I am so honored to bring this treat for you today, a
guest post by Lois Metzger. Today she shares her inspiration for writing ‘A
Trick of the Light.’ Her words will speak for themselves. Enjoy!
Where Do You
Get Your Ideas?
By
Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light
It's
a question writers often get asked. Some find it hard to answer, because ideas
can float around in your head for a while, or several different entirely
unrelated things may have to combine to create a story.
In the case of my new
young-adult novel, "A Trick of the Light" (HarperCollins), I
know exactly where I got the idea, and also when.
On
Wednesday, August 4, 2004, I read an article in the New York Daily News called
"Not For Girls Only."
The article began: "Sue
Roberts couldn't stop fuming after watching a 'Dr. Phil' show on eating
disorders. The two-part series features several girls with bulimia and
anorexia. 'What about the boys?' she remembers asking herself, then furiously
writing an e-mail to the talk-show host."
Sue
Roberts' 16-year-old son, Justin, the article said, "almost starved
himself to death after several doctor's visits missed important signs."
Justin was "a straight-A student who wanted to be perfect in every
way." At 13, a coach happened to tell Justin that he could "shave a
few seconds off his mile time if he lost some weight." Then, around the
same time, a tall thin boy, a classmate of Justin's, looked over at Justin,
called him fat and laughed. "Maybe I am," Justin thought, and decided
to stop eating, pretty much just like that.
At first, Justin's parents
complimented him on how good he looked, how disciplined he was. Then they
noticed he was dropping weight too rapidly, that his personality had changed.
"We were all walking on eggshells because he would blow up about little
things," his mother said.
Within four months, Justin,
five feet tall and originally 130 pounds, went down to 82 pounds. The article
explained: "His lips, fingertips and nails looked bluish. He wore baggy
sweatshirts to hide his frail body, but he couldn't conceal the malnourishment
evident in his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks."
Justin's mother couldn't prove
to her insurance company that her son needed hospitalization, so finally she
had him admitted on her own. "His condition was worse than she
thought," the article went on. "His heart rate was 42 beats per
minute. He had zero body fat. His body temperature was 92, and there were patches
of hair growing on his stomach and neck. It was his body's way of trying to
keep him warm. He was days away from death."
During his brief hospital stay,
Justin "saw an emaciated girl walking in the hallway, talking to
herself." He decided: "I really don't want to be like that." He
began eating and he recovered fully. In less than a year, he grew four inches.
Talking of his present state, he could say: "I'm more outgoing, more
confident. I'm happy now."
I got a strange feeling while reading
this article. Kind of an other-worldly, floating, almost surreal sensation.
I've written only three previous novels, and the same thing happened before I
began writing the other books, too. In each case I knew immediately that here
was a story that wouldn't leave me alone.
So it's not really accurate to
say this is where I got the idea for "A Trick of the Light." This is
where the idea was getting me.
I got in touch with the writer
of the excellent article I'd been reading, Julie Patel, then a reporter for the
San Jose Mercury News (she now she writes for the Sun-Sentinel in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida). She put me in touch with Sue Roberts and Justin.
They were extremely helpful in giving me more details about the journey of
recovery, and referred me to a doctor at Stanford University, James Lock,
author of two ground-breaking books on eating disorders. Dr. Lock gave me the
names of some doctors and families in NYC so I could meet and interview them. I
stayed in contact with Sue Roberts; I'm very glad to say she wrote me recently
that Justin, now a young man, remains happy and healthy.
The 15-year-old boy in my book,
Mike Welles, has much in common with Justin. He, too, develops an eating
disorder rather quickly, and loses weight alarmingly fast. A doctor
misleadingly tells Mike he is fine, insisting that anorexia only affects girls.
As the disease progresses, Mike's vital signs are similar to Justin's. Mike,
too, encounters a girl at a hospital, who freaks him out because she's talking
to herself. Mike doesn't recover as fast as Justin did, but he does take
significant steps toward recovery.
Julie Patel's article
emphasizes that eating disorders among men and boys are on the rise (this was
almost ten years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse). Ten percent of
people with eating disorders are male, and currently there are ten million
people in the U.S. with eating disorders, which means at least a million boys
and men (and many people say the figure is much higher). Their disease still
gets missed by doctors who think only women and girls can get eating disorders,
and many hospitals and eating-disorders clinics still only admit girls and
women. Then, as now, eating disorders have the highest death rate of any
psychological disorder, estimated between five and 20 percent.
I didn't realize, when the idea
got hold of me, where it would lead -- right to the heart of a struggle against
a disease that too often ends in tragedy.
© 2013 Lois
Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light
Author Bio
Lois Metzger, author
of A Trick of the Light, was born in Queens and has always
written for young adults. She is the author of three previous novels and two
nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her
short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has
also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Harper's
Bazaar. She lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and son.
What do you think? What social issues are stereotyped as gender specific
but really aren’t? Join the conversation and comment below.
Happy Reading!
-
The Hodgenator
Photo
caption: Here is a picture of one of the Socialites, Clara. I love the Union
Jack sweater. She invited me to Skype into a London-themed party she is having.
I got the Evite and everything. How cool is that?
