GUEST BLOGGER POST: The Secret Side of Empty by Maria Andreu

Note from Susan: Generally, guests posting to this blog meet two criteria: They have a novel out, and they're a friend of mine. Well, I've never met Maria Andreu, and in fact, I've had no contact with her at all.  (The arrangements for this blog post were accomplished with the help of a third party.) Nor does she have a book out--yet. The Secret Side of Empty is coming in March 2014, so it's still six months away. The reason I agreed to invite Ms. Andrea to post here is that she has an amazing story, and I think she's got some interesting things to say. I'll look forward to eventually reading her fictionalized account of the life she led as an undocumented teen in America.

Now here's Maria...

My book wanted to be a YA novel. I was not happy with its decision at all. The story of an undocumented girl and what her life is like on the precipice, knowing that “real” life will begin for all her friends but not for her, was so intimately mine that I very much wanted to tell it as my story. But the book had other ideas.

I was born in Spain two months before my parents decided to bring me with them on their grand adventure of making it in America. They were Argentinian by upbringing, Spanish by citizenship. Although they projected both those things on me, what I really became was an American kid. I learned my English on Sesame Street. I loved my Baby Crissy doll with her magical, growing red hair. I wore bad 1970s bellbottoms and envied Marcia Brady along with all the other girls my age.

When I was six, my grandfather died in Argentina. Off my mother and I went to the funeral for what we thought would be a two-week stay. My father stayed behind in the U.S. to send us money. Two weeks turned into two years. Finally, out of ideas on how to reunite with his family, my father paid some coyotes to smuggle us across the Mexican border. In many ways I count that as the start of my story, looking across a border you couldn’t see, wondering why I wasn’t good enough to cross it except against the rules. I was 8 years old. It shaped my personality and world view like few other things have.

As I grew into a teenager I understood the real meaning of being undocumented. No social security number. No college. No job. No “normal” life like the one I saw my friends planning so happily. I looked into the future and saw a blank. And then, in a twist almost too cinematic to work in a book, an amnesty law was passed. Three months after I turned 18, I was put on a path to citizenship and my entire future changed.

I spent decades trying to forget all that, trying to “pass.” Finally, it was an angry pundit on the radio ranting about how we should kick out all the “illegals” that got me thinking. I was proof that people just want dignity and a chance at a good life, that we didn’t want to ruin America, but participate in it. Once I’d gotten a chance at that, I turned my back on the people who were struggling the way I had struggled. I still remember the exact spot of road on which I was driving when I understood that I needed to end my silence.

So I began to speak and write about my experiences. I wrote an essay that appeared in Newsweek, another in The Washington Post. I found my voice. I began writing my story as a memoir.

I shopped that version of the story for 4 years. I got rejected by more than 70 agencies. I fought off well-meaning friends who said, “Just self publish.” There is nothing wrong with self-publishing, but I knew that as someone who had felt so marginalized I needed to sell at least her first book the “traditional” way. I was doggedly, unreasonably determined. So I kept at it. I went to workshops. I got critiques. I rewrote. I got such lovely rejections filled with praise for my prose and my voice. Each one broke my heart and echoed with just how much I didn’t belong.

Finally, it was an impossibly young-looking agent at a pitch conference who told me, “The problem with your pitch is that all the action happens when the protagonist is a teenager. Your book wants to be a YA novel.” I thanked her and rolled my eyes internally. Didn’t she get I wanted to be a Real Writer? There was so much I didn’t understand about Real Writing and about the wonderful literature now finding its way out into the world as YA. It would be months before I’d be ready to understand that she was right.

Everything flowed almost as if by magic when I finally let it sink in. I opened up the big YA titles of the time and saw one agency name over and over again: Writers House. I sent a pitch to their slush pile. Within days I had a response from someone. I Googled her name and my heart started pounding when I learned that she was the same person who had pulled Twilight from the slush pile too. I had queried too soon – I only had 3 chapters, and here they were, asking for the whole manuscript. I pounded it out in 10 days. Of course I’d told many versions of this story, so it was ready to be told quickly. I kicked myself at probably blowing my chance… until they accepted me as a client. So, yes, technically I got the first agent I pitched. Their “we’d love for you to be our client” email still sits framed in my living room. They sold my book in a multiple-offers situation in the first round.

So I feel a certain peace with the story coming to the world as a YA novel. I am a big believer in “flow” and things happening as they should. I don’t know if I fully understand the mystery of why this book wanted to happen this way, but I can’t deny the unmistakable ease with which it did. If I were hard-pressed to come up with a theory it would be this: we all love stories. People may resist something that feels pedantic or is trying to push a certain worldview, as a memoir might have. As a novel, The Secret Side of Empty does none of that. It will appeal to anyone who has ever felt left out or who has ever faced a problem that has felt too big to figure out. The Secret Side of Empty lets you get a glimpse into a life you otherwise would probably never see. It has a love story, characters I hope people will like and, at its core, this very complicated problem of the restricted choices faced by undocumented people in general and kids in particular. But it doesn’t tell you what to think. It just lets you inside. Hopefully, that will spark conversations.


ABOUT The Secret Side of Empty

It's the story of a teen girl that is American in every way except for in one very important way: on paper. She was brought to the U.S. as a baby without proper documentation, so she's "illegal." As the end of the safe haven of her high school days draw near, she faces an uncertain future. Full of humor and frustration and love, The Secret Side of Empty speaks to the part in all of us that has felt excluded or has had a secret too scary to share. What M.T., the main character, finally discovers is the strength of the human spirit and the power that's unleashed when you finally live the truth.


Giveaway Info:

Maria is giving away two separate prizes on her tour, a $250 Amazon Gift Card AND a Kindle Fire.

1) For a chance to win the $250 Amazon gift card, OR the Kindle Fire leave a comment on her blog post for that day. Winners will be randomly selected on September 30th.

Maria Andreu’s Bio:

Maria’s writing has appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Post and the Star Ledger. Her debut novel, The Secret Side of Empty, is the story of an “illegal” high school senior. It was inspired by Maria’s own experiences as an undocumented teen. Since becoming a citizen, Maria has run her own business and has become a soccer mom. She lives with her 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son in northern New Jersey.

Links Maria Andreu’s website- http://mariaeandreu.com/
Maria Andreu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WritersideofM
Maria Andreu on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maria.andreu.books

Preorder The Secret Side of Empty- http://amzn.to/17LaXLX

With apologies to Charles Dickens…

A Tale of Two Castles
by Gail Carson Levine

I’ve had a good stretch lately, where I’ve been reading at a ferocious pace. But I suddenly came to a grinding halt a few days ago. Nothing I was reading was inspiring me to keep turning pages. At times like that, a trick that often perks me up is to read a young adult book and I lose myself in pure story. That’s what I did, and it worked like a charm.

Actually, I didn’t lose myself in A Tale of Two Castles right away. It took a while because at the start of the novel Gail Carson Levine is working mightily on the world building. The story opens with a goodbye. Twelve-year-old Elodie is saying goodbye to her parents, her home, and everything she’s ever known. She’s leaving her island and the farm and sailing off to the city of Two Castles which features—you guessed it—two castles. It is time for her to become apprenticed. “Mother and father’s instructions were to apprentice myself to a weaver, but I would not. Mansioner. I mouthed the word into the wind, the word that held my future. Mansioner.”

Oh, I’m sorry; you don’t know what a mansioner is? I didn’t either. In the fairy-tale world that Carson Levine has created that’s the word for actor. A ship is a “cog.” You might wear a “kirtle” and exclaim, “Lambs and calves!” And you might run into a dragon or an ogre—but not if you can help it. In fact, Elodie’s father gave her this parting advice, “Stay clear of the crafty dragons and the shape-shifting ogres. Don’t befriend them!” Of course, a dragon and an ogre are indeed two of the very first beings she meets in Two Castles, but not before all her money is stolen by a cat and she’s insulted by a human. Scared, hungry, and alone, Elodie is in fairly dire straights. Her dream of becoming a mansioner appears to be ending before it has even started. So, when the dragon Meenore offers her a position as ITs (for Mastress Meenore alone knows ITs gender) assistant, what choice does Elodie have but follow IT to ITs lair?

So begins a relations ship based on “deduction, induction, and common sense,” in which each learns from the other. Mastress Meenore has many trades including food service, heating, finder of lost objects, and unraveler of mysteries. So it is that the ogre, Count Jonty Um, comes to Meenore seeking help finding a lost dog. But it turns out that that is merely the beginning of his troubles. The ogre is in danger, and so Elodie becomes Meenore’s eyes and ears in his castle as they work to unravel the larger mystery.

Carson Levine’s story is as magical as it is well-written. Her characters are colorful and endearing. I am a fortunate 42-year-old woman, that I can still be a child. Books like this are time portals for me. I was delighted with this story from start to finish and was sad to see it end. Happily, the end of this novel is the start of a new adventure, one that I shall look forward to reading.

Yet another adult strolling down memory lane

House of Stairs

by William Sleator

I see that I'm not the only adult with strong memories of reading this novel when they were young. In my case, it must have been 30 years ago, but somehow I never forgot the book. I've been keeping my eyes open for a copy for years now, and it's truly fascinating rereading this book that I loved as a child with my 40-year-old eyes.

The novel opens with Peter. Peter has no idea where he is. He finds himself blindfolded and taken to an unknown destination. Removing the blindfold, he finds himself all alone in a truly bizarre environment. Everywhere he looks, as far as the eye can see, he's in a cavernous space filled with stairs. Stairs going up, stairs going down, some with small landings, some connected by bridges. There are no walls, no floor, no railings, no place to feel safe. As he fights vertigo, Peter spies someone below him and calls out.

Unfortunately, Lola doesn't know anymore about where they are or why than Peter does. Their stories of being blindfolded are the same, but they quickly discover other commonalities as well. They are both orphans from state homes and both 16 years old. They discover this is true of the other three kids they meet in the "house of stairs."

Peter, Lola, Blossom, Abigail, and Oliver all find themselves in an utterly inexplicable situation, and they all deal with it differently. They are very different personalities. Survival becomes their first priority. What at first seems to be an entity merely trying to control their actions, quickly becomes far more sinister.

Viewing the reactions of these young people to their circumstances, and finding out how the novel would end, had me turning pages just as fast now as it did when I was a kid. And I'm happy to report that I really enjoyed revisiting this story. I can see that it's a piece of fiction very much of its time, and as an adult I better understand the context of the novel. (Like another reviewer, I, too, thought of the infamous Zimbardo and Milgram experiments.) All that aside, House of Stairs is still a compelling story and a warning to be heeded today.