Authors: Elizabeth Berg
Joy School (19 page)
I put the stone against my face, right where he
touched me. And then I fling it far out into the pond. It lands right about where I fell through the ice on the day I met him. I didn’t mean to throw it. I wish I hadn’t done that. I would like to have that stone back. I could carry it in my pocket no matter where I was or who I was, it would always be there. I could use it like he said, pull it out to soothe a troubled time. I stare out at the closed water, curl my fingers around nothing.
Well, whattya gon’ do, go complain-a city hall?
I’m cold. I start for home. Winter will pass. It may seem that it won’t, but it will. And that stone isn’t leaving, it’s just waiting. In the spring, I’ll come back and find it again.
A Conversation with Elizabeth Berg
Q: Can you explain the title
Joy School?
A:
As explained in the novel, Katie believes that Jimmy will be the place for her to learn happiness, her “joy school.”
Q: Although it stands alone, this is clearly a sequel to
Durable Goods
.
Why did you choose to continue the story of Katie and her family?
A:
I wrote
Joy School
simply because I missed the characters in
Durable Goods
. I wanted to revisit them, see what they were up to. I never planned to write a sequel, though. There was just a time when I was lying in the bathtub, and I thought about Katie, and I got out of the bathtub and started writing about her to see what she was up to.
Q: Will we be seeing them again in a future novel?
A:
I don’t think so. But who ever really knows?
Q: Did you know it was going to be a novel of first love when you started writing it?
A:
I had a vague idea that it might be a novel of first love.
Q:
Durable Goods
traced much of your own childhood experience as an “army brat” with a stern disciplinarian as a father. To what extent is this story of Katie’s first love biographical as well? Does Katie’s story mirror a first crush of your own?
A:
Although there were biographical elements in
Durable Goods
, Katie’s first love experience, chronicled in
Joy School
, is in no way similar to my own. My first love was a jerk.
Q: How much of yourself do you inject into your characters?
A:
It’s hard to gauge how much of yourself you put into your characters. As the writer of the material, I think you’re too subjective to really know. However, I think it’s safe to say that there is some of me in every character I write. How could there not be?
Q: You’ve been quoted as saying “I have an inordinate fondness for Katie …” and that “the character was such fun.” Why do
you have such fondness for her? What was fun about bringing her back to life?
A:
I love Katie because
she
loves so much, because she wears her heart on her sleeve, because she is honest and forgiving, because she is funny without knowing she’s funny. It’s fun to write about her because she brings back a time of life that is so rich. It’s also fun to write about Katie because you get to write about Cherylanne.
Q: What sort of pressure have you felt from receiving such good reviews on your first novel and your subsequent ones? Have you felt any pressure from yourself or from others to top yourself?
A:
There’s always a desire to top yourself, I think. I hope to get better and better for my own sake, and for that of my readers. Reviews are a funny thing. I read them, but I try really hard not to take them to heart.
Q: What do you mean when you say “It’s important to tend the fires within and the rest will take care of itself?”
A:
I think when you write, you need to worry only about yourself. What are you trying to say? How does it feel? Does it please you? No one else should be in your head—not your editor, not your readers, not your lover. You shouldn’t be worrying about any aspects of publishing—will this sell? Will this be well reviewed? That’s all pollution. First, honor your creative instincts; honor yourself and your gift and your own original impulses. Get the thing written the way you want to write it. Then worry about all the business stuff—or, better yet, let your agent worry about it.
Q: And what are you referring to when you talk about “the interior landscape?”
A:
“Interior landscape” refers to what I’m concerned with when I write. I don’t care where my characters live; I care how they feel. That is not to say I don’t very much admire other writers who
are
concerned with place. It’s just that external geography is not important in my books—only the terrain of the heart and
soul. This might be because I’m an army brat and don’t feel a strong attachment to any place. A friend of mine once told me “You carry your home around inside you.” I think that’s true.
Q: One reviewer characterized
Joy School
as “a coming-of-age story that is neither grim nor saccharine, an exploration of how, for one spirited girl, life brings both daily grief and daily joy.” How do you walk that fine line between being overly grim or overly sweet?
A:
Questions like this always feel to me as though the person is asking “How do you have brown hair?” Well, it just grows there. I’m pleased that people say things like that reviewer did, but it’s nothing I plan.
Q: Reviewers always have their own thoughts on the major themes and subthemes in the books they review. For instance, one reviewer saw—as subthemes—the ways people look for connections in different ways and in different places, regaining a faith that has been lost, and how early loss can radically shift a child’s understanding of the world. I prefer to hear your thoughts on the themes and subthemes of this story. How would you describe them?
A:
I don’t plan my books, I just start writing. I do believe that in one way or another, writers write about the same things over and over. For me, I suppose I focus on aspects of love and relationships. I am interested in love. Like the Beatles, I believe it’s all you really need. And what happens in relationships, that interests me, too. I like the human drama that gets played out on the small stage. I’d rather read—and write—about people in kitchens than in Paris. I like when characters are homey—wear their curlers, speak uncensored from the heart. I think all the depth we need can be found in the simple life.
Q: With a dead mother, a father who flies into sporadic rages and hits her, and an unhappily married sister who has fled to Mexico, Katie has every excuse for withdrawing into herself. And yet she continues trying to make connections with those around her: Cynthia and Taylor, Ginger, Nona, Father
Compton, and of course, Jimmy. What pushes Katie to keep reaching out?
A:
Katie is all heart. All feeling. She longs to share—with everyone. Above all, she has hope. It’s huge in her. It drives her, shapes her, defines her. And saves her.
Q: One reviewer has written “Adults writing novels about teenagers run a very real risk of turning out the literary equivalent of Impressionist paintings rather than capturing Kodak moments. Happily, Elizabeth Berg’s new novel is very much on the photography side of the spectrum.” While you may not be a teenager any longer, you are so obviously in touch with what it feels like to be one—the feelings, nuances of emotion, sights, smells, and sounds. How have you managed to stay so completely in touch with what that was like?
A:
This question gets asked a lot. And I always answer it the same way: I think probably anyone can remember this way. I mean, just try it. Lie on your bed. Close your eyes. Think of a song, a smell, an article of clothing from a certain time in your life. Other things will come to you. Then more things. The fact that people think I get things right means that they can remember those things, too.
Q: Of all the people in Katie’s life, it seems to be the priest, Father Compton, who is able to provide her with the perspective she needs to make sense of her life and the events described in the book. Why did you choose Compton for this role?
A:
I didn’t “choose” Compton. He just happened. In retrospect, it does seem right to me that a good priest might have the proper perspective to help Katie figure things out. She is a very spiritual person—and so is he.
Q: What do you mean when you say “The act of writing is very much like dreaming?”
A:
I let writing happen as I “let” a dream happen. I trust in the process, sit down at the computer, and let go. Sometimes I feel as though I’m in a trance when I write, and when I read the
pages from that day’s work, I don’t remember having written those words. I love when that happens. Every writer is different, but for me, it’s no good to plan. I can write down notes, pieces of dialogue, and so on and possibly incorporate those things. But there is never a detailed plot that I decide upon ahead of time and follow.
Q: Have you always had the desire to write?
A:
Yes, I have always had the desire to write. I would write whether I were published or not. It’s a need for me.
Q: Who are your literary influences?
A:
I don’t have literary influences. My education was too crummy for me to have such things. I play in my own corner of the sandbox, looking only at my own work. There are certain writers I really admire, though. My two favorites are E. B. White and Alice Munro.
Q: Has your success as a writer changed your life?
A:
My success as a writer means simply that I can write for a living. I am profoundly grateful for that.
Q: Have you ever experienced writer’s block?
A:
I don’t believe in “writer’s block.” I think there are times when the well runs dry with good reason, and your job then is to get up and go walk around and let the well fill up again. For me, being a writer means having a certain mindset, a certain sensibility, and that doesn’t go away any more than your left-or right-handedness goes away.
Q: What do you want readers to get out of this book?
A:
Oh, I just want them to feel it. To have a good time. To laugh, and to feel moved. To finish it, and give it a little pat before they put it on their bookshelf or pass it on to a friend. I want them to feel satisfied, like they got their money’s worth.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
Joy School
is set in the late 1950s or early ’60s. Why do you think Berg chose this time-frame as the setting for her story?Joy School
is a pre-feminist, baby-boomer coming-of-age story. How do the role models that young women grow up with today compare to the role models of Katie’s time? How are young women today equipped differently to cope with the whole first-crush experience. How are first-love fantasies of young girls different today than they were when Katie was growing up?With a dead mother, a father who flies into sporadic rages, and a sister who has fled to Mexico, Katie has every excuse for withdrawing into herself. And yet she continues trying to make connections with those around her. What keeps Katie from closing herself off to others? What would you do under similar circumstances?
At one point Katie tells Jimmy that she’ll come see him again the next day, and he says he’ll be there. “This shocked me,” Katie says, “that he has been there for a while, and that he will be there tomorrow, just like that.” Why do you think Katie is so shocked that Jimmy will “be there” the next day and the next?
Do you remember your own first crush or first love? How did your experience compare to Katie’s experience with Jimmy?
In describing Taylor, Katie says “Taylor is a funny person who doesn’t see any right and any wrong and is too strong to be around.” What do you think she means by this? Have you ever had a friend like Taylor?
One reviewer has said that Berg “completely nails down the entire universe of teenage experience in a single high school freshman.” Do you agree?
What does Katie mean when she says “Jimmy will be the place for me to learn the real happiness. He will be my Joy School.”
How does Berg’s portrayal of Katie compare with portrayals of
other girls her age that you might have read about?Katie, talking about trying to settle into her new surroundings, says “I have never had such a hard time getting my place in a school. You wish you could bring a book of directions to yourself that everyone would read.” Why do you suppose she’s having such a hard time with this particular school? What might Katie have done to fit in better?
Katie tries to talk to Ginger about some of the problems she’s having in school. Katie says “I want to say, ‘Did you have any trouble in school with kids being kind of mean to you? If so, what did you do about it?’ Like an essay question. But when I start to ask, all that comes out is ‘Did you like high school?’” Why do you think Katie has such a hard time talking to Ginger about her problems?
What do you think of the peripheral characters Berg brings into her story: Taylor Sinn—the beautiful model with a penchant for shoplifting; Cynthia O’Connell—the classmate with an overbearing control freak for a mom; and Nona, Cynthia’s dying grandmother who sneaks down to the kitchen in the dead of night to cook pasta by candlelight?
What does Katie learn from her experience with Jimmy? In what way is sorrow a kind of teacher for Katie?
What do you see in Katie’s future?
What’s your opinion about Jimmy’s behavior toward Katie? Do you feel he was sensitive and caring of her feelings, or rejecting? When Katie tells him she’s in love with him, he says “I didn’t know…” Should he have realized that Katie was developing a crush on him? Was she sending signals that he failed to notice?
Do you think Katie’s crush on Jimmy might have been less heartbreaking if her mother had been there to help her through it?
What do you think was going through Jimmy’s mind when Katie tells him she loves him? And when he sees the realization in her eyes that he considers her only a child?