Process Talk: Sarah Ellis on Dodger Boy
I’m slow to wake up and smell the rain, or I’d have read Dodger Boy by Sarah Ellis before now. But how glad I am that I’ve read it now, with its funny, eccentric voice, with Charlotte’s impulses and musings, and the sweet, tender character of Tom Ed.
The little asides about Jane Austen and Dickens…American-Canadian crossovers and divides…the logic and the flaws of misremembering….
I asked Sarah if she’d tell me more about this book and she kindly agreed.
[Uma] “Charlotte took another look at Margaret Mead. Was it possible that there was a whole society girls on the other side of the world who didn't have to do adolescence because they had never heard of it?” Sarah, this is such a wonderful voice, young and eccentric and filled with life. What did you draw upon to create Charlotte’s character and how did her voice take shape for you?
[Sarah] I suppose it is no surprise that I drew upon my own memories of being Charlotte’s age. At 11 I felt confident, strong and smart, ready for anything. I even had a brief period of being good at a sport when I discovered a small talent for gymnastics. But by 13 it had all fallen apart. My friends started to seem like aliens, my body was betraying me and I wasn’t sure that I liked myself very much. I sought answers, clarity and comfort in books, as I always had. Out of these experiences, combined with material from the young people in my life, Charlotte appeared.
[Uma] “By 13…” That feels so true to me, but so also does the humour in this book. Here’s a passage that made me laugh out loud:
Seconds later, Tom Ed was ma'aming and y'alling away for all he was worth in the weeping fig corner. The swanky couple started to blossom like giant hibiscus.
Charlotte watched in admiration. Tom Ed told them exactly what they had told each other about fussy and bold statements but he told him in Texan and they nodded like crazy.
I nodded like crazy right there! I loved how you used the character of Tom Ed to offer perspective on the Canadian-American Venn diagram. It made me think about his in-betweenness at so many levels, and how powerful that becomes in the story. Your thoughts?
[Sarah] Now that you’re living in Canada, Uma, you’re probably getting intrigued by that Venn diagram! Canadians are fascinated (possibly to an unhealthy degree!) by comparing the U.S. and Canada. We can be annoyingly smug. Draft evaders arriving in Vancouver would more typically have come from California but I made Tom Ed Texan because of the potential of the voice. My late wife Sherry grew up in Texas ("until we moved to California and recovered") and when she told stories about her childhood she sank into “y’all" and “idn’t it” and I found it delicious, the cadence and the word choice. I shamelessly borrowed some of her experiences (such as Duane and the rats) and gave them to Tom Ed. And you’re right, his “in betweenness” mirrors Charlotte’s navigation of her own in-between condition.
[Uma] This book is about young people finding their own moral ground, their own ethics, if you will, about living in a complicated world. At one point, Charlotte’s trying to tell Dawn about Tom Ed’s philosophy of life and why it's different from his father's. Dawn finds it boring but a narrative aside tells us, “It wasn't boring. It made her brain stretch.” In our time, too, young people must take positions in a world not of their making, as these fictional youth do in the era of the American war in Vietnam. How do think historical fiction operates to effect that kind of stretching?
[Sarah] When I was around Charlotte’s age we had a young draft evader turn up on our doorstep. He stayed for a couple of weeks. (I came from a family that took people in.) I was just at the stage of beginning to sort out my thoughts about war, civil disobedience, honesty in friendship, rebellion, the nature of kindness etc. and I considered this young man a moral hero. (In real life he turned out to have feet of clay but that’s another story!) It seems to me that this theme of what you call “finding your own moral ground” is somewhat overlooked in young adult literature. I always hope that encountering such difficult questions at the safe remove of fiction will give my readers a sense that they are not alone.
I love how the personal and specific always becomes the very thing that feels universal. Thank you, Sarah for telling me about these connections between your life and this story.
For a YA take on the subject of American Vietnam-era draft dodgers in Canada, look for Focus. Click. Wind. by Amanda West Lewis.
