. It was a paragraph about Sandy, a fifth grade girlfriend.
Sandy was this really sweet, giggly, beautiful blond girl. She was a great kickball player, and we were part of a big group of girls who hung out together. But around seventh grade things started to change. The boys discovered Sandy ... and she discovered them. This was way earlier than the rest of our group became interested in boys, and next thing you know Sandy wasn't hanging out with us anymore.
When my own children started middle school, I was reminded how painful this stage can be, especially when your friends' group changes. I realized I wanted to write about friends growing apart. That's where the novel started.
Are your characters based on people you actually know?
Maria: I never model characters on actual people. For example, when I wrote Brett, I put Sandy out of my mind. However ... as a character comes to life for me, and I figure out more about him or her, I realize they have traits that remind me of people I've known. Nonna, Brett's grandmother in the novel, is nothing like my own grandmother. But after I finished the book I realized she reminded me of one of my mom's friends!
I do find that settings and scenes in my books are inspired by actual places. The island in my novel is based on an island owned by some family friends. I first saw a potato bazooka at my son's 6th grade science fair. And I actually know teenage boys who can steer a boat using a Global Positioning System!
Did you always want to be a writer?
Maria: I've pretty much always wanted to write stories. Except for a brief period in high school, when I wanted to be a doctor. I had a very inspiring biology teacher who really brought science to life for us. At least half of that class went on to be doctors, and I was headed that way, until the teacher took us on a field trip to a local hospital. We walked into the kidney dialysis room, where we saw people having their blood cleaned, and bam! I hit the floor. Fainted dead away. It was the first of many fainting-at-the-sight-of-blood incidents, so I returned to my earlier ambition.
Do you write every day? Where do you write?
Maria: I would like to write every day, but I don't. Every day is a balancing act, and sometimes other things have to come before my writing. When my children were little, I was lucky if I wrote for three hours in a week. I would hire a babysitter, go to my favorite coffee shop, order a big cup of coffee and a brownie, and write like crazy until I had to take the babysitter home! Now that my kids are in school full-time, I have lots of flexibility.
Generally, I like to write in the mornings, after I walk our dog. We have a very busy, demanding dog who loses her mind if she doesn't get enough exercise. No matter what the weather .... and in Maine. you can get some pretty awful weather ... Frisbee (the dog) must go out. I find that every morning, while we walk, I'm thinking about what I'll write when I get back. It's kind of a writing-warm-up, and helps me focus.
I have a very dark, messy basement office where I wrote Brett. There are no windows there, and it's cold. I realize that sounds awful, but in fact, if I saw the sun shining outside, I'd want to go out and dig in my garden, or take the dog for a ski.
I also still write in coffee shops. I bring a notebook and just scribble madly. For some reason, I get a lot of good work done in crowded places where no one knows me.
What advice do you have for young writers?
Maria: I have three pieces of advice for young writers.
First: read. Read read read. Then, think about what made it good. Or bad. Read like a writer, and try to learn from the authors who you think do a good job.
Second: read your writing out loud. A bad sentence, or an awkward phrase, will sound like a pipe clattering on the floor when you read it out loud. Likewise, if you've written something good, it will just sing, and you'll find yourself reading it over and over again, and a big smile will stretch across your face, and you'll think: hooray.
Third: remember that there is no such thing as writing. It is all re-writing. No one ... and I mean no one ... gets it down perfectly the first time through. So, forgive yourself for those bad sentences or awkward, messy paragraphs. You can always go back and fix them.
|
|