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WORK TITLE: Ginny Moon
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://benjaminludwig.com/
CITY:
STATE: NH
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2014122454
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2014122454
HEADING: Ludwig, Benjamin, 1974-
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035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca09962957
040 __ |a TxCM |b eng |e rda |c TxCM |d DLC
046 __ |f 19740612
053 _0 |a PS3612.U324
100 1_ |a Ludwig, Benjamin, |d 1974-
370 __ |e Dover (N.H.) |2 naf
375 __ |a male
377 __ |a eng
670 __ |a Ludwig, Benjamin. Soughdough, 2014: |b ECIP title page (Benjamin Ludwig) data view (birth date: June 12, 1974; teacher-coach and curriculum developer in Dover, New Hampshire; founder of WriteGuide.com)
PERSONAL
Born June 12, 1974; married; children: a daughter (adopted).
EDUCATION:Master of Arts in Teaching and MFA.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Educational mentor, teacher, and writer.
AWARDS:Clay Reynolds Prize, 2013, for Sourdough: A Novella.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Prior to launching his writing career, Benjamin Ludwig worked in the education industry as a mentor and a teacher.
The novel, Ginny Moon, is not Ludwig’s first published work but, according to a review featured on the Deborah Kalb Books website, Ludwig clarified that his inspiration for the book came from a very personal source. Ludwig is the adoptive father of a girl diagnosed with autism, an event that has shaped both of their lives considerably. On Deborah Kalb Books, Ludwig explained that he came up with the idea for Ginny Moon following an evening spent watching his daughter practice with her basketball team. He came up with Ginny’s character on the spot and felt compelled to write out her story. Ginny’s character is a composite of both his daughter and other children Ludwig has known throughout his life.
The story of Ginny Moon focuses on a titular protagonist who is struggling to adjust to a series of sudden changes in her life. Ginny has been diagnosed with autism and, during the novel’s events, is fourteen years of age. She has just begun living with Brian and Maura, a couple who is one of several who have sheltered her during her time in the foster system and have decided to welcome her into their family as their adoptive daughter. At the same time, their family is about to grow by one more, as Maura is pregnant. Ginny cannot adapt to the change as well as Brian and Maura would like for her to. All she can think of is her birth home, her old life, and her biological mother, which are what led to her placement within the foster system.
Gloria, Ginny’s biological mother, struggled with a drug addiction that ultimately overpowered her ability to give proper care to her daughter. Gloria frequently grew violent with Ginny, and the severity of her abuse led to Ginny’s being removed from her care. Ginny has never forgotten her mother, however, and embarks upon a quest to locate both Gloria and a cherished loved one from Ginny’s past, dubbed “Baby Doll.” Ginny’s closeness to Baby Doll helped her to survive life with her biological mother, and it is the only thing Ginny has left of her old life. Baby Doll was also forcibly left behind the very day Ginny was pulled from her mother’s custody.
Ginny’s school, Brian, and Maura all recognize what is going on with Ginny and try to stifle her attempts to physically reconcile with her past. However, Ginny is all too determined. She is able to reach out to Gloria eventually, giving her biological mother her whereabouts in hopes that she can retrieve her lost Baby Doll. This reunion becomes Ginny’s undoing, as Gloria uses their conversations to pull information from Ginny about her new life. Gloria then abducts Ginny from home. This event places her parents at an impasse, as they must decide whether to keep trying to help Ginny adjust to life with their family or let her be shipped off an alternative school for the remainder of her youth.
BookPage contributor Karen Ann Cullotta expressed that Ginny Moon “reveals a writer of such immense talent as to achieve a dazzling literary home run the first time up to bat.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews remarked: “By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, Ginny’s quest for a safe home leads her to discover her own strong voice.” In an issue of Booklist, Deborah Donovan called the book a “heartwarming and unforgettable page-turner about autism, family, and how special-needs children are treated.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Ginny Moon “a unique coming-of-age tale and a powerful affirmation of the fragility and strength of families.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2017, Deborah Donovan, review of Ginny Moon, p. 18.
BookPage, May, 2017, Karen Ann Cullotta, review of Ginny Moon, p. 19.
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2017, review of Ginny Moon.
Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2017, review of Ginny Moon, p. 45.
ONLINE
Benjamin Ludwig Website, http://benjaminludwig.com (November 9, 2017), author profile.
Deborah Kalb Books, http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/ (May 7, 2017), Deborah Kalb, “Q&A with Benjamin Ludwig,” author interview.
Library Journal Online, http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/ (April 14, 2017), Beth Anderson, “LJ Talks to First Novelist Benjamin Ludwig,” author interview.
Omnivoracious, http://www.omnivoracious.com/ (May 19, 2017), Adrian Liang, “‘Fresh, Funny, and Heartbreaking’: Adriana Trigiani Speaks with Benjamin Ludwig about ‘Ginny Moon,'” author interview.
Publisher’s Weekly Online, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (February 3, 2017), “Spotlight on Benjamin Ludwig.”
Shelf Awareness, http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ (November 9, 2017), Jen Forbus, “Benjamin Ludwig: Teacher, Dad and Storyteller.”
Virginia MacGregor, http://virginiamacgregor.com/ (November 9, 2017), Virginia Macgregor, “Twenty Questions with Benjamin Ludwig, Writer,” author interview.
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Bio
Benjamin Ludwig is the author of Ginny Moon, which was an Indie Next and Library Reads pick, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and one of Amazon.com’s Best Books of 2017. It received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, BookPage, and Booklist. His novella, Sourdough, was the recipient of the 2013 Clay Reynolds Prize for the Novella. A former English teacher and new-teacher mentor, he holds an MAT in English education and an MFA in creative writing. He and his family live in New Hampshire.
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(May 2, 2017)
368 pages
ISBN: 978-0778330165
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Spotlight on Benjamin Ludwig
In Ginny Moon, Ludwig’s captivating debut novel, a teen with autism struggles with and overcomes the challenges of foster care, adolescence, and a new and loving home
Feb 03, 2017
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Benjamin Ludwig’s gorgeous debut novel, Ginny Moon, is a labor of love. Narrated by a teenager with autism adjusting to life with her “Forever Parents,” who adopted her from foster care, the book was inspired partly by Ludwig’s own experience adopting a child with autism.
Ginny Moon, which New York Times–bestselling author Graeme Simsion calls “a brilliant debut,” is the launch title for Harlequin’s new Park Row imprint. The book will be published in 13 territories and is expected to make a major splash on Park Row’s inaugural list, toting blurbs from almost 20 authors and booksellers. The novel is aimed at readers who loved blockbusters such as The Rosie Project and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
Ludwig, a former middle school teacher, wanted to explore how older children (especially those with special needs) learn, perceive, and interact with the world around them. “Every Wednesday night, I’d take my teenage daughter to Special Olympics basketball practice, sit on the bleachers, and listen to the athletes talk,” he recalls. “The way they communicated with one another—and not all of them were autistic—turned my understanding inside out.”
Ludwig found that people with autism are often misunderstood, not because they are poor at communicating but because the speaker and the listener are looking for different signals. He explained that an autistic person who is standing with a hand on his stomach might be trying to express hunger, while others might interpret that same action as an expression of pain.
In the novel, Ginny Moon is a 13-year-old girl with autism living with a new foster family in present-day Greensborough, Vt. Ginny likes playing the flute and listening to Michael Jackson. She has a penchant for math and Robert Frost poems. She is also struggling with her new, supposedly stable life.
Ginny was taken from her birth mother five years before and placed in foster care. Her new parents, Brian and Maura, are expecting a baby girl and want Ginny to be ready to live safely with an infant in the house. As they instruct Ginny about how to care for her future sister with a practice doll (which feels powerfully alive to Ginny), past traumas inflicted by her birth mother and abusive stepfather bubble to the surface, leading Ginny to attempt to contact her birth mother and organize her own kidnapping.
That decision begins a chain of events that at first brings Ginny closer to danger, but eventually leads her to deeper understanding and closure regarding her birth parents. Though sometimes harrowing, Ginny’s story is always powerfully moving and is ultimately an inspiring tale of overcoming dire circumstances to find happiness and security.
To create such a unique and deeply felt character, Ludwig started with the pure language of Ginny speaking and worked backwards. For instance, Ginny describes dusk the night of the kidnapping she’s been planning as “the night of the Harvest Concert but it isn’t night yet. The sun is going down but it is still day. I have been very, very good at the Blue House and at school so that I wouldn’t get myself unadopted.” Or when she is looking for food in a kitchen, she tells herself, “Inside I see one carton of twelve eggs and one carton of nine and some ketchup and twenty-two slices of bread in a bag and seven onions and an eight-ounce block of Grade A pasteurized cheddar cheese.”
“When Ginny’s voice came to me, I immediately started writing, letting her narrate lots of monologues,” Ludwig says. “Then I asked, what would cause a person to talk this way? Right away the answers came: she repeats things because she needs to reassure herself that they’re true; she confesses things internally because, in her world, there was a very real penalty for complaining. She counts because knowing how many slices of bread are in the bag gives her security. It gives her something concrete that she can know for certain.”
Ginny Moon is a captivating voice- and character-driven novel and a way for Ludwig to discuss important issues that are too frequently neglected. “The people who don’t think they have or deserve a voice are the characters I care about the most,” he says. “So you can see why it was important for Ginny to learn how to self-advocate. The type of victory she claims for herself at the end of the book is the kind I want every kid on the planet to be able to claim.”
Sponsored by Park Row Books
A version of this article appeared in the 02/06/2017 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Spotlight on Benjamin Ludwig
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You are here: Home / / LJ Talks to First Novelist Benjamin Ludwig
LJ Talks to First Novelist Benjamin Ludwig
BY BETH ANDERSON ON APRIL 14, 2017 LEAVE A COMMENT
BenjaminLudwig.jpg41417
Photo by Perry Smith
Ginny Moon (Park Row: Harlequin; starred review, LJ 3/15/17) is debut novelist Benjamin Ludwig’s beautifully told story of a 14-year-old autistic girl, whose troubled past threatens her loving family’s fierce determination to keep her safe. Ludwig knows whereof he writes—he and his wife also adopted a child with autism.
Critics have run out of accolades for Ginny Moon. Did the avalanche of praise surprise you?
I am overwhelmed and grateful. It means that people care about kids like Ginny—kids who went through the foster care system, and kids who are intellectually disabled. People are responding to Ginny’s voice, which came to me fully formed. It was a real, living thing, and it was so demanding. I could barely keep up as I was writing. Ginny is totally honest all the time and almost always totally wrong. I found that combination delightful and endearing. A lot of readers wrote to say that they appreciate that bittersweet aspect of her personality.
How were you able to convey the perspective of a young girl with autism so perfectly?
By listening to [Ginny’s voice], I could begin to understand her disability. And while it’s perfect for her, it’s not perfect for any other person with autism. I’ve known a lot of kids on the spectrum, and each has their own unique way of speaking. What’s consistent, though, is their consistency. People on the spectrum have difficulty with communication. They use language as a tool to get what they need rather than as a way to express what they feel. Most neurotypical people are more in tune with language than they are with their senses. My understanding (and I’m not an expert on autism) is that for people with autism, it’s sometimes the opposite. Their brains are wired in such a way that they understand nonlanguage input more than language input.
ginnymoon12.jpg41417What were some of the things you and your wife learned as adoptive parents of an autistic daughter?
The most important thing we learned is that you need a network. All parents do, but when you adopt a child with disabilities who’s been in and out of several homes, not to mention in and out of several dangerous living environments, you need a lot of help. In addition to friends and family, we had social workers, therapists, and teachers guide us through the process. Honestly, if we didn’t have so much support, I don’t think we could have done it.
Do you hope your book is seen, in part, as a “lessons learned” manual for people in the world of autism?
I hope it will help people think twice about what kids say. Ginny’s autism worked for the book because I was familiar with it, but it’s the communication aspects that I wanted to highlight. People need to listen to each other. We all need to examine our own assumptions a lot more before making judgments.
The need for precision seems to ground Ginny. You capture that in her strict adherence to the “one question at a time” rule and in your chapter headings that are stamped by date and time.
The precision is all about control. Control makes Ginny safe—or at least seems to make her safe. If she can know or determine when something is going to happen, she can get ready for it. It’s a stereotype that people with autism are somehow gifted when it comes to numbers. That’s not really true. Yes, many of them care about numbers, but they aren’t all spectacularly gifted when it comes to math. The reason that people with autism care so much about times, dates, and amounts is because those things are objective. If I say I’m feeling blue, that could mean at least two different things. If I say we’re having only one cookie each, then my message means the same thing to everyone.
Did your daughter and wife give you feedback during your writing process?
My wife read a lot of the book as it was being written, and she had plenty to say about whether certain parts were as accurate or as funny as I’d hoped. My daughter didn’t read any of it at all until we received the first galleys from my publisher. She asked to read it, so we gave her a copy. She thought Ginny was “a bad girl” because she broke rules. And there’s a bad word on page 21! She didn’t understand the subtle parts or plot twists. In the end, it was a long boring book (with no pictures!) that Dad wrote.
What are you working on next?
I can’t say much about it just yet because it’s still in draft form. I can tell you that it’s another voice-driven book and features a male character who becomes a genius poet.—Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
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Ginny Moon
by Benjamin Ludwig
Benjamin Ludwig pulls from his personal experience with both autism and the foster care system in his charming debut novel, Ginny Moon. The title character is a 13-year-old autistic girl recently adopted by her "forever" parents, Brian and Maura Moon. The Moons love Ginny and provide her with a safe, stable home, an excellent education with the accommodations her disability requires, and the psychological support to weather her transition to a new family.
Before that, when authorities discovered Ginny, she was severely underweight and had been abused by her drug-addled birth mother, Gloria. After struggling through a series of unsuccessful foster homes, Ginny finds herself living in the Blue House with the Moons. The couple is now expecting a biological daughter, so they are trying to prepare Ginny for the arrival of Baby Wendy. However, Ginny's behavior is causing concerns. They borrowed a simulation doll from school, and the data in the device's computer shows Ginny hitting the doll more than 80 times. Even worse, Ginny attempts to contact her birth mother, putting her new address on the Internet so Gloria will know where to find her.
With Brian's high blood pressure and Maura's pregnancy, the Moons begin to question whether they've made the right decision in bringing this child with so many exceptional needs into their home. They love Ginny, but is she simply more than they can handle with a new baby on the way?
Ginny Moon is narrated by Ginny, and readers are privy to her thoughts and feelings, those she's unable to communicate to her parents, teachers and friends. These intimate glimpses into the troubled young girl are endearing, sometimes funny and terribly heartbreaking. The voice Ludwig gives Ginny is as distinctive as she is, shunning autistic stereotypes for an authentic character. She loves Michael Jackson and watching movies on her DVD player. She's capable of complex thought but can answer only a single question at a time. And Ginny often thinks in terms of math and numbers, but unlike the misperception that all people with autism are math savants, Ginny's understanding is skewed and distorted, like when she says, "It is a question she shouldn't have asked. Because I don't know how to answer it. To answer it I would have to be nine years old again on the other side of Forever. I would have to subtract myself from this side in order to get back."
Her application of math equations to abstract concepts shows a creative if somewhat confused train of thought. There's both beauty and torment along those tracks leading Ginny to well-meaning but dangerous choices--for her and her new family.
Ludwig also provides readers with vivid views of the chaos and fear in Ginny's mind. When she goes to the Halloween dance at her school, "There are witches and princesses. Someone is even dressed like a cow. And all of them are making noise. So much noise I can't stand it. The music is way too loud. A lot of the kids are yelling and trying to scare each other. I see vampires and gypsies. I see a giant bug and a cat. I even see a kid dressed up as a baby. It is like all the things that are in my brain came out."
The complexity of Ginny's character allows readers to empathize with her, while understanding the agonizing conflicts the Moons experience. This complexity also serves to enhance the novel's suspense. Ginny's wild and unpredictable escapades will keep readers anxiously engrossed and emotionally invested. It's virtually impossible not to cheer for this young girl with the humongous heart.
Ludwig's minor characters add strength to the story as well: Ginny's devoted school friend Larry, who wants nothing more than to win Ginny's heart, and her psychologist, Patrice, who seems to understand her better than anyone. They add a special dimension to both the novel and to Ginny, since they are viewed through her eyes and we see her through her dealings with them. Her communication barriers often result in feelings of helplessness and frustration for both Ginny and those she interacts with, but through all of them, readers will find a fleshed-out portrait of an exceptional person.
Ginny Moon is an irresistible story, compassionately rendered and nakedly honest. The realistic dialogue is packed with humor and candor. The short chapters combined with action and strong plot twists make for a swift pace. And Ginny Moon is simply a remarkable young woman, sure to steal readers' hearts. But she'll return them bigger and better than ever. --Jen Forbus
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Park Row Books, $26.99, hardcover, 368p., 9780778330165
Benjamin Ludwig: Teacher, Dad and Storyteller
photo: Perry Smith
A lifelong teacher of English and writing, Benjamin Ludwig lives in New Hampshire with his family. He holds an MAT in English education and an MFA in writing. Shortly after he and his wife married, they became foster parents and adopted an autistic teenager. Ginny Moon is Ludwig's first novel--and the first title from the new Park Row Books imprint--and was inspired in part by his conversations with other parents at Special Olympics basketball practices.
In the acknowledgements for Ginny Moon you thank a professor who advised you not to teach. Why did you ignore his advice?
Because I love stories. Most people don't get to hear or tell new stories unless they're around other people. In a school--especially if you're teaching English or language arts--you're surrounded by stories all day. You hear them in the hallway, you read them with students. You listen to stories and tell them as you teach.
Which came first, the desire to teach or to write?
The desire to write, no question about it. I wrote stories in spiralbound notebooks all through school, and passed them to friends in the hallway so they could read them during study hall. It was pretty much impossible not to fall in love with literature, when you're writing all the time. Plus I saw that all of my teachers were storytellers, oral storytellers. I loved being in class to hear them talk. I knew that as a writer I'd have to make a living, and the only thing I wanted to do was to tell stories. What better job is there for a writer than being an English teacher?
And how did your writing evolve from those stories in school to Ginny Moon?
I used to be concerned with symbol and meaning, with imparting a lesson. So many of the stories I read as a kid seemed lesson-based. Religious stories, myths, fables--all of them have a message to impart. I read a lot of fantasy, too, and a lot of fantasy is about archetypes. So my early stories were focused on teaching lessons or conveying ideas. It was incredibly freeing to get beyond that stage. It happened at some point in high school, when I read Tolkien's letter to readers at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. He explains that he "detests allegory," and goes on to explain why he prefers history instead. I didn't love history, but I saw his point. I got the idea in my head that when I write fiction, I don't have to judge everything, or even explain a lot of behavior. I just have to tell what happened.
If you could go back and visit your school-aged self, what would you tell that younger you?
I'd have to probably say something like, "Hey, you're going to have to write some awful, awful books before you can write a good one. And that's okay." I wrote at least 10 novels before Ginny Moon. All of them are on my computer, and almost all of them are completely unreadable. But every single one of them was essential. I learned how to write through writing those books. And I love them for that, even though the writing is bad and the storytelling is pretty shoddy. Writing a lot of unpublishable books was part of the learning process for me.
What's one thing you know now that you wish you had known for your first novel?
I wish I'd known how to trust the creative process. I didn't know how to do that at first. I didn't believe that ideas came from some shapeless, mysterious place. I thought you had to actively build the whole story, consciously. And that's just not true. Yes, there's a lot of conscious plotting and structuring, but a huge portion of writing a book is going into this dark, liquid place where ideas come from. I do, anyway.
You have personal experience that inspired Ginny Moon.
I couldn't have written Ginny Moon if I hadn't become a foster parent and adopted a special-needs teenager. But it wasn't really my experience that made the book come together. It was Ginny's voice. It drove the story. Ginny's voice is based on a combination of voices that I heard at Special Olympics basketball games, and from my experience teaching school. Once her voice was in place, the plot came together quickly. I'd ask myself, why does she emphasize that particular word? Or what is it that's really bothering her when she picks at her fingers? The answers to those questions, and others like them, composed the backstory, as well as a lot of the points of conflict.
In a previous interview you mentioned that autism doesn't have a strict set of characteristics. So how did you go about deciding what would define Ginny?
People with autism are individuals, and really can't be lumped together in terms of behaviors that they exhibit. So when it came to deciding how Ginny would function in the world--how she would navigate through it, really--I worked backwards, using her voice as a starting point. I really believe that the way a person talks is sort of like a story unto itself. If you listen to it, and get past all your assumptions, you begin to see what the person has been through and where she's headed.
Did you find that voice a challenge, given the tendency of those with autism to internalize so much?
At first, because Ginny's voice came to me so forcefully, I almost couldn't keep up with her narration. Then, later, when I went back to work with the raw material, there was a lot that wasn't working. I had to find a way for Ginny to move between the quiet exterior that she presents to other people and the intensely verbal thoughts she keeps to herself. Not everyone thinks in words, but I was writing a novel, so words were all I could use. In the end I said: this is a story, not real life, so I'm just going to do the best I can to imitate in words what a not-so-wordy person might think.
Her voice is powerful in making this novel so charming.
I'm glad you found it charming! There's a lot of humor in Ginny's voice, but I hope readers can sense how torn she is. Ginny's circular and repetitive thinking is a product of her obsessiveness. I don't mean she's obsessive in an unreasonable way. After all, this is a character who needs something desperately, and asks for it desperately, but no one understands her. The quirkiness of her voice comes from the errors in her understanding, the linguistic accidents that occur when she tries to say something and her words don't add up.
What advice do you have for readers who may be considering fostering or adopting and may encounter some of those problems the Moons did?
For people considering adoption: just do it. No matter how difficult adoption might seem, no matter how it might inconvenience your lifestyle--your worry and fear is nothing compared with the worry and fear that a child experiences as he or she waits for a Forever Family. Not to mention all the trauma they've been through. The same goes for refugees. We have to take them in. We aren't here to take care of only ourselves. We're here to take care of other people. We went through some really difficult times with our daughter, yes, but as an adoptive parent, you become part of someone's healing process. Then you become part of her walk towards independence.
And finally, what's in store for you now?
I want to teach so badly. I took a year off to support Ginny Moon, and though it's been great, it was really hard to not be with teachers and students all day. I'm eager to teach fiction at a college or university--I see it as the natural evolution of my career--but at the same time, I have some books that need to be written. I'm finishing up another novel, another really voice-y book that I call Both Ways. I hope to write some YA novels, and maybe some middle-grade, down the road. I'm sure we'll adopt another child at some point. But in the short term, I'm going to write and teach and keep on being a dad. Those three things are really all I know how to do. --Jen Forbus
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Book Review
Fiction
Signs for Lost Children
by Sarah Moss
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In Victorian England, women are beginning to qualify as medical doctors. Ally Moberly is among this rare group, but respect doesn't accompany her role, especially when she pursues an interest in those institutionalized for madness, the lowliest branch of medicine. She contemplates herself through the logic of the period, "An unnatural, undomesticated being, very probably subject to mental instability herself, for why else would a woman declare herself unsatisfied by her own family life and seek to usurp the masculine role?" So she is resigned to a life of spinsterhood in exchange for her career, until she meets Tom, a young engineer for an innovative company. Not long after their wedding, he travels to Japan to oversee the construction of lighthouses. His long absence creates space for the couple to grow in independent directions, leaving them with new challenges upon his return.
While Sarah Moss (Bodies of Light) explores the nature of marriage through Ally and Tom, the real draw to Signs for Lost Children is her probing journey through the Victorian view of insanity and the dawning of feminism. Ally's traumatic personal experiences with her mother, as well as her intellect, give her a deep understanding that eludes most men in the medical field at the time. She's well developed as a character, eliciting empathy and encouraging readers to connect with her. Tom's character is also strong, but Ally simply dominates the novel. Readers will enthusiastically delve into her life and root for her to succeed. --Jen Forbus, freelancerDiscover: A nontraditional woman in Victorian England pursues a medical career treating the insane while weathering the challenges of a long absence from her engineer husband.
Europa, $19, paperback, 368p., 9781609453794
Quirk Books: William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher
American War
by Omar El Akkad
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The U.S. is as divided as ever. The Southwest has turned to embers, and rising waters have submerged the coasts. Omar El Akkad's debut novel, American War, begins in the early 22nd century, with narration by an old man who has devoted his life to studying "this country's bloody war with itself"--but not the one readers might expect. His focus is the Second American Civil War, which began in 2074. The North fought Southern secessionist states over their resistance to a bill prohibiting the use of fossil fuels, a dispute that led to the president's assassination. The war ended in 2093, but the suffering continued for another decade when a Southern rebel snuck into the North and unleashed a biological agent that killed an additional hundred million people.
Sarat Chestnut, age six at war's outset, is taken from her Louisiana home and herded along with her mother, twin sister and older brother into a refugee camp. The novel follows the family's experiences over two decades, a journey in which Sarat goes from a tomboy growing up in a corrugated shipping container near sorghum fields to a resistance fighter battling the forces of the North. The tension flags at times, but American War is nonetheless a compelling read that eerily parallels the present day--drone strikes, detention camps--and offers a chilling reminder that irreconcilable differences predictably lead to war. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewerDiscover: A debut novel imagines a Second American Civil War, in which red and blue states fight a bloody battle over fossil fuels.
Knopf, $26.95, hardcover, 352p., 9780451493583
Charlesbridge Teen: Select by Marit Weisenberg
Mystery & Thriller
Prussian Blue
by Philip Kerr
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Philip Kerr came to acclaim with March Violets, the first in his Berlin Noir thrillers starring detective Bernie Gunther, with a supporting cast of assorted Nazis. Prussian Blue, 12th in the series, is a knockout, zipping along like a car with a cut brake line.
In 1956, Gunther's working at a Riviera hotel, and is tricked into dinner with an old nemesis, Erich Mielke, now with the East German secret police. Gunther is to pay a prior debt by poisoning a certain woman, but escapes Mielke and sets off for West Germany. As he flees, he recalls another trip, almost 20 years earlier, when he thought himself "possessed of a sense of decency and honor I now found almost quaint."
In 1939, Reinhard Heydrich summoned Gunther to his office and gave him seven days to solve a murder at the Berghof, Hitler's home in Berchtesgaden. Gunther stayed on point with coffee and meth, while negotiating the mare's nest of various Nazi intrigues, determined to find the killer. His investigation was, not surprisingly, perilous--"the greatest mystery on this magic mountain is how I'm going to break this case without myself getting broken permanently."
As the novel swings between decades, Bernie Gunther's saving graces are his cynical humor and sense of honor as he seesaws between angst and Weltschmerz. But he wonders at his capacity to work for an evil regime. He wonders why he didn't plant a bomb in Hitler's study. The reader wonders with him, but knows he will stay the course, even when events of the two decades stunningly converge. --Marilyn DahlDiscover: In the 12th Bernie Gunther novel, the former Berlin detective can't escape his past dealings with Nazis and his present dealings with the Stasi.
Marian Wood/Putnam, $27, hardcover, 544p., 9780399177057
Andrews McMeel Publishing: The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
The Curse of La Fontaine
by M.L. Longworth
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Newlyweds Judge Antoine Verlaque and Marine Bonnet, a law professor, are settling into their new life together (and trying to decide whose apartment to live in). They are also enjoying meals at La Fontaine, a restaurant in their Aix-en-Provence neighborhood run by Chef Sigisbert "Bear" Valets. But when a skeleton is found in the restaurant's courtyard, Bear and his employees (including a refugee from Togo) fall under suspicion. And so, Verlaque and Bonnet attempt to solve an eight-year-old mystery in M.L. Longworth's sixth novel to feature the investigative duo, The Curse of La Fontaine.
Longworth (who began her series with Death at the Château Bremont) opens with the couple's destination wedding in a small Italian village, and returns to that day periodically throughout the book. But the mystery centers on the skeleton in the courtyard--that of a local young man--and his complicated connections to Bear and other characters. Though Verlaque is concerned about solving the case and bringing closure to the man's family, he finds plenty of time for other diversions, including Cuban cigars, fine wine and the delicate dance of new matrimony. Meanwhile, Bonnet, convinced of Bear's innocence, offers her apartment as a temporary pop-up restaurant space, causing Verlaque to worry about conflicts of interest, his own impartiality and the effect of this case on his fledgling marriage. Longworth's sun-drenched setting, quirky characters and leisurely narrative pace balance out the murder plot, while her mouthwatering food descriptions will appeal to Francophiles and foodies. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and DreamsDiscover: M.L. Longworth's sixth Verlaque & Bonnet mystery finds her newlywed investigators helping out a local chef while solving a murder.
Penguin, $15, paperback, 320p., 9780143110941
DK Publishing: Star Wars Coding Projects by Jon Woodcock
A Welcome Murder
by Robin Yocum
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Robin Yocum (A Brilliant Death) returns to the Ohio Rust Belt for A Welcome Murder. Johnny Earl, former Pittsburgh Pirate and high school sports star of Steubenville, has just gotten out of jail after a seven-year stint for dealing cocaine. He is appalled to discover that his high school sweetheart, Dena Marie, is married to a loser while sleeping with both the sheriff and Rayce Daubner, a local druggie and the FBI informant who got Johnny locked up.
When Daubner turns up dead, Johnny Earl and Dena Marie are first in the sheriff's sights. Then a pair of white supremacists, who heard rumors about Johnny's drug money stash, show up looking to fund their Aryan nation. And a couple of FBI agents, who happen to hate the sheriff, arrive in Steubenville, at which point the whole thing almost becomes farcical, as characters circle each other trying to turn Daubner's death to their advantage.
Surprisingly funny for a homicide mystery, A Welcome Murder is full of odd and unreliable characters who alternate telling their stories. Every chapter puts a slightly different spin on events as Johnny Earl, Dena Marie and her husband, and the sheriff and his wife tell their versions. Since each person is convinced of a different culprit, the rotating viewpoints will keep the reader guessing till the very end. Perfectly paced and extremely entertaining, A Welcome Murder is a welcome addition to any mystery lover's library. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky BookwormDiscover: Several unreliable narrators try to figure out who killed a man, and spin the investigation to their own advantage, in Rust Belt Ohio.
Seventh Street Books, $15.95, paperback, 263p., 9781633882638
Shelf Awareness Sign-up Giveaway: Addicted to Americana by Charles Phoenix
Food & Wine
Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire
by Barbara Lynch
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It's unlikely that many James Beard Award-winning chefs can say they have prank-called Julia Child--but Barbara Lynch (Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition) can. Even better, she also impressed Child with her cooking.
In Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire, Lynch tells these stories and others, dishing on the forces that inspired her fierce independence and her journey into the food world. She sketches a hardscrabble childhood in her native South Boston. Among splintered memories and fractured limbs, she highlights the flavors and experiences that most deeply affected her as a lifelong Southie. Lynch reminisces about fried baloney sandwiches and even knuckle sandwiches served up by neighborhood friends, foes and family alike. Distaste for school led Lynch to spend her teen years adopting a surprisingly literal take on the classic Boston expression "wicked pissah." Yet she went on, without formal culinary training or a high school diploma, to build an epicurean empire.
This is the story of Lynch's passion for cooking, and other great loves of her life, but where Out of Line especially shines is in the writing on food itself. She writes evocatively about her signature dishes, such as her prune-stuffed gnocchi or delicately layered lasagnas, and as well of her first visit to Tuscany. Lynch also swears like a chef; one of her favorite adjectives for even a sophisticated meal is "kickass." And with her life itself on the menu this time, her approach mirrors her cooking: artful and bold. --Katie Weed, freelance writer and reviewerDiscover: Boston-bred chef, cookbook author and restaurateur Barbara Lynch dishes up tales and recipes from her life.
Atria, $26, hardcover, 304p., 9781476795447
Biography & Memoir
A $500 House in Detroit: Rebuilding an Abandoned Home and an American City
by Drew Philp
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Whether it's crime, corruption or urban decay, Detroit's seemingly insurmountable array of problems have been well documented. That's why freelance journalist Drew Philp's A $500 House in Detroit is such a tonic. The story of its author's five-year effort to rehabilitate a dwelling in one of the city's blighted neighborhoods is an inspiring portrait of one man's dogged persistence. It offers a clear-eyed glimpse at how a brighter future for the once proud Motor City might be slowly emerging.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, the idealistic Philp, who is white, is the quintessential Angry Young Man. He moves to Detroit--whose population is more than 80% African-American--with "no job, no friends, and no money," trying to reconcile his background of educational privilege with the poverty that surrounds him. At a tax sale in October 2009, he acquires a 1903 Queen Anne house and sets to work transforming it into habitable space. With the help of his father, grandfather and a shifting cast of neighbors, Philp slowly acquires the skills that enable him to resurrect this "white-and-gray clapboard shell on a crumbling brick foundation, filled with junk."
He layers the account of his backbreaking labor with economic and sociological insights into Detroit's plight, while describing the efforts of other determined homesteaders to reclaim abandoned neighborhoods. He has little patience for the gentrification movement led by wealthy business leaders and instead puts his faith in the unceasing toil of his fellow urban pioneers. "We were going to have to pit our humanity against their money," he writes. It's probably not a good idea to bet against this once great city's revival. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewerDiscover: Journalist Drew Philp's memoir is the inspiring story of his personal part in the struggle to revitalize Detroit.
Scribner, $26, hardcover, 304p., 9781476797984
History
History of a Disappearance: The Story of a Forgotten Polish Town
by Filip Springer, trans. by Sean Gasper Bye
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Filip Springer's History of a Disappearance: The Story of a Forgotten Polish Town is a searching work of historical journalism that tracks the life and death of a tiny Silesian mining village. Translated from Polish, it is a memorial to a town that seemed constantly subject to the brutal whims of history, a force that Springer memorably visualizes as "a beast that knew only how to sow chaos and destruction."
Kupferberg stands at the top of a mountain intermittently mined for valuable minerals like copper and silver. The town's early history is marred by war, brutal winters, fires and disease. A part of Germany, it survives the world wars relatively unscathed, until the Soviet counteroffensive reaches Kupferberg, and Polish police and soldiers arrive with orders: "Treat the Germans as they have treated us." All Germans are expelled, and the place is renamed Miedziana Góra and absorbed into Soviet-occupied Poland.
The bulk of History of a Disappearance focuses on the motley, occasionally eccentric inhabitants navigating the hazards of Communist rule. Miedziana's doom comes in the form of uranium mining, undertaken with a minimum of safety considerations for the workers and their families. The overexploited mountain eventually begins to give way beneath the town, causing large parts of Miedziana to sink into the earth. Springer says in his epilogue, "I don't suppose it's a good thing not to notice the disappearance of an entire town," and thanks to his fascinating history, Kupferberg seems unlikely to fade from memory. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.Discover: History of a Disappearance resurrects the remarkable story of a town that weathered the worst of European history only to be consumed by massive sinkholes.
Restless Books, $17.99, paperback, 320p., 9781632061157
Science
The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science
by Marcus du Sautoy
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Marcus du Sautoy (The Music of the Primes) is an accomplished and popular ambassador for science. He is a mathematician with hobbies in the arts, the author and host of many television series and books, and the second Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. In The Great Unknown, he explores the potential limits of human knowledge with great clarity and charm.
"Would we want to know everything? Scientists have a strangely ambivalent relationship with the unknown... what we don't know is what intrigues and fascinates us, and yet the mark of success as a scientist is resolution and knowledge, to make the unknown known." Du Sautoy investigates the frontiers of mathematical and scientific ideas, sorted into broad concepts such as Chaos, Matter, Consciousness and Infinity, and set in the context of history, evolution, philosophy, literature and music. He expresses his own confusion and worries, interviews specialists, tells personal anecdotes and provides lively hand-drawn illustrations.
A lot of popular science rehashes metaphors that have been floating around for decades. There's a little of that here, but du Sautoy's explanations are always solid and thoughtful, and many are unusually clever and original. Like the first Simonyi Professor, Richard Dawkins, he is an atheist, but unlike Dawkins, du Sautoy has genuine interest in religious ideas that relate to his theme of the unknowable. For anyone with great curiosity about scientific inquiry and the deep mysteries of the universe, this will be a rewarding tour of the current scene. --Sara CatterallDiscover: This is a clear, entertaining and mind-stretching exploration of scientific ideas and the limits of human knowledge.
Viking, $30, hardcover, 464p., 9780735221802
Children's & Young Adult
Goldfish Ghost
by Lemony Snicket, illus. by Lisa Brown
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"Goldfish Ghost was born on the surface of the water in a bowl on the dresser in a boy's room." The upside-down goldfish drifts out the window to begin his quiet, solemn afterlife. As he glides past towns and beaches and oceans teeming with busy life, he learns that it's "hard to find the company you are looking for." Returning eventually to his bowl, he finds that another goldfish--a live one--has taken his place. "She seemed nice enough, but she was not good company, and the moon called Goldfish Ghost back out the window." It's not until our solitary hero encounters another friendless soul--the ghost of a lighthouse keeper--that he finds the company he's been longing for.
Young readers who have lost a loved one will find solace in this gentle, meditative tale, but all will appreciate the sweetness of finally feeling "at home" with a friend. The true magic of Goldfish Ghost comes with the harmonizing of author and illustrator's talents; Lemony Snicket (A Series of Unfortunate Events) and Lisa Brown (The Airport Book) previously collaborated on The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming. Brown's India-ink-and-watercolor, muted blue/gray/gold illustrations are reminiscent of 1960s and '70s picture books. One of the most ethereal and affecting moments in recent picture books comes when the lighthouse keeper takes Goldfish Ghost "in her quiet hands and placed him where the light had once shone for sailors at sea." The image of the upside-down ghostly white fish contentedly suspended in the center of the massive lighthouse lantern is strikingly unforgettable. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editorDiscover: Lemony Snicket and Lisa Brown team up in an unusual and moving picture book about what happens to a goldfish after he dies.
Roaring Brook Press, $17.99, hardcover, 40p., ages 3-6, 9781626725072
North of Happy
by Adi Alsaid
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Like the perfect tacos Carlos and his brother, Felix, purchase the night of Felix's death, North of Happy is rich, layered, colorful and delectable.
Felix is the innocent victim of a shooting that night, and Carlos is left bereft and floundering, and feels himself slipping away. He wonders if he can continue on the path his father planned for him--an internship and college in the U.S--thinking to himself, "[T]hey haven't even noticed that my shadow disappeared when Felix did, that I'm not whole anymore." That's when Carlos realizes he has to leave and find what's missing. He leaves his home in Mexico City for a small island off the coast of Washington State where he lands a job washing dishes in a renowned restaurant. For a young man who's always loved food and cooking, he's now immersed in his dream world. The icing on the cake is Emma, the head chef's daughter and the young woman bringing awe and wonder into Carlos's life.
But as Carlos mixes together all the ingredients of his new life--his job, his girlfriend and his family--the recipe doesn't quite turn out the way he plans. There's nothing half-baked about Adi Alsaid (Let's Get Lost) delightful novel; it's wonderful through and through. Felix ends his description of the perfect taco by saying it "makes you hungry for life and... makes you feel like you have never been more alive." Felix could have easily been defining North of Happy. --Jen Forbus, freelancerDiscover: After his older brother's death, a young man searches for meaning in his life and finds it washing dishes in the kitchen of a famous restaurant.
Harlequin Teen, $18.99, hardcover, 304p., 9780373212286
Poetry
Hard Child
by Natalie Shapero
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The self is a shifting yet sharply felt thing in Natalie Shapero's poetry collection Hard Child. The title refers to the poet's own pregnancy, loosely discussed in several poems throughout the collection, exploring how a child changes one's impressions of the world. Shapero (No Object) is the opposite of a sentimentalist, however. Sentiments abound but not through any direct, self-serious reflection. Rather, Shapero uses a distinct style of stream-of-consciousness, playful interrogation and mordant wit. Her style is oblique and sometimes outlandish in its levity, yet in its sum, inimitable and strangely touching.
Whenever Shapero's freewheeling imagination alights on kernels of truth, the effects are sobering. "Of the cruelty ringing the earth,/ I am a portion," the poet declares in the disturbing poem "Passing and Violence." Other proclamations, such as in "Was This the Face," are likewise startling and refreshing in their boldness: "God is abusive toward all His children,/ and also He hardly ever comes around!" Shapero savors the grit of her own wit. Occasionally, the hard intelligence in her voice breaks on moments of genuine beauty. For example, of humanity's dubious conception of heaven, the poet writes, "I sleep/ against it and wake with its imprint on me." In pursuing the realities of human experience, both in dreams and death, Shapero produces a strikingly authentic voice, as if truth, however unpalatable, were the only thing that could save the world. Alternately hilarious and bleak, hopeful and fatalistic, Hard Child surprises with its uncanny emotional range. --Scott Neuffer, freelance journalist, poet and fiction authorDiscover: Poet Natalie Shapero uses dark humor and intelligence to probe the realities of self and identity.
Copper Canyon, $16, paperback, 96p., 9781556595097
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Vincent Can't Sleep: Van Gogh Paints the Night Sky
by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mary GrandPré
Dear Reader,
What do you do when you can’t fall asleep? Stare at the ceiling? Raid the refrigerator? Or could you create something amazing?
As a boy, when Vincent van Gogh couldn’t sleep, he wandered the fields near home, soaked up nighttime colors and visited with the stars. Years later, he often painted all night long. Now, Vincent shines as one of the brightest art stars in history! Vincent Can’t Sleep tells the story of “The Starry Night,” Van Gogh’s most famous creation.
Like our 2015 Caldecott Honor book, The Noisy Paint Box, Mary GrandPré and I hope young creators everywhere will love this vibrant story of Vincent’s quest to capture the magic of the night.
Email barb@barbrosenstock.com to enter to win a free autographed copy.
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www.barbrosenstock.com
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Knopf Books for Young Readers
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October 3, 2017
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Picture Book
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Falcon Wild / Sled Dog School
by Terry Lynn Johnson
Dear Reader,
As a musher, the important thing for me writing about dogsledding was to show the special relationship between Matt and his dogs. It’s that bond that makes it such a fascinating topic. The same is true for falconry. The bond between Karma and her falcon was key.
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Enter to win a copy by emailing: terryjohnsonbooks@gmail.com
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Happy Adventures,
Terry Lynn Johnson
www.terrylynnjohnson.com
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PUBLISHER:
Charlesbridge / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
PUB DATE:
September 19, 2017 / October 3, 2017
TYPE OF BOOK:
Middle-grade Fiction
PRICE: $16.99
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CONTENTS
From My Shelf
The Enduring Lure of Southern Fiction
Book Candy
The Moby-Dick Big Read
Maximum Shelf
Ginny Moon
Benjamin Ludwig: Teacher, Dad and Storyteller
Book Review
Fiction
Signs for Lost Children
American War
Mystery & Thriller
Prussian Blue
The Curse of La Fontaine
A Welcome Murder
Food & Wine
Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire
Biography & Memoir
A $500 House in Detroit: Rebuilding an Abandoned Home and an American City
History
History of a Disappearance: The Story of a Forgotten Polish Town
Science
The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science
Children's & Young Adult
Goldfish Ghost
North of Happy
Poetry
Hard Child
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Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb
Check back often for new Q&As, and for daily historical factoids about books. On Facebook at www.facebook.com/deborahkalbbooks. Follow me on Twitter @deborahkalb.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Q&A with Benjamin Ludwig
Benjamin Ludwig is the author of the new novel Ginny Moon, which focuses on a teenager with autism. He is an English and writing teacher, and he lives in New Hampshire.
Q: You've said Ginny Moon was based on your own experiences as an adoptive parent. How did you come up with the character of Ginny, and was it difficult to capture her voice?
A: Ginny’s voice came to me fully formed one night after my daughter’s Special Olympics basketball practice. It wasn’t my daughter’s voice at all, but something much more intense and fast, and very, very honest in a way that was sometimes funny, sometimes tragic.
Once I heard the voice, I sat down to write what Ginny was saying – and at that point I could barely keep up with her! Aside from her voice, Ginny’s background is inspired by the many foster and adopted kids I’ve met over the years, mostly as a public-school teacher.
In my experience, every child who isn’t living with his parent wants to somehow get back to his mom and dad. Our parents are our origin, and if our origin is a mystery, then we need to solve it in order to understand ourselves.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: When I started writing the book, following Ginny and understanding what it was she really wanted, I knew that at some point she would met her birth mother. I didn’t know what the meeting would look like, but I knew it had to happen.
I also knew that because Ginny was adopted, it would be important (in the ending) to focus on her adopted parents as well. From the very beginning I wanted Ginny to finally learn how to self-advocate – so I hope readers see that by the end of the book, she’s beginning to learn how to do that.
Q: How was the novel's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title changed three or four times, and I’m happy to say that I like the final one the best. "Ginny Moon," as a title, speaks to me because it says hey, this character is beyond defining. She’s a force unto herself, and won’t be classified.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book when it comes to special needs adoptions?
A: I hope they’ll see that kids with special needs really are just kids. They’re unique individuals with the same needs that any other kid might have.
I also hope people will see how important it is to adopt teenagers! Most couples who adopt want to adopt babies – and that’s fine, except for the fact that it leaves a lot of teenagers in a very difficult situation.
If a child isn’t adopted, she “ages out” of the system when she becomes an adult. At that point, she has to navigate the world without any parents at all. I’m proud to have adopted a teenager, and hope to do it again someday. If I could encourage other people to do the same, I would.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Right now I’m working on another novel. The first draft is finished, and I’m revising. I really can’t say much about it yet except that it’s another voice-driven narrative, and this time around features a male protagonist.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Yes! I’ve been asked a lot if there will be a sequel to Ginny, and though I don’t envision one at this point (never say never, right?), I did let her take over a section of my newsletter. Honestly, I just couldn’t let her go after finishing the book.
So each month, in addition to news about my own travels and adventures as a writer, my newsletter will feature a section in which Ginny shares her thoughts and opinions, and tells us what she’s been up to. If anyone might be interested in subscribing, here is the link.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Posted by Deborah Kalb at 6:08 AM
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Twenty Questions with Benjamin Ludwig, Writer
BenjaminLudwig
It is a truth universally acknowledged that you can’t go round a street corner in New Hampshire without bumping into an author. Of course, in a modern, wireless, internet-community world, bumping into might be more virtual than physical, but it is true that New Hampshire is positively bursting at the seams with wonderful authors. One of these is Benjamin Ludwig who has recently published his widely admired debut YA, Ginny Moon.
I was first drawn to the novel when I heard it discussed on NHPR (the US equivalent of the BBC Radio 4 and so my airwave companion on this side of the Atlantic). I then spotted Ginny Moon on the table of my publishers, HarperCollins, at YALC (the Young Adult Literature Conference), this summer in London. I saw it as a sign that we were meant to get in touch so, as soon as I got back to the US, that’s exactly what I did. And, of course, Benjamin was gracious and generous in his response. We exchanged our novels by post – I sent him Wishbones and he sent me Ginny Moon, and he kindly answers my questions below. We hope to meet ‘for real’ sometime soon, maybe in Live Juice or at Gibson’s in Concord.
For now, I hope you enjoy getting to know a little more about the life and writing of this talented writer.
💫
Which three words would you use to describe yourself?
Driven
Open-hearted
Curious
What do you love most about writing?
I love that I get the opportunity to say a thing, and then fix it ten (or twenty!) times before anyone sees it.
Writing is thinking, a way to externalize your thoughts – and when they’re out there, right in front of you, you’re able to tinker with them. Writing lets me think through things in a way that I couldn’t if I was just spinning the gears in my head.
What do you find hardest about writing?
I wish I could do it for longer periods of time without stopping.When I’m immersed in a project, I’m deep, deep inside it, and can’t see the edges. I have to step back and give myself some distance in order to know what needs to be done and why. It’s sort of like the old adage: Can’t see the forest for the trees. I take a lot of breaks when I write. Fortunately, there’s always laundry to do, or dogs to take out, or walks to take.
Where do you write?
In the early morning I write on the couch in the living room. But after the kids are off to school, I take over the dining room table. I spread everything out: computer, folders full of notes, pencils, coffee cup, etc.
Do you have any particular writing habits or rituals?
I like to write all my new material early, early, early in the morning, before I’m fully awake. Then I read through it all later on, and look for what’s useful.
A lot of the time, there’s not very much! But by giving myself permission to be half-awake when I’m working, I find that I can be a lot more creative. Most of my best material comes to me in those early morning sessions.
What inspired you to write Ginny Moon?
It was Ginny’s voice, no doubt about it. It came to me in a very mysterious, exciting way. Once I heard it, I had no choice but to write from its perspective.
That, and I’m a foster parent, and had a lot of foster kids in my classes when I taught public school. Those two things together come together in the book.
Many reviewers have commented on Ginny Moon’s smart, fresh and original voice. Did you work at this or did Ginny’s voice just come naturally?
Ginny’s voice came to me in a very mysterious, exciting way. I came home one night in 2013 from my daughter’s Special Olympics basketball practice with a voice ringing in my ears. It wasn’t my daughter’s voice, and it wasn’t the voice of any of the other kids I’d just been talking with at practice.
It was a desperate, quirky, driving voice – one that demanded to be written.
So I sat and I wrote, and immediately saw that I had something beyond exciting. After that I wrote out an outline – but Ginny refused to do what the outline said. And thank goodness! Her direction proved to be much better.
I believe your personal experience of adopting a child inspired this novel – could you tell us a bit more about this?
My wife and I adopted our daughter in 2009, and our journey was an easy one. Our daughter is nothing like Ginny at all. I suppose I could have written a memoir, but I’m a storyteller at heart, inspired by adventure and drama, tragedy and comedy. Such things simply didn’t exist in my real life.
What kind of child were you?
The kind that read everything he could get his hands on.
Stories were the most important thing in the world to me, growing up. Whether it was acting them out, reading them, or just telling stories with friends, that’s what I loved to do.
Which fictional character would you most like to meet?
I’d love to sit down and chat with the clown/fool from Twelfth Night. He’s one of my favorite characters.
Which book do you wish you’d written?
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Do you have any writing tics that you’re forever editing out?
I don’t think so. I mean, every book I write demands a completely different style, so if there’s ever a tic then it’s exclusive to the project I’m working on at the moment. A larger process-oriented / story-telling tendency that I’d like to avoid is that often catches me up is that the most important plot element in the book usually doesn’t reveal itself to me until after the first draft is written. I’m more a re-writer than a writer, because of it, but that seems to be the nature of the work. For me anyway.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
Mostly I’m with my children, getting them off to school, or bringing them home from school, playing and reading with them. When I’m not with the fam, I like to chop wood for the stove, and to go for walks.
What are you reading at the moment?
I’m in the second book of Ovid’s The Metamorphoses.
What’s the most important lesson life has taught you?
That I need to wait a minute. No matter how good or bad something might seem, my perspective is limited. If I wait a while, I’ll be able to see what’s going on from a better vantage point. Snap judgments and decisions are something I always avoid.
Which writer do you most admire?
Jim Heynen, author of The One Room Schoolhouse. Best book I’ve ever read. I re-read it once every year.
I gather you used to be a teacher. How did this experience influence or inspire your YA writing?
I started teaching as a middle-school language arts teacher, then became a mentor for new teachers. My experience in schools inspired me to set a lot of my work in schools.
What song or piece of music would you choose as the theme tune to your life?
I’d pick Carmina Burana for the theme of my life. The burning swan, the Wheel of Fortune, the tavern — I love those pieces. I sang for a few years with a chorus that performed Renaissance polyphony, so we sang a lot of Byrd, Tallis, Mozart, and a good deal of chant, too. But Carmina was by far the most exciting, I think because it ranged through such diverse emotions and themes.
What’s your favourite quotation about writing?
I’m not a very good writer, but I’m excellent rewriter.
James Michner
What are your top tips for writing a great Young Adult novel?
Hmm. Probably to include coming-of-age themes. Otherwise, there’s not a lot of difference between YA and fiction for adults. More and more, people are understanding that young adults are adults who are young – but that doesn’t make them children. If Shakespeare wrote for adults, but we teach his work in high school, why make much of a distinction between adult and YA literature?
💫
Benjamin Ludwig lives in Barrington, NH. His debut YA novel, Ginny Moon, is published by Parker Row Books | HarperCollins. He is currently working on a second literary novel. You can follow him on twitter, Facebook and find out more about him on his website: benjaminludwig.com
ginny-moon-by-benjamin-ludwig
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"Fresh, Funny, and Heartbreaking": Adriana Trigiani Speaks with Benjamin Ludwig about "Ginny Moon"
Adrian Liang on May 19, 2017
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Benjamin Ludwig and Ginny Moon - Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Books editors picked Ginny Moon as one of the best books of May. Told from the point of view of an autistic young teenager, this absorbing novel sets at its heart Ginny’s obsession with “Baby Doll,” whom she unwillingly abandoned four years ago when she was taken away from her drug-addicted and abusive birth mother.
I was on vacation while I read this book, and when the rest of my family was urging me to come frolic in the pool, I muttered distractedly, "Yeah, I'll come in just as soon as I finish this chapter." In fact, my bathing suit never got wet during our whole weekend. And I finished all the chapters.
Ginny Moon is mesmerizing, and Ginny herself is unlike any heroine you've read before.
Adriana Trigiani, author of The Shoemaker's Wife and the upcoming Kiss Carlo (June 20, 2017), among many other novels, spoke with Ginny Moon author Benjamin Ludwig about the genesis of his novel, the foster care community, and his own autistic daughter.
*
Adriana Trigiani: Ginny Moon is fresh, funny, and heartbreaking. It opens our hearts to understanding and changes our perceptions. What inspired you to write this book?
Benjamin Ludwig: My wife and I adopted a young lady with autism in 2009. That, combined with my experience as a public school teacher, gave me a ton of firsthand experience working with autism and the foster care system. When we adopted our daughter, we met a lot of amazing people—social workers, therapists, special educators, and other foster/adoptive parents. They became our community. I didn’t know it at the time, but our involvement in that community became firsthand research for the book. Ginny isn’t anything like our daughter at all (except they both love Michael Jackson—but really, who doesn’t love Michael Jackson?), but the experience of adopting and transitioning her into our family provided the inspiration.
Trigiani: Ginny is such a wonderfully complex character. She brings readers inside the experience of what it’s like to have autism and shows not only what it must be like from the outside, but how it must feel from within. How were you able to get in her head and show the world through her eyes?
Ludwig: I think it might have been more a matter of waking up one day and finding myself inside her head, if that makes sense. The way she thinks—which I don’t necessarily think of as exclusively autistic but rather as the way Ginny has been forced to think by autism, trauma, and her age—stems from voice. Ginny’s voice revealed to me her thought patterns, her motivation, and her dignity. I worked backward from it. If I heard her say something like “That is exactly right, Kayla Zadambidge,” I’d ask, Why the emphasis on the word “exactly”? And then I would see that Ginny could really make use of the distinction between things that are exact and approximate. Similarly, I had to ask myself why she was so obsessed with finding a doll that had been left behind in her birth mother’s apartment. After all, it’s just a doll, right? Like a lot of things in the book, the doll isn’t just a doll at all. When Ginny tells people she can only answer one question at a time, she’s revealing not only her inability to discern which question she should answer first, but also her ability to control the conversation. Similarly, when Ginny keeps her mouth shut tight, she thinks she’s stopping people from seeing her thoughts—but sometimes she’s withholding information.
Trigiani: Ginny has a unique worldview and way of thinking. Where did her voice come from?
Ludwig: Ginny’s voice is a great example of why I love to write. Writing is a mystery, a way for me to connect with things beyond my understanding. When Ginny’s voice came to me, it came fully formed, ready to go, already talking my ear off. I’d been taking our daughter to Special Olympics basketball practice for weeks and weeks, and while she practiced with the other athletes, I sat on the bleachers with all the other parents. Listening to the voices of the athletes, hearing the other parents share stories about their kids (some of whom were foster kids, by the way), really had an impact. As a teacher and a foster/adoptive parent, I was immersed in a world of unique voices. My best guess is that those voices somehow came together and formed Ginny’s. But still, it’s a mystery to me. I don’t think I’ll ever know exactly how it happened. And I love that.
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Trigiani: Ginny has a great support group, including her adoptive parents and her therapist. As someone who has adopted a teenager from the foster care system, how did your personal experience inform the community you created for Ginny?
Ludwig: I couldn’t have written Ginny Moon if my wife and I hadn’t adopted our daughter from the foster care system. The most important thing you learn as a foster parent is that your community—the community you become part of, the community that you make a conscious effort to grow and participate in—is what will make or break your child’s success. And yours too! Both you and your foster child need not only the support of therapists, social workers, teachers, relatives, and friends, but also the balancing effect of interacting with a diversity of people. Meeting the physical needs of a human being—food, shelter, warmth, healthcare—is actually pretty easy. The real challenge in caring for a child is the child’s need (and your own need) for interaction with people who have had similar experiences.
Trigiani: Narrating the story from the viewpoint of a teenager opens up the opportunity to share thoughts and perspectives that are different from your own. How did you get inside the mind of a 14-year-old?
Ludwig: I’d been working with adolescents for a very long time. As an undergraduate I studied English Education, and spent a lot of time subbing in a middle school that was just a short walk from my dormitory. At first it was just regular subbing, but then I started working as a special-education aide, then an ESOL aide, and finally a translator. It got to the point that I was spending as much time at the middle school as I was in my own classes. When it was time to choose courses for my graduate program and to apply for my teaching certificate, I chose to specialize in teaching middle school students. So much happens in our bodies and brains when we’re adolescents. It’s the most critical time of our lives, I believe, so it was a privilege to teach middle schoolers. My years as a teacher really informed my writing. Seeing kids grapple with really tough issues and situations made me want to write about the underdog, the character who doesn’t fit in, the person who isn’t ready for what’s coming.
Trigiani: There are a lot of unexpected surprises in the story. What parts of the plot did you know from the start, and which did you fill in as you worked?
Ludwig: When Ginny’s voice came to me, I really didn’t know where it would lead. It was an exhilarating process, writing the book. Like a lot of writers, I work from an outline. When Ginny’s voice came to me, and I started writing some scenes from her perspective, I forced myself to stop and to outline what would happen. Then when I’d started writing again, this time with the outline as my guide, Ginny changed everything I’d planned. So I went back and wrote a new outline, and she changed that one too. She was too powerful for any sort of scaffold I could create.
Trigiani: What do you hope readers will take away from Ginny’s story?
Ludwig: I hope the book will raise awareness for kids in foster care. But mostly I hope readers will understand the importance of listening, and of considering what might be going on in other people’s heads. Kids sometimes become quiet—withdrawn—because they haven’t had a chance to develop their voices, or because circumstances in their lives have made silence seem like a safer bet. I hope Ginny’s story makes people notice that quiet kid sitting by herself at lunch, or think about that boy who always walks with his head down. We can’t all be leaders and extroverts. It wasn’t an accident that I chose to make Ginny’s voice, which is the boldest and most audacious voice I’ve ever encountered, be largely internal.
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10/8/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
Ginny Moon
Karen Ann Cullotta
BookPage.
(May 2017): p19.
COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
GINNY MOON
By Benjamin
Ludwig
Park Row
$26.99, 368 pages
ISBN 9780778330165
Audio, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
It is the rare debut novel that reveals a writer of such immense talent as to achieve a dazzling literary home run the first
time up to bat. Such is the case with Benjamin Ludwig's Ginny Moon, an extraordinary coming-of-age story told from
the perspective of a 14-yearold protagonist with autism.
Ginny's disability isn't even the most formidable challenge facing this plucky young heroine, who has survived the
horrors of living with her violent, drug-addicted mother, Gloria, as well as a sad trail of failed foster care placements.
Ludwig's novel begins as Ginny has finally found solace in the "Blue House" with her "Forever Parents," a courageous
young couple who, despite their determination to be the teen's salvation, soon realize that they have signed up for more
struggles than they anticipated. When Ginny becomes obsessed with reuniting with her birth mother and her beloved
"baby doll," her adoptive parents and school officials alike must struggle to keep the teen safe from her impulsive and
methodical, albeit well-intentioned, behavior.
Despite the novel's sobering subject matter, including child abuse, kidnapping and the realities of living with an autistic
child, Ludwig has interjected his often-heartbreaking narrative with laugh-outloud observations from Ginny, who loves
Michael Jackson and displays a wicked sense of humor.
In a letter to his readers, Ludwig explains that he and his wife experienced similar, although less dramatic, challenges
after adopting an autistic teenager, who helped inspire this tremendous debut novel.
--Karen Ann Cullotta
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
10/8/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Cullotta, Karen Ann. "Ginny Moon." BookPage, May 2017, p. 19. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA492735142&it=r&asid=29f163d3deffb1f84125f95950be4d1e.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492735142
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Ludwig, Benjamin: GINNY MOON
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ludwig, Benjamin GINNY MOON Park Row Books (Adult Fiction) $26.99 5, 2 ISBN: 978-0-7783-3016-5
Ginny Moon, who has autism, needs to get back to her birth mother by any means necessary. That's a problem, because
that mother, Gloria, abused her.The narrator of Ludwig's debut novel, Ginny was taken from Gloria when she was 9
years old. Three adoptive homes later, Ginny is 14, and her Forever Parents, Maura and Brian, are expecting their first
biological child. But just when they most need Ginny to be dependably gentle, she begins manifesting increasingly
difficult behavior. It all stems from Ginny's desperate need to take care of her Baby Doll, whom she promised to protect
and whom she hid in a suitcase just as the police arrived to rescue her from Gloria five years ago. Using a classmate's
computer and various people's cellphones, Ginny begins to communicate with Gloria, hoping to reunite with Baby Doll
but inadvertently putting herself and the Moon family in danger by revealing her home address. Tensions escalate as
Ginny arranges her own kidnapping, forcing the Moons to decide whether to give up and send Ginny to St. Genevieve's
Facility for Girls Who Aren't Safe or to continue Ginny's therapy sessions in the hope that she will gain some emotional
attachment skills before the baby arrives. Along the way, surprising truths about Baby Doll emerge. In telling the tale
from Ginny's perspective, Ludwig captures the carefully constructed, sometimes-claustrophobic world Ginny inhabits.
Ginny protects herself from a confusing world by going down deep into her brain, closing her mouth so no one can see
the ideas in her head. While it's an interesting perspective to inhabit, the staccato rhythm of the sentences can get a little
tedious, as Ginny would say. By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, Ginny's quest for a safe home leads her to
discover her own strong voice.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Ludwig, Benjamin: GINNY MOON." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA482911735&it=r&asid=4e1be602a165f838ae2f6cd1570984f8.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A482911735
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Ginny Moon
Deborah Donovan
Booklist.
113.14 (Mar. 15, 2017): p18.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Ginny Moon.
By Benjamin Ludwig.
May 2017. 368p. Park Row, $26.99 (9780778330165); e-book (9781460397961).
Ludwigs enlightening debut novel reflects the overwhelming lifestyle change he and his wife experienced when they
adopted a teenager with autism. Unlike other books exploring the manifestations of this condition, Ludwigs compelling
tale is written in the voice of an autistic girl, Ginny Moon, who is 13 when the novel opens, four years after she was
taken away from her birth mother, an addict. Ginny has been in three other homes before her adoption by her "forever
parents," and all seems to be going smoothly until their own baby girl is born. Ginny plays the flute in the school band,
attends weekly Special Olympics basketball practices, and has good friends in room 5, where she goes each day with
the other "special kids." But she can't forget the baby sister she helped raise before she was adopted, and she will try
anything to find her and her birth mother again. Ginny is remarkably engaging, and Ludwig has surrounded her with
other strong characters, each of whom navigates her compulsive behavior and unpredictability in their own ways. A
heartwarming and unforgettable page-turner about autism, family, and how special-needs children are treated.--Deborah
Donovan
YA: Ludwigs loving portrayal of teenage Ginny should resonate with YA fans of character-driven fiction. DD.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Donovan, Deborah. "Ginny Moon." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2017, p. 18. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490998410&it=r&asid=776c4a32bde2dd5895f5d0360e499b33.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490998410
10/8/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1507493960597 5/5
Ginny Moon
Publishers Weekly.
264.6 (Feb. 6, 2017): p45.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Ginny Moon
Benjamin Ludwig. Park Row, $26.99 (368p) ISBN 978-0-7783-3016-5
Ludwig's excellent debut is both a unique coming-of-age tale and a powerful affirmation of the fragility and strength of
families. We meet 14-year-old Ginny, who has autism, as she settles into life with a new "forever family" and
unexpectedly reconnects with Gloria, the abusive, drug-addicted mother from whom she was taken away at the age of
nine--and Rick, the father she never knew. The rediscovery unsettles the tentative bond Ginny's forged with adoptive
parents Maura and Brian, exacerbates the teen's heartbreaking fears for the "baby doll" she left behind, and ultimately
triggers a wildly heroic, secret plan to run away to Canada with Gloria and Rick. Ludwig brilliantly depicts the literalminded
and inventive Ginny--whose horrifying past and valiant hope for the future are slowly unveiled--and the
alternately selfish, sympathetic, and compassionate adults who would do anything to get Ginny to choose their love. "I
just wish someone would talk about what a delightful young lady she is," a frustrated Rick says. "We're trying to keep
her apart from everything... but I think what she needs is to be closer to people." (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Ginny Moon." Publishers Weekly, 6 Feb. 2017, p. 45. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480593823&it=r&asid=be9ee2865b3f873110715a4286c5437d.
Accessed 8 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480593823