Melissa Lion

BIO

Melissa Lion earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary's College of California where she received the Agnes Butler Scholarship for Literary Excellence. Her stories have appeared in the Santa Monica Review, Other Voices, and The Crucifix Is Down, an anthology published by Red Hen Press. She is a native Californian who burns easily in the sun. She lives in San Francisco, CA.

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INTERVIEW

June 15, 2005

Carolyn Juris, who writes book reviews for various publications --- including Teen People, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post Sunday Source --- interviewed Melissa Lion, author of SWOLLEN and UPSTREAM. Lion talks about the meanings of these two titles, her love for teenagers --- particularly as it relates to literature --- her fascination with mystery novels, and why she has no desire to write books specifically for adults.

Teenreads.com: Your new novel, UPSTREAM, takes place in Alaska, and you dedicate it to your mother, whom you call "a true, true Alaska girl." As a native Californian, what does being an Alaska girl represent to you?

Melissa Lion: I'd really like to be an Alaska girl. To me it means being in touch with nature and life and death. It means having very little fear. When you could walk outside and get killed by a bear, I think life has perspective. I grew up in condos in California. I've never lived in a house. I've never had a yard or seen seasons change. I flip out if my car makes a weird sound. I need the perspective of an Alaskan.

TRC: Both Marty in UPSTREAM and Samantha in SWOLLEN are haunted by a young man's death --- Steven, whom Marty loved, and Owen, whom Samantha barely knew. When you were a teen, did you know someone your own age who died? What makes loss such a fertile subject for fiction?

ML: No one close to me died when I was young. When I was in high school a boy at my school died and it's something my friends and I still talk about. As for UPSTREAM, a man told my family a story about one of his daughters getting shot. I won't reveal too much, but I tried to write that story several times from the sister's point of view and it never worked. I had to change the characters around and that's where UPSTREAM began.

I think death is a fertile subject because it's the only final thing we have, everything else can be changed or taken back. My next book will not have any dying in it, much to my editor's and boyfriend's relief.

TRC: In each novel, the main character's father is distant --- either emotionally (SWOLLEN) or physically (UPSTREAM). How would you say this has affected each of them?

ML: Sam has a very typical reaction to her father, which is to find attention anywhere. Marty takes it as a challenge. She says, "You don't want me, I don't want you either." Marty is a very strong girl. She's a smart, confident girl. UPSTREAM is about what happens when her confidence is shaken.

TRC: The meaning of SWOLLEN's title is multilayered: Owen's classmates are told that he died of a swollen heart; Samantha's father's girlfriend becomes swollen with pregnancy; and, after kissing Farouk for the first time, Sam's "skin felt swollen and hot." In UPSTREAM's Alaskan wilderness, the salmon swim upstream to spawn. Does the title have any other significance?

ML: SWOLLEN was always called "Swollen" right from the beginning, but the book was very hard to write. People object to the title. A man I went to school with marched up to me and told me that he hated the name of my book and just needed to let me know. It is a very provocative word especially in teen lit. Sometimes I blush when I say it.

UPSTREAM is a great title. I'd like to take credit for naming my book, but the title was not in me. I kept calling it "Alaska Book" hoping something would click. Finally a man at my publisher came up with "Upstream." After he said it, I thought that's the right title. Marty is in this battle against all of the currents in her life, her future. She's just trying to get where she needs to go, wherever that is, and fate and consequences are pushing her back.

TRC: Marty and Samantha don't know each other, but it seems that as thoughtful, introspective young women, they might get along if they were to meet. What do you think? Would they have a lot to talk about?

ML: I think I'm the middle man in their relationship. Sam is who I was in high school, Marty is who I wish I could have been. I think if they were to talk Marty would intimidate Sam. To me Marty is so confident and really has it together. I think by the end of SWOLLEN Sam could have been friends with Marty, but just barely --- she would have been too freaked out about what she thinks Marty is.

TRC: Do you think about your characters after you finish a novel? UPSTREAM's epilogue gives us an idea of where Marty is headed; Samantha's future is a little more unclear. Where do you see each of them as adults?

ML: I see them as very similar adults. I think they are confident, independent women. But with that independence comes a sense of loneliness. It's what haunts them both as teens and as adults. Both of them have a small part of themselves that they will never hand over to another. They did it once, and that was enough.

I do think about Sam a lot. I get emails from people who have read SWOLLEN and say, "Why did you let Farouk do that? It's so sad for Sam. Make him pay." And I think, no that's not what happened. She's better now. She's learned, and without Farouk she never would have been forced to grow. I think Marty will be just fine. Sam's the girl I still want to make others understand.

TRC: You seem to have a real sense of what it's like to be a teen girl (at least, from what I remember of it). Aside from having been a teen once yourself, how do you access those feelings? Who are the teenagers in your life now, and what effect, if any, do they have on your writing?

ML: I am still 14 and 17 and 21. I remember 17 so well. I loved and hated high school. More hate than love. I felt my emotions so strongly then. I loved my boyfriend. I think because my emotions were so intense, they still burn inside of me.

I teach freshmen at Saint Mary's College, so I have 18 and 19 year olds in my classes. They fascinate me because I remember so clearly what they are going through. And I watch them and my own emotions are right there. I love teenagers. I loved them before I was one, when I was in the fifth grade and Some Kind of Wonderful came out and I saw it in the theater. It was the coolest. And I love them now. I love any movie or book that takes teens seriously and portrays their emotions with respect and intelligence. I think it's just my subject matter. Some writers only write about New York. Why? They love the city or they're trying to crack the city's code. Perhaps that's a part of it too. I'd really like to come up with a truth about those years. I'd like to have a record of the beauty and tears of that time.

TRC: In addition to your two young adult novels, you've also written shorter pieces for older readers. How is writing for teens different from writing for adults, and how is it similar? Do you have any desire to write an expressly "adult" novel?

ML: I think the same thing each time a character or story pops into my head --- what would it be like to be that person? And then I write. I think as soon as I start saying that I'm writing for teens or for adults, readers will sense a falseness in my work.

I have no desire to write an adult book. I work in a bookstore and literary fiction has become boring. There are some who do it well, some young writers --- Andrew Sean Greer, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Safran Foer --- but for the most part it seems to me to be the same story over and over. The most exciting books in my opinion are YA, and the genres. These are new writers with new voices and visions. YA has so many talented writers who are really experimenting with voice like Zoe Trope, and by pushing boundaries like Melvin Burgess. It all started with Francesca Lia Block, who blew open fiction for me. I couldn't believe books like hers were really in print. This is not to say there isn't bad YA because there certainly is. I hate all of the books out that condescend to teens, or are about the snotty girls who would, in real life, be mean to the girl who is actually reading the book. I can't understand that. What I want to do is write literary fiction for teens. I want teens to have a few books that show them how real they are, how serious they really should be taken. I want to show them the beauty of their lives. It's so hard to see it when you are living it.

TRC: In SWOLLEN, when Samantha tells her mother that she's reading AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY for class, her mother responds: "They still make you read that book? Tell your teacher you want to read a book where a woman isn't killed. Tell her you'd like to read something about someone like you. A strong girl." Both Samantha and Marty are strong girls, and have strong women in their lives. Are you writing the books that you wanted to read as a teen?

ML: Absolutely. I had to read AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY in high school. It was horrible. I went to my teacher and asked her why we can't read a book written by a woman. She asked, "Can you think of any?" She really had me because I couldn't. That sticks with me. I must say that I love A NORTHERN LIGHT by Jennifer Donnelly because she really tackled AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY and created a really lovely book based on the same subject matter.

One of the first books I chose to read on my own when I was a teen was THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. It was the coolest thing ever that there was a story, a real, serious story about teenagers and sex and death. I hope that teens will find my book and say, "Here's one that's real. Here's someone who's taking me seriously." I hope teachers find it and say, "Here's one that I can really use to communicate with my students." I don't want people to be forced to assign or to read books that have absolutely nothing to do with teens.

TRC: Most adults don't have to read books anymore, the way teens are assigned reading for school. Working in a bookstore, what do you hear from teenagers as far as what they are looking for in a book? Do you think that they seek something different in their pleasure reading than adults do?

ML: I think it's difficult to get people to take a detour from what everyone else is reading. Both adults and teens want to read what is recommended to them by their peers. This creates huge blockbusters, but leaves smaller, just as good, novels floundering. As a bookseller I try to introduce people to other books in addition to the one all of their friends are reading. So read what all of your friends are reading, and read this one that's really cool and be the first in your group to read it.

The commonality in all readers is that we all want a really great story. Each of us has a different definition of that.

TRC: Both of your novels are serious works of fiction. What are your guilty pleasures, literary or otherwise?

ML: I love crime novels --- anything with a corpse. I was reading only mysteries when I wrote UPSTREAM. I think the pacing of UPSTREAM was very influenced by mysteries. Mysteries are amazing to me. How does the author manage to tie it all up? I've never guessed the ending to one. I'd really like to write a mystery, and I've gotten about two pages in and realize I have no idea what I'm doing. There's certainly a magic to those books. I've been on a big nonfiction binge. I just read a fascinating book about the night and everything that goes along with night --- from fairy tales to the science of sleep. I have yet to read fantasy, but I have picked up some science fiction. I think since I'm a writer all my reading is guilty because it takes serious time away from my writing.

TRC: Are you working on a new project? What can you tell us about it?

ML: I am working a new project, but I am so superstitious, I can't talk about it. One of the many quirks of being a writer.

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