Sara in her own words...
Cleanliness & Godliness
Recently a bookseller I know did a short write-up on my new young adult novel, Once Was Lost, for Publisher’s Weekly. She referred to it as a “clean read” and later emailed me saying that she hoped that didn’t come across as lame. The Kirkus review reads, in part, that the book does “justice to some tough subject matter without graphic or violent scenes.”
Some readers of YA think writers go out of their way to push the envelope, that being edgy is a contrivance or a career move, or even a deliberate slap in the face of what some call traditional values. I can’t speak for other writers, but I know that my choices of language and content have everything to do with the story and the characters, and I take out every potentially problematic content I can in the final draft without betraying the authenticity of the story. Still, when encountering my first two books (Story of a Girl and Sweethearts), some parents, teachers, and librarians lament that they can’t use one or the other because of “that one part.” (I’m never sure what “that one part” is---it seems to differ from reader to reader).
I have my own ideas about what is and isn’t appropriate content for YA---some combination of “anything goes” and “context is king.” But the truth is, I’m thrilled to finally have a book out that can be described as clean. The relative cleanliness of Once Was Lost is not the result of compromise or pandering or fear of reprimand, but true service to the story I’m telling about a pastor’s daughter and her crisis of faith in God, family, community, and self---a crisis catalyzed by the kidnapping of a young girl in the small town where the narrator lives.
This isn’t a story about cults, or clergy abuse, or an expose of the seedy underbelly of evangelical church culture. It’s the story I always looked for as a church-going teen and never found. There were the Christian books, so squeaky clean and safe (and generally not very well-written) that they made me feel like I must be the tool of Satan if I had any doubts or dark thoughts. And then there were the secular/mainstream books that were good and interesting and rang mostly true, except I never found a character that, like me, was part of a family with an everyday faith---faith that may or may not be rising to the challenges I faced in transitioning into adulthood, not sure which of my beliefs would make the journey.
Where was the story about me? Where was that intersection of the secular and the sacred that writers for adults---like Flannery O’Connor, Graham Greene, Walker Percy, and John Gardner---had mastered? Madeleine L’Engle came closer than anyone, but the worlds her characters lived in, even when they were here on earth, seemed more than ordinary. In my story of a fifteen-year-old girl trying to reconcile the coexistence of joy and affliction in the world and at home, I’ve attempted to write the book I always wanted to read, the book I always felt was missing.
I know my existing readers and fans will find the book and I hope I’ve given them the satisfying and emotional reading experience they’ve come to expect. In addition, though the cleanliness of Once Was Lost isn’t calculated, I do hope it’s part of what enables gatekeepers to open the doors to those kids who were like me---the countless American teens whose lives---by choice or by habit---include church, youth group, family religious traditions, and personal faith.
If you’re excited about the prospect of these topics, and if you’re among those who have trouble advocating books with difficult content, I’m glad to have this book to offer. But don’t get your hopes too far up! I’m already deep into writing my next book, and this new cast of characters is taking me over to the edge again. So for any of you want to go there, or whose students or patrons do, never fear. Next time I’m sure I’ll be writing to you in defense of a little dirt.