I try to answer everyone’s questions, and sometimes the same questions get asked. These are all regarding my book Our End of the Block, but I will answer questions about other stuff.
Why did you set it in the 1980’s?
It’s when I grew up, but honestly I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, and I can’t recall ever thinking there was anything remarkable about it. I never had any intention of revisiting it either. Now that a few(ish) decades have passed, I have a different perspective, especially taking into account how different things are now, how much has changed. The door was closing on the time before everything and everyone was connected all the time, instant messages and a phone in your pocket, everything being caught on camera and shared with thousands if not millions of people within seconds.
That disconnectedness, that amount of freedom and lack of fear of observation, it gave you a certain latitude that I think would be almost impossible to replicate now. It was unique, and so, in many cases were the situations that happened. I’m sure there are particularities that everyone thinks about whatever decade they grew up in though, so I don’t think it’s unique in that way, but it had its moments. It gave me that same unique latitude to tell the story, so it just felt right for this.
Is this a memoir?
No. This is fiction. I did draw on some personal experiences in there, like playing baseball, but not as much as people seem to think. It would be false to say this was a factual account of real events.
If it’s not a memoir why did you write it in first person?
I debated what perspective to use, first person or third person, quite a bit when I was starting to put things together. I had two goals I was aiming for:
1. Make the reader feel like someone was telling them the story as opposed to them reading an account of it.
2. Put the reader in the action as much as possible. Make them feel like they were there.
In the end I felt first person was the best way to meet both of those goals, but not necessarily the easiest. I think it worked out pretty well.
-PJ