Title: A
Trick of the Light
Author: Lois
Metzger
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publish Date: 18 June 2013
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9780062133083
Source: from publisher
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Psych
Series: None
Other books by author: Missing Girls; Ellen’s Case;
Yours, Anne: The Life of Anne Frank; Can You Keep a Secret? Ten Stories About Secrets; Bites and Bones
Flip Book; Be Careful What You Wish For: Ten Stories about Wishes
Mike Welles had
everything under control. But that was before. Now things are rough at home,
and they’re getting confusing at school. He’s losing his sense of direction,
and he feels like he’s a mess.
Then there’s a voice
in his head. A friend, who’s trying to help him get control again. More than
that—the voice can guide him to become faster and stronger than he was before,
to rid his life of everything that’s holding him back. To figure out who he is again.
If only Mike will listen.
Telling a story of a
rarely recognized segment of eating disorder sufferers—young men—A Trick of the
Light by Lois Metzger is a book for fans of the complex characters and
emotional truths in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls and Jay Asher’s
Thirteen Reasons Why.
A Trick of the Light is the latest release by Lois Metzger. To celebrate this release, YABR has handed over the reigns to Metzger and let her do a guest post.
It's a question
writers often get asked. Some find it hard to answer, because ideas can float
around in your head for a while, or several different entirely unrelated things
may have to combine to create a story.
In the case of my
new young-adult novel, A Trick of the Light (HarperCollins), I know
exactly where I got the idea, and also when.
On Wednesday, August
4, 2004, I read an article in the New York Daily News called "Not For
Girls Only."
The article began:
"Sue Roberts couldn't stop fuming after watching a 'Dr. Phil' show on
eating disorders. The two-part series features several girls with bulimia and
anorexia. 'What about the boys?' she remembers asking herself, then furiously
writing an e-mail to the talk-show host."
Sue Roberts'
16-year-old son, Justin, the article said, "almost starved himself to
death after several doctor's visits missed important signs." Justin was
"a straight-A student who wanted to be perfect in every way." At 13,
a coach happened to tell Justin that he could "shave a few seconds off his
mile time if he lost some weight." Then, around the same time, a tall thin
boy, a classmate of Justin's, looked over at Justin, called him fat and
laughed. "Maybe I am," Justin thought, and decided to stop eating,
pretty much just like that.
At first, Justin's
parents complimented him on how good he looked, how disciplined he was. Then
they noticed he was dropping weight too rapidly, that his personality had
changed. "We were all walking on eggshells because he would blow up about
little things," his mother said.
Within four months,
Justin, five feet tall and originally 130 pounds, went down to 82 pounds. The
article explained: "His lips, fingertips and nails looked bluish. He wore
baggy sweatshirts to hide his frail body, but he couldn't conceal the
malnourishment evident in his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks."
Justin's mother
couldn't prove to her insurance company that her son needed hospitalization, so
finally she had him admitted on her own. "His condition was worse than she
thought," the article went on. "His heart rate was 42 beats per
minute. He had zero body fat. His body temperature was 92, and there were
patches of hair growing on his stomach and neck. It was his body's way of
trying to keep him warm. He was days away from death."
During his brief
hospital stay, Justin "saw an emaciated girl walking in the hallway,
talking to herself." He decided: "I really don't want to be like
that." He began eating and he recovered fully. In less than a year, he
grew four inches. Talking of his present state, he could say: "I'm more
outgoing, more confident. I'm happy now."
I got a strange
feeling while reading this article. Kind of an other-worldly, floating, almost
surreal sensation. I've written only three previous novels, and the same thing
happened before I began writing the other books, too. In each case I knew
immediately that here was a story that wouldn't leave me alone.
So it's not really
accurate to say this is where I got the idea for "A Trick of the Light."
This is where the idea was getting me.
I got in touch with
the writer of the excellent article I'd been reading, Julie Patel, then a
reporter for the San Jose Mercury News (she now she writes for the Sun-Sentinel
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida). She put me in touch with Sue Roberts and Justin.
They were extremely helpful in giving me more details about the journey of
recovery, and referred me to a doctor at Stanford University, James Lock,
author of two ground-breaking books on eating disorders. Dr. Lock gave me the
names of some doctors and families in NYC so I could meet and interview them. I
stayed in contact with Sue Roberts; I'm very glad to say she wrote me recently
that Justin, now a young man, remains happy and healthy.
The 15-year-old boy
in my book, Mike Welles, has much in common with Justin. He, too, develops an
eating disorder rather quickly, and loses weight alarmingly fast. A doctor
misleadingly tells Mike he is fine, insisting that anorexia only affects girls.
As the disease progresses, Mike's vital signs are similar to Justin's. Mike,
too, encounters a girl at a hospital, who freaks him out because she's talking
to herself. Mike doesn't recover as fast as Justin did, but he does take
significant steps toward recovery.
Julie Patel's
article emphasizes that eating disorders among men and boys are on the rise
(this was almost ten years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse). Ten
percent of people with eating disorders are male, and currently there are ten
million people in the U.S. with eating disorders, which means at least a
million boys and men (and many people say the figure is much higher). Their
disease still gets missed by doctors who think only women and girls can get
eating disorders, and many hospitals and eating-disorders clinics still only
admit girls and women. Then, as now, eating disorders have the highest death
rate of any psychological disorder, estimated between five and 20 percent.
I didn't realize,
when the idea got hold of me, where it would lead -- right to the heart of a
struggle against a disease that too often ends in tragedy.
Lois Metzger, author
of A Trick of the Light, was born in Queens and has always written for young
adults. She is the author of three previous novels and two nonfiction books
about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories
have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared
in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in Greenwich
Village with her husband and son.
