Rebecca Grabill Interviews Kerry Cohen Hoffman, author of Easy.
Before Easy, before agents and book contracts, Kerry received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon, as well as an MA in counseling psychology. She has worked as a composition professor, psychotherapist, and most recently as a mommy-writer.
Rebecca Grabill: You have a remarkable story about how this book got into print. What can you tell about that?
Kerry Cohen Hoffmann: Yes, as I wrote in my acknowledgements, the process of writing the book and then getting it into print was surprisingly easy. You told me after reading it you felt there was some magic to the book, and I think that's true. It came out of me quickly and mostly whole. I did little revision on it. I got my hands on a list of agents representing YA fiction. They were listed in three groups: top tier (which meant they had some solid sales under their proverbial belts as well as worked out of NY), second tier, and third tier. I found web sites for as many as I could to get updated info on each, and I found out which accepted email queries. I started with these – there were three from the top tier who did. The first two wanted to see the manuscript within a day of sending the query. One week later, Ethan from Ethan Ellenberg Agency called and told me he wanted to represent me. Two weeks later, we had interest from Simon & Schuster, Delacorte, and Dial (Penguin). Random House came back with a nice offer and Ethan turned it into a two–book deal. In that eleventh hour, having not heard from S&S, Ethan contacted the editor there and let him know we were about to sign with RH. Later that afternoon, Ethan called me with the surprising and exciting news that S&S made an offer for two times the amount RH was offering for two books. So, we went with S&S. I had to believe that from offering that kind of money they would do a good amount to help sell the book when it got to the bookstores.
RG: I don't suppose you could say how much you got for your advance?
KCH: I won't tell how much I got for the advance. But I will say I was offered a reasonable amount for a YA novel from RH, and S&S offered me 4 times that amount. Or, as my Jewish grandmother would say, "It was a nice amount."
RG: There is magic in Easy, where do you think that came from? Some might consider this a problem novel, but I don't see it that way. It goes beyond mere problem. How did you get at the heart of Jessica and her struggles?
KCH: That magic's there because the story came pretty directly from my life. That's not exactly true. None of those things happened to me like they do for Jessica. But the theme really defined my life for many years (enough so that I wound up finally writing the memoir – what I had originally been trying to do when I wrote Easy.) This also answers how I got to the heart of Jessica and her struggles. In some ways, Jessica is me as a teen, just a lot more of a smart–ass. I was too insecure and afraid to talk to my mother the way Jessica does hers, and the same goes for how she talks to her sister. Likewise, I never would have come to the insight Jessica reaches by the end. I wasn't self–aware enough yet. I was kind of a smart–ass with my dad though.
RG: Speaking of smart–assness, you've had one reviewer complain about Jessica's petulance, yet I saw her as alive and independent. I think there is a trend in YA literature to stay away from protagonists with rough edges. Is Jessica too rough, do you think?
KCH: Too rough? Please! You should spend some time with some of the teenagers out there. Jessica has wherewithal. And she has what perhaps 25% of us have (though 80% of statistics are made up on the spot) – truth–seeing abilities. There's no way to be a truth–seer and not be pissed. This is why many people don't like them. People don't often like the truth. Perhaps this is the reason YA lit is staying away from edgy protagonists.
RG: And here I read only 67% of statistics were made up on the spot. Anyway, How have readers reacted to Jessica?
KCH: Well, I've only heard from a few teen readers and they all told me they felt Jessica spoke like a real teenager. A couple said they related to her and what she goes through in the book.
RG: I agree. So, you obviously get fan mail?
KCH: Some. I absolutely love it. I get few enough that I can write back to everyone, which is great.
RG: Here’s a tangent. I also noticed in your acknowledgements that you thank the writing gods. Who are the writing gods?
KCH: I'll bet you're the only one who will ask me that question – I love that you did. I guess I imagine the writing gods as, like, a bunch of Chekovs, guiding the way. Or maybe it's really the devil himself. They both have that goatee, you know?
RG: There have been other complaints, haven’t there? Take the opening scene:
It’s two years ago, and I’m just about to turn twelve. At home, things are just about to turn too. My mother spends most of her time crying in the bedroom or the kitchen, or wherever someone might hear. To get away, I’m in the woods near the house. Wandering. Suddenly he’s there, walking toward me. His face blank. His breathing ragged, audible. I’ve seen him before. He’s mentally retarded. The boy who never grew up. But he’s different this time. There’s something distant in his eyes, and strange. As he comes closer, I see why – his fly is open and from it stands his erect penis. Its pale and fishlike, an alien thing. I take a step backward. He stares at me and says nothing. I turn and run.
Screeching brakes from a semi-truck bring me back. I’m on one of my walks, waiting to cross the busy freeway. The driver is watching me and blasts the horn. He’s maybe thirty years old, wearing a white tank top. He has blond hair and thick stubble. His window is rolled all the way down and his arm rests on the top. He sits up high, but close enough for me to see the sun glinting off the pale, short hairs on his arm. My eyes lock on his and he flashes a warm, friendly grin. There is something else in his eyes too. He’s interested, admiring.
My body fills with warmth, as though heat is seeping from the sidewalk through my flip-flops all the way to my face. I like the feeling, his eyes lingering on my small, new breasts. I smile back. I reach into my pocket for my camera.
“Hey, there,” he says. Before I can take a picture, the brakes of the truck release, the gears shift, and he is gone. I watch after him, wanting something, wishing there were more. Wondering if his erect penis looks pale and fishlike.
* * * *
It’s quite graphic, wouldn’t you say?
KCH: Yes, it is graphic. A few other scenes are even more so. I had to make them graphic, though, didn’t I? How would you react to a book about promiscuity with suggestions of sex? Likely you’d think I had never met a teenager in my life. Teens know this language – too well, unfortunately. To shy away from it would be disrespectful.
RG: You say the book is about promiscuity. I agree, but I think there is a deeper theme. You wrote this, for example, toward the end of the book, “In the circular space of the lens is a barren clearing. There is nothing, only leaves and dead branches. It is neither beautiful nor horrible. It’s just empty.” It is one of the many poignant descriptions in the book, and I think gets at the heart of an issue deeper than promiscuity. Can you tell me about emptiness?
KCH: What a great question. And so insightful of you. After writing this book, and then more so after writing the memoir on the same theme, I believe emptiness and promiscuity – for me, anyway – have held the same place. Jessica uses male attention to try to fill her emptiness, but the promiscuous behavior winds up leaving her just as bereft. More, it highlights her pain. That pain can be anything – for me it was the pain of feeling unloved, but it can also be the pain that comes from feeling like a failure, or from feeling purposeless, etc. This is why many girls turn to giving themselves up sexually, I think. It’s such an easy way to get attention, and, briefly, in the fantasy of where sex will take a girl, the fantasy fed by songs and movies that boys will love you when you sleep with them, there’s that hope of erasing the desperation that got her there. I hope that sentence made sense. I’m trying to say that for a girl, sex provides the promise of love, and being in love is the ultimate high. Too many girls go chasing that high because it’s so easy as a girl to do so.
RG: Don’t take me as flippant, but what’s a girl to do? What happens to the emptiness? What happened to yours? (Not trying to steal any oompf from your memoir or anything.)
KCH: Yeah, I guess because of the memoir I won’t say too much about that. I’ll just say I don’t believe it goes away, even when one learns to love herself better. But the desperation lessens, so we’re able to be more thoughtful about actions. After a while you learn those boys don’t fill the emptiness – nothing really does – so why screw up your life always trying to fill it?
RG: Some parents and educators will react strongly to this book, both for and against. What would you say to them?
KCH: I think reacting strongly is appropriate. It is frightening to think teens engage in this behavior, especially when they do so for all the wrong reasons, like Jessica does. But denial isn’t the answer. It’s not a nice subject, but the conversation needs to start. That’s why I wrote the book. That said, the book should be discussed – not just read.
RG: Tell me more on that. What is your goal for this book?
KCH: My greatest hope for this book is that girls will begin to think more consciously and critically about their relationships to boys and sexual attention. And that parents will use the book to think more about how they might help girls formulate these thoughts. Obviously, I want my readers to enjoy the book on an artistic and entertainment level. But I dedicated the book to girls everywhere because I want them to find themselves in its pages. I want them to feel seen and not alone. I want them to come away from the book more thoughtful about their behaviors. I had one fan tell me she had never thought of boys in the way the books make her think. That delighted me. It felt like real success.
RG: What would your response be if Easy were banned from libraries or schools?
KCH: Are you kidding? I would love it! Free publicity! I also wouldn’t be surprised.
RG: Back to the discussion on publishing, so, you’re saying one book published does not equal instant success? Do you feel different about yourself now that a novel bearing your name sits on the shelf at B&N?
KCH: I should feel differently about myself, shouldn’t I? Isn’t that the dream and fantasy – that being a published author somehow changes you? Well, I’ve got news for hopeful writers: forget it. I’ve told a few writers I know already you get about 6 hours combined of joy. Then it’s back to your three year old pulling poop from his diaper and smearing it on his shirt (okay, my three year old, not yours), leaking breastmilk, and wondering what the hell we should have for dinner for the millionth time.
OK, let me try to answer this from a less pessimistic place – it does change a few things on a day to day level. Like when people ask me what I do, I get to say I’m an Author With a Published Book. That’s a lovely thing.
RG: So, what about your second book? Has your experience been another whirlwind like the first?
KCH: Selling a second book has been nothing like that first experience. Because I was spoiled by it, it’s hard not to feel worried something’s really wrong. I’ll never get another one sold. Ethan says this is perfectly normal, but it’s also an agent’s job to keep me positive. I feel scared too that I went with the money rather than taking the deal that would have secured my second book. Like God’s punishing me for being greedy.
RG: That’s an interesting point. When I read this novel, the idea of penance comes to mind. Jess deals an awful lot with shame, for example, and as part of her gaining freedom she has to confess a pretty important lie. Could you share your thoughts on this?
KCH: Yeah, I agree that theme of penance is there. I notice as I write more books this is in all my books. All my main characters have big pills to swallow, and they eventually do. There are so many reasons for this. One, I’m big on people taking responsibility in their lives, and it’s sort of epidemic in our culture right now that people don’t. I like the idea of teenagers thinking about that through reading my books, thinking about how they create their own lives. That they’re not just victims of their surroundings. Second, from a craft perspective, I’m very interested in the first person point of view and how readers might be able to “see around” what the character says about herself or is willing to show. I’m interested in how people reveal themselves, even when they don’t want to, and how to capture that in fiction. I think I’m going off on a tangent again here.
RG: I love your tangent and you do some fascinating, wonderful things with first person. How did you go about capturing that in Easy? Did you plan it, did it just happen?
KCH: Ever since learning to think about first person this way during my MFA program I think I tend to write first person like this without even thinking about it. I’m just so interested in the ways people try to hide but then reveal these layers that it always winds up in my work. In Easy and any other book, when I’m in that first stage of getting to know my protagonist I’m always thinking about those layers - what my characters want others to think about them, what they’re willing to show about themselves, what they’re not, and what, unwittingly, winds up getting revealed anyway. I pretty much invariably build this into plot development too. Very Shakespearian, if I don’t say so myself – concerning myself with people’s fatal flaws and how the flaws build into their fates.
RG: Speaking of your MFA, did you find it useful? Some say an MFA is a “must-have” for breaking into the market. Do you agree?
KCH: There are a few things I learned from a few truly brilliant professors in my program that I refer back to in my writing constantly. Some pertain directly to craft. Others are more philosophical explorations of what I’m doing with form and narrative. I loved my MFA program. I learned a ton about craft I’m not sure I would have learned otherwise. The craft books out there cover much of the same territory but not to the same depth. For instance, I feel quite schooled in character-driven fiction and why – in my opinion – all fiction should grow from character. I’m also particularly pleased to have these sort of erudite ideas about narrative I referred to above that I’ve carried with me.
Now, is it a “must have” to break in? I doubt that highly. There are plenty of talented and thoughtful writers out there who don’t have MFAs. An MFA is great for the education and the two (sometimes three) years you get where it is your job to produce prose or poetry. But not every program has brilliant professors, quite honestly. And it certainly does nothing more to guarantee you any kind of shot at getting your work published. So, an MFA isn’t necessary, I don’t believe. Unless of course your dream is to teach transfer English comp classes at community colleges as an adjunct with no benefits. Then don’t let me stop you.
RG: So, if an MFA isn’t the magic ingredient to snagging an agent and a big-time publisher, what is?
KCH: Probably some combo of talent and timing. But what do I know? An agent and big-time publisher would know better than I.
RG: Agreed, and you obviously have the combo down. So, here’s a tangent of my own, but it is related. The ideas of penance, of shame, of emptiness that we spoke of earlier. Does religion have anything to offer? You say you don’t want girls to screw up their lives always trying to fill the emptiness – Jessica’s story is as much my story as it is yours in that. That gaping, unfillable emptiness. But what if it’s not so unfillable?
KCH: Oh, no. Are you trying to tell me the good news? Ha ha. Religion is so much not a part of my life – at least not in an institutional way – that I really haven’t thought about that. It’s a good question. In my work as a counselor I found, for many people who have addictions, religion – or maybe even the strong belief in something, whether it be a god or art or serving others – can turn them away from their addictions. In some ways, writing does that for me, but it’s so fleeting. You know what I mean by that, I’m sure. The way writing gives you those euphoric moments, but then the next day writing makes you want to take your own life. And then of course there’s my kids – they fill me when I allow myself to just be in the moment with them. I always say that I wish I could believe in something like a god. It would make life so much easier. But I’m too much of a cynic unfortunately. Or maybe I’m just really really bad at faith. So, yes, to get back to the point. Maybe life is fillable with the right ingredients.
RG: I do know what you mean about writing (and its fleetingness). Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you’d like a chance to share?
KCH: Just that I hope readers will feel encouraged to contact me for further discussion.
RG: Thank you Kerry. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, your insights, and your passion. So everyone, go out, read Easy, and blog about it. And let me know when you do!
