Q&A with Author Alyssa Sheinmel
The characters are so well drawn and the emotions ring true. Does this book have a personal connection for you?
Well, first of all, thank you! To be honest, I think every book I write has a personal connection for me; even though I never went through much of what the characters in The Lucky Kind go through, many of the characters’ traits are inspired by real people and real stories. For example, early in the book, Nick tells a story about his father, to explain what a brave but gentle person his dad is. When Nick was nine years old, he was with his dad in the town where his father grew up and he saw some older boys trying to steal bicycles outside the video store where he and his father were shopping. Now, Nick’s father isn’t based on my father, and Nick certainly isn’t based on me, but that story is true. When I was about nine years old, I was with my dad at a video store in the town where he grew up. My dad saw what was happening before I did; he asked me to stay inside the store while he went outside for a second. Of course, I didn’t stay where he told me--I went to the window to see what he was doing. And just as Nick watched his dad, I watched my dad talk two teen boys out of stealing two bikes. And just like Nick, I believe that my dad, with his reasonable arguments, actually convinced them.
How did you find writing from the boy perspective? Was this a stretch, especially when he treats his girlfriend badly?
I loved, loved writing from the boy perspective! One of my favorite things about being a writer is getting to play ventriloquist. I recommend it to any aspiring writers out there--write from the perspective of someone of the opposite sex, from someone much older than you are, from someone who is as different from you as you can imagine. It can be a challenge, but it can also be exciting. Personally, writing Nick, I felt like sometimes I got to behave badly, which was kind a thrill.
And, as it turned out, Nick’s voice came very naturally to me; I loved writing Nick. I never actually made a conscious decision to write this novel from a boy’s perspective, but as the idea for the story developed, it was just a boy’s voice that popped into my head, narrating the novel. I hesitated about it at first--would people buy my interpretation of a teen boy’s voice? Could I make it ring true? But I couldn’t have written the story any other way. Frankly, I simply didn’t have a choice!
What kind of research, if any, did you do about adoption in order to get the details right?
As far as I know, I’d gone most of my life without being personally touched by adoption (aside from the running joke in my family that I must have been secretly adopted, because I don’t look like my mother and sister, and am about five inches taller than the both of them). But all at once, a few years ago, I became close with several people who’d been adopted, and a very dear friend confided to having actually given up a child for adoption.
I began to think a lot about adoption. Two of the adopted adults that I’d met had no interest in finding their birth parents, and that was endlessly fascinating to me. I wondered how I would feel, had I been adopted. Around that same time, I read a remarkable book called The Girls Who Went Away, about women who’d been essentially forced to give up their children for adoption in the years before the Roe vs. Wade decision. The book spoke to the long-term effects that giving up these babies had had on the women who bore them, and on their families, years later. It was heartbreaking and deeply moving; I couldn’t put the book down. But I was also struck by the fact that mostly the birth mothers’ stories were told. The biological fathers were barely mentioned. I began to wonder about the effects that giving up children for adoption had on fathers; surely some of these fathers were every bit as deeply touched by the experience as the mothers had been.
And I thought, most of all, about my friend who’d given up a child for adoption. My thoughts were often not about the baby who had been given up, but about the family my friend was going to go on to have someday. I couldn’t stop thinking about that future family—that spouse, those children—and the impact that an adoption that had taken place so many years earlier might have on that future family. I couldn’t get that idea out of my head, and that’s where the story for The Lucky Kind began.
"Sheinmel takes her family story into some genuinely fresh and interesting territory, resisting soap-operatic details of scandal and home-wreckage...The well-crafted family story offers an excellent stage for depicting the challenge facing every young adult - how to accept human responsibility and frailty as we go through life." - The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"The Lucky Kind is an honest, powerful and emotional look at family secrets and falling in love." - Justine
"The first-person narration is honest and compelling, and the book's thoughtful nature will appeal to readers who like more introspective realistic fiction." - School Library Journal
"The storyline urges readers to think not only about adoption and the role of family, but about how they themselves relate to those around them, urging them, ultimately, to practice compassion." - The Atlanta Young Adult Literature Examiner
"Sheinmel effectively uses a breezy, often humorous first-person voice that's deceptively slight in its handling of deep issues, even as Nick does the hard emotional work to pull himself out of the depths of his self-pity." - Kirkus Reviews
"Teen readers will be touched by the unexpected friendship and change of heart that will help him [Nick] put his life back together again." - Bookpage.com
"A charming, entertaining read." - The Tennessee Herald Citizen
"Any readers who enjoy passionate, teenage romantic dramas should revel in The Lucky Kind." - TeenReads.com
"A good story about first loves and family, this is a book both teenage boys and girls will relate to." - Parkersburg News and Sentinel
"Alyssa Sheinmel's The Lucky Kind is a charming story about teenage love." - Angela Johnson, Cleveland Plain-Dealer
From the Hardcover edition. About the Author
Alyssa Sheinmel is the bestselling author of several novels for young adults including Faceless, What Kind of Girl, The Castle School (for Troubled Girls), and A Danger to Herself and Others. Follow Alyssa on Instagram @alyssasheinmel, or visit her online at alyssasheinmel.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Phone Calls and Other Life-Altering Events
It's 7:42 on a Tuesday when the phone rings. I only notice the time because I'm watching Wheel of Fortune, which is so boring that I think I might be better entertained if I turned off the TV and stared at the blank screen. I wonder when Vanna White began looking like somebody's mom. I distinctly remember thinking she was hot when I was younger. My parents are out and I'm sunk into the living room sofa, but the phone is within my arm's reach. I grab the remote and hit the mute button.
"Hello?"
"Eh-hem."
"Hello?"
"Is Sheffman Brandt in?"
It takes me a second to realize he's talking about my dad. Sheffman is his real first name, but no one calls him that. He usually goes by Robert or Rob or Bobby, for his middle name. Sheffman is his mother's maiden name. It must be a telemarketer or someone who got his name off a list.
"No, I'm sorry, he's not home. Can I take a message?"
There's silence on the other end. I think I hear the man say "Umm," like he's really thinking about whether or not to leave a message.
"Hello?" I say, mildly irritated.
"No. I'm sorry. No. Sorry. No, thank you." His voice sounds more certain that "No" is the right answer each time he says it. Then he hangs up, so I do, too. I'm asleep before my parents get home.
In the morning, the sound of my mother and Pilot coming back from their walk wakes me up. Pilot is our dog, but my parents act like he's my little brother.
My father is sitting in the living room at his computer. His desk is in the back of the room, behind the sofa, so that he can watch TV while he works.
"Morning, Nicky," he says, looking up from his cereal. Even though he's fifty years old, my dad has a big sweet tooth; he puts three or four spoonfuls of sugar into his Grape-Nuts every morning. Mom says he's going to get adult-onset diabetes. Dad works from home half the time, and he's sitting in his pajama bottoms with his cereal, so it doesn't look like he's going in today. Before I was born, he started a company called Fetch Capital, and my mother quit her job to help him run it.
"Hey, Dad." My hair is still wet from the shower, and my shirt is clinging to my chest because I was still wet when I put it on. But it's only September, school's only just started, and it's still hot out. It'll feel good once I get outside.
My mother and Pilot are on the couch, watching the five-day forecast, which is pretty much my mother's favorite show.
"Stevie coming over this morning?" she asks as I walk toward the kitchen.
I shake my head. "I'll meet him downstairs." Stevie and I have been walking to school together since we were ten.
"His parents were at the fund-raiser last night. They won the big prize in the silent auction."
"What they win?" I ask as I pour myself cereal.
"Some trip. They always bid on the trips, those two.
Stevie's parents love to travel. When we were little, Stevie slept over every time his parents left town.
"Bring a sweater to school with you, Nick," Mom says, kissing my head before she leaves the room. "I know you think it's still summer, but it's getting cold already and your hair is still wet." I roll my eyes at Dad but he says, "Sweater, Nicky," like he agrees with Mom that I'm not old enough to know whether I'm hot or cold.
Girls in School Uniforms
"Why the fuck is everyone in such a hurry to get into that building?" Stevie asks. We're standing on the corner across the street from school, leaning against the windows of the pizza place. Stevie hates school this year. His parents are making him see a tutor after school because colleges pay such close attention to junior year on your transcripts. It wouldn't be so bad if Stevie didn't already get straight As. They seem to think, since he never studies, that something must be wrong. But Stevie's just that smart. You'd hate him if he weren't so cool about it. Sometimes when we have two choices for an essay, he'll write both of them, choose the one he likes better, and give me the other one to hand in.
I'm pretty sure that Francis is the only coed high school in New York with school uniforms. Boys have to wear shirts and ties, and right now Stevie and I are sweating under our long sleeves. Whoever came up with this outfit was not thinking about the weather in Manhattan, which stays hot through September and gets hot again in May, so that the boys have to sweat out two months every year.
But not the girls. The girls wear gray kilts and button-downs, although they call them blouses, and they always roll their kilts at the waist to make them shorter. Sometimes they wear boxers underneath their kilts, and the skirts are rolled so short that you can see the boxers peeking out at the hems.
Eden Reiss is walking toward Stevie and me, and her kilt is just above her knees; she never rolls her skirt to make it shorter. Her button-down is loose enough that the buttons don't pull at her chest, but you can see the polka dots on her bra underneath her white shirt.
"Check out Eden's bra," Stevie whispers.
"Yeah, I see it." I don't exactly need it pointed out to me, and Stevie knows it. But I'm trying not to look because she'll see me staring. Eden Reiss has been at Francis since kindergarten, too, just like Stevie and me. Just her name is enough to make her cool, like her parents wanted something biblical, but rather than settle on Eve they went straight to the heart of the matter by naming her Eden.
From the Hardcover edition.
