Liz Yanoff: Ms. Crane, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed by NY students about your book, Skin Deep, a nominee for the 2010 NYSRA Charlotte Award. Mrs. Ehrensbeck’s high school reading club had these questions.
Thank you. I am truly honored, both by the nomination and by the fact that Mrs. Ehrensbeck’s class took the time to read my novel. Thanks, guys!
What was your inspiration for Skin Deep?
This whole story, honestly, began with Zena. Writers make stuff up. But Zena, and the descriptive scenes of her in the woods, those are real. Watching my own Saint Bernard dog run through the woods day after day made me ask myself lots of questions about beauty – because she was truly beautiful. So much today focuses on commercial beauty. We’ve become accustomed to a beauty that’s accompanied by greed, jealousy, snobbery, arrogance, sameness. But true beauty really doesn’t care if anyone notices it. Beauty doesn’t need attention. It just happens, and you’re lucky if you witness it. From there, I developed a character who needed to learn that lesson.
My second inspiration was this: I was playing with fire at the time I wrote Skin Deep. Literally. I was being an assistant to an artist who did raku firings, and I thought the process was just plain cool. Like Andrea and Honora, we did raku firing only at night. In the novel, Andrea makes a comment about being afraid she’ll burn her eyebrows off during raku firing. Let’s just say that although writers make stuff up, writers also base some things on fact. And in case you’ve ever wondered — singed eyebrows do grow back, eventually.
What were you like in high school?
I had to wear a school uniform blazer and the blazer I got wasn’t long enough for my orangutan arms, so I was at a serious fashion-disadvantage compared to the kids whose blazers fit them properly. This may sound like a miniscule detail, but I assure you, being fashion-disadvantaged at my school was a huge thing. I could not be taken seriously with seven inches of my arms visible above the wrist, while everyone else’s sleeves fit just fine. As a result, I haven’t worn a blazer since high school.
I also worked a lot during high school. Minimum wage was a little over three bucks an hour. I worked at the Wendy’s drive-thru window and endured people yelling bizarre things into the drive-thru speakers. I actually liked that job. In the summer, I worked for a friend’s Dad painting cemetery fences. For eight hours a day, we’d…. paint…. cemetery… fences. Well, my friend got to mow lawns in the cemeteries too, but I’d had an unfortunate incident involving a gravestone and a riding lawnmower and never got offered the mowing job again. But painting miles of fence? You get to think a lot doing that job, and I thought I was pretty lucky because it was a better job than my brother’s — he had to pick up roadkill for the county. At dinner, he’d tell us all about it, sparing no gory detail.
For a social life, carloads of kids would go to the town park and sit on picnic tables and crank the radio until the police came and told us to shut up and get out, and don’t come back again. This was a Friday night ritual.
Did you see yourself in any of the characters?
I see a little of myself in every character. Some more than others. In the case of Honora, I think she’s the person I would like to be like someday.
How long have you been coming to the Adirondacks?
My whole life, actually. Old Forge was a high school go-to spot; my best friend in high school had a camp (still does) right outside Old Forge on Okara Lakes. I also camped with friends in Speculator and the High Peaks from elementary school through high school. I now have friends who call different parts of the Adirondacks home; I visit as much as I can. One friend has a job counting/monitoring loons all over the Adirondacks. I’ve been known to tag along, because this job is done by kayak and often requires amping overnight on state land and portaging… and of all the jobs I know, this is the one of which I’m most envious. Interestingly — this is the same friend with whom I painted cemetery fences in high school. I guess that means I’ve been tagging along with her on jobs for a very, very long time.
Have you ever met a real dog like Zena?
Yes.
And no.
Zena was based on my own Saint Bernard dog, KK. KK died right before the novel was released; she had bone cancer. She was just six years old.
Well, the St. Bernard in the novel is the perfect dog. The St. Bernard in my house was not. KK was terrified of people, hated other dogs, and seemed always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She was a 150-pound liability. But I loved her dearly, and her premature death was hard. Here’s a photo of the real Zena, with me:
My husband and I have had giant breed dogs for almost 20 years. Purse puppies, fuhgeddaboudit — huge drooling hairballs are so much cooler. I have come to find that dog drool is a great tool by which to judge a person’s character. It also has the incredible ability to defy gravity and go airborne for twelve feet and stick to ceiling tiles. For real. I’ve seen it happen.
Why use a dog as a character in Skin Deep?
Because despite their alleged intellectual shortcomings, dogs do something too few humans have ever done: they live in the moment. Every day.
When KK died, I couldn’t bring myself to get another Saint Bernard. I still haven’t. But we’ve always had another breed in the house: Newfoundlands. Our latest Newf baby is a silver pup named Buoy. He’s a handful.
Liz Yanoff: Thank you. A final question, what are you writing now? What can we expect from your next book?
My next Young Adult novel, Swim, is with my agent; it’s the agent’s job to find it a home with the publisher. Swim is told from the point of view of three different characters, and this time I threw a guy’s point of view in there, too! I based Swim on Lake Ontario, where I live. I’ve been reluctant to place a novel in New York State, because unfortunately many readers don’t know there’s a New York state that’s nothing like Manhattan. They expect Manhattan, and they get northern New York? It can be a difficult setting to sell. But I have faith. I’ll keep you updated, plus you can check my website at www.emcrane.com because when Swim gets a home, I’ll post it there.
Thank you all. Thank you for caring about Skin Deep’s characters and their story; may you always find happiness in reading.
Eileen Crane
June 4, 2009
