{"id":2330,"date":"2013-04-23T07:30:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T11:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/njcts.org\/tsparents\/?p=2330"},"modified":"2013-04-23T07:30:05","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T11:30:05","slug":"on-fire-a-new-novel-about-a-girl-with-tourette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/njcts.org\/tsparents\/on-fire-a-new-novel-about-a-girl-with-tourette\/","title":{"rendered":"“On Fire” — a new novel about a girl with Tourette"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"On-Fire-Web\"<\/a>Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada<\/strong><\/a> member Dianne Linden is the author of a new YA-adult crossover novel, “On Fire<\/b>.” The character Matti Iverly, one of the narrators in the book, is based largely on the life experiences of Erika, a young person with TS and Dianne\u2019s granddaughter.<\/em><\/p>\n

GG Award Winning author Glen Huser has said of\u00a0On Fire:<\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u201cLinden brings many combustibles to this story ablaze with creativity: magic realism\u2026 mountain country mythology\u2026 survival stories\u2026 even some kindling from Dante. But what burns brightest is the voice of Matti, a teenager with Tourette Syndrome\u2014true, and funny and heart-breaking\u2014as she describes what happens when a young man with amnesia wanders out of a forest fire and into her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

TSFC got in touch with Dianne and Erika to learn more about this new book and its impact on the writer and her inspiring family member.<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne & Erika, could you each say in your own words what you think\u00a0On Fire<\/em>\u00a0is about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 On the surface\u00a0On Fire<\/i>\u00a0is the story of Matti Iverly, a fourteen-year-old girl with Tourette Syndrome whose life is changed when a young man with amnesia wanders out of a forest fire area and collapses at her feet. It\u2019s also the story of that young man\u2019s struggle to reconnect with his life and reconstruct his identity. And about the power of community.<\/p>\n

At a deeper level, it\u2019s an allegory of the labyrinthine trials our kids often go through trying to \u201cfit in\u201d, and the courage and community support that allow some of them to make it through.<\/p>\n

A: Erika \u2013 It\u2019s about a girl like me who has Tourette Syndrome. She makes a promise to help this guy who needs her help and she keeps her promise, although it takes everything she has.<\/p>\n

Q: Whose idea was it to have a character with TS in the novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 It\u2019s hard to say where ideas come from. This much is true: I tried for many years to write about my son\u2019s struggle with mental illness as a teenager. I could never do it, until Matti unaccountably drifted into the story. She came in complete, and very much influenced by Erika. Although she may not realize how important she\u2019s been in writing this book, Erika has been my muse. Without Erika\/Matti, I doubt if I could have completed it.<\/p>\n

A: Erika \u2013 It was my grandmother\u2019s idea. I only found out she was doing it when she began to talk about it. She asked me if it was okay.<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne, what are some of the ways that the character Matti is like Erika? How do these characters differ?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 Matti is like Erika in her forthrightness and determination. You don\u2019t ask her what she thinks unless you want to know. (Sometimes she tells you when you don\u2019t want to know.) And Matti manifests Tourette Syndrome in the same way as Erika, primarily through vocal tics. They both need order and structure and have difficulty when their routines are disrupted. They both are fiercely determined when they want to do something.<\/p>\n

Neither Matti nor Erika worry a lot about being \u201cin style.\u201d In Matti\u2019s case, it may be because she\u2019s never been exposed to ideas about fashion. But Erika is definitely aware of the messages girls get about how they should look and dress, and she\u2019s determined to do her own thing.<\/p>\n

Erika is a great animal lover, especially horses. Matti doesn\u2019t have that same connection.<\/p>\n

Q: Erika, how would you compare yourself to Matti?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Erika \u2013 We both have the same kind of tics. We\u2019re both determined. And I\u2019ve been picked on, like Matti, although I never ran anybody up a tree because of it. I mostly yell as a way of standing up for myself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m lucky enough to have two parents who support me though, where Matti\u2019s mother is dead. And her relationship with her father is kind of distant or professional. Also I\u2019m a city girl. I\u2019ve never lived in the mountains.<\/p>\n

Q: Erika, what does it feel like as someone with TS to read (or be excited to read) a book where a character has TS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Erika \u2013 I was curious to see how TS would be depicted in\u00a0On Fire<\/i>. It was more true to life than I expected, so it feels good\u2014like being seen for who you really are.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s important that we have people like Matti to read about in fiction books so we see they\u2019re human. We are. It\u2019s important to get our perspective.<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne, was it a challenge to write about someone with TS? How did it compare to writing another character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 The only difference in creating Matti as a character with Tourette, as opposed to another character, was in how to represent her tics. My editor wanted me to describe them. How do I do that as a non-Tourette person? A hiccup going backwards is one of the descriptors I came up with.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to over-do the tics, though. That would make Matti a caricature instead of a person. I wanted readers to get a picture of what her Tourette was like, and understand some of the challenges she faced because of it, but also to identify with her: to see Matti as more than her T.S.<\/p>\n

Q: Erika, what is your favourite part of the novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Erika \u2013 I loved it when Mrs. Stoa asks Matti to get her some lemonade and Matti takes out her credit card, starts cleaning her fingernails and says, \u201cI\u2019m tied up right now. Maybe later.\u201d It\u2019s an expression I think I\u2019ve used before. I never saw how funny it is to say that when you\u2019re obviously not busy at all.<\/p>\n

Another time, Matti corrects a girl who calls her Matilda because that\u2019s isn\u2019t her name. I like how she speaks her mind.<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne, what is your favourite part?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 I love a lot about this novel, so it\u2019s hard to choose. I like Dan\u2019s second narrative when he gradually begins to return to reality. I like his relationship with Howard. But if I had to pick one thing, it\u2019s the section toward the end of the book called,\u00a0Out of the Phone Booth<\/i>. Matti says on the first page or so of the book, \u201cAt school they called me Tourette\u2019s Girl, like I came out of a phone booth, wearing a costume and made funny noises for their entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the section I\u2019m talking about, she actually does dress up with a black toque and sunglasses and a purple bomber jacket to shield herself from the chaos that\u2019s going on around her as her village is being rebuilt after the fire. She steps out of her house, where she\u2019s been in seclusion, but she doesn\u2019t do it to be entertaining. She does it because she has come to see herself as someone who can make things happen. She believes she knows how to solve a mystery that develops in the book and she goes for it. Yeah, Matti!<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne: \u2013 Authors put some of their own life experience into the life experience of their characters. What experiences, if any, did the characters go through, that you used from your personal life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 Although the setting for the book is completely fictitious, I did grow up in the mountains, where ghost towns held great fascination to me. I\u2019ve mentioned how Matti is connected to my experience through Erika.\u00a0 And how I\u2019ve tried for years to write about my son\u2019s adolescent experience with mental illness. When Matti visits the young man she\u2019s decided to call Dan in the Metal Springs Hospital, (Mental Springs, some people call it), she\u2019s living my experience totally. It\u2019s just that I experienced it as a mother visiting my son in a lock up ward of Alberta Hospital outside Edmonton, and Matti does it as a young girl trying to keep a promise she made from her heart.<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne, What do you hope your readers will take away from reading\u00a0On Fire<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 There\u2019s so much pressure on adults as well as kids today to be like everyone else. I hope readers will get the message that diversity is good, and that embracing uniqueness is essential if we are to survive as a society. And I hope they\u2019ll see that as much as anything that happens to Dan in the hospital, it\u2019s the community Matti brings together for him that really helps him heal,\u00a0<\/i>and holds promise for others. And she does that as a person who\u2019s had struggles of her own, but has never given up.<\/p>\n

Q: Dianne, for those reading this who are aspiring writers, what is your advice about how to make it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Dianne \u2013 The best way to improve as a writer is to write. Take advantage of workshops that are available to you, or writing groups, as long as they\u2019re constructive. Be willing to revise and revise. And don\u2019t forget to read. Pick books that are not necessarily mainstream. Experiment with styles. And with the changes in the publishing world, investigate all the options that are available: self-publication, publishing on-line, etc. I assisted a poet at a school workshop where the kids wrote their poems in chalk on the sidewalk outside school. That\u2019s publishing, too.<\/p>\n

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