Francisco’s Journal

A month or so ago, my third novel, Marcelo in the Real World was accepted for publication by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic. Cheryl Klein, my editor, was going to be busy during the month of July with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (also published by Arthur A. Levine and Scholastic) and so we agreed to postpone our initial meeting until early August . (I can’t for the life of me understand why Harry should take precedence over Jasmine, but what do I know!) Jasmine, however, is going to need some revisions and so this interlude between acceptance of the book and figuring out what those revisions will be has been helpful to me. So, besides waiting to see what happens to Harry with just about the rest of humanity, I have been busy (or unbusy) painting stones. On the shores of Singer Island in Florida where I vacation with my family, you find these flat stones the range in diameter from the size of a quarter to that of a small and badly-made pancake. The stones are cool to the touch and gray. They have been smoothed by time and sand and sea. Many of these stones have a hole made God only knows how. (I suspect there is a scientific explanation for the hole but I don’t want to find out. I like my own image of generations of tiny amoeba drilling through eons.) These stones, which I love collecting in my walks, make great gifts. You attach them to a piece of leather or gold chain (depending on the recipient) and there you are. I here confess to being slightly hurt when I see the forced smile on my nieces and nephews as I hand over to them a Christmas-wrapped small box that rattles. Now these stones are perfect just as they have come into the world. I, however, feel compelled to ruin them by making designs on them. I have a shoebox full of paints and indelible magicmarkers with names of colors I have never heard before. The designs I paint on these helpless stones are abstract and can best be described as “Mexican-Mandala.” I start of trying to make a Mandala (like the stone glass windows that you see in the front or back of a cathedral), but I soon make a mistake and then proceed to ”redeem” the design painting some a happy fiesta of dotted colors. Why I think that painting stones is the right thing to do during this time of preparation (and anticipation) prior to the revisions to Jasmine is this: I paint stones in silence and my mind slowly attunes itself again and rejoices in the simple act of attention, as if this were the mind’s most natural and happy state. There is in the miniscule and detailed motions of my hands precision enough to require concentration but the object of concentration is playful enough so that it can be carried out with abandon. I care about the process not the results and in this there is, as in all true play, an element of freedom. (I am grateful for the humble stones and the willingness to so sacrifice their beauty for me.) This place inside my mind that I find as I paint my stones is a place where images and dialogues and even thoughts sometimes come to visit (and sometimes stay). They come and visit as if they were coming home - the way aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors used to come to my grandfather’s house in Tampico when I was a child. They came to sit in the shade of mango and avocado trees and to feel the evening breeze of the gulf of Mexico and they stayed for the pleasure of being with each other. 

Behind the Eyes recently named one of 14 Commended Titles for 2006 for the Americas Award. The Americas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (fro picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. By combining both and liniing the Americas, the award reaches beyond geographic borders, as well as multicultural-international boundaries, focusing instead upon cultural heritages within the hemisphere. The award is sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. The award winners and commended titles are selected for their 1)distinctive literary quality; 2)cultural contextualization; 3)exceptional integration of text, illustration and design; and 4) potential for classroom use. The winning books will be honored at a ceremony (tentatively October 6, 2007) at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

For more information on the Americas Award please see www.uwm.edu/Dept/CLACS/outreach/americas.html 

Behind the Eyes was also selected for inclusion in the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2007. This list, now in its 78th year of publication, selects the best of the previous year’s publishing for teenagers, 12 to 18 years old. All the titles chosen were read by young adult librarians and recommended for this special publication. See www.nypl.org  

And last but not least, Behind the Eyes was inducted into the Teens Read Too Hall of Fame! See: www.Teensreadtoo.com

At a recent conference at Rutger’s University, one of the students asked me if I ever felt restricted by being a Latino writer. Funny that the first thing that came to my mind was to say that I did not consider myself a Latino Writer. I went on to say that the main characters in my novels were Latino and that I thought that the main characters in all future novels would be Latino (more specifically, Chicanos or persons of Mexican ancestry) and in that sense reflect issues peculiar to the Latino community in the United States. But later, on the long train ride back to Boston, I reflected on my answer. I’m not really sure what I would call myself. I was born in Mexico of two Mexican parents (later adopted by Charles Stork, a naturalized American citizen born in Holland). I came to the United States when I was nine and have been here ever since. I have one remaining aunt (on my mother’s side) and two cousins left in Mexico. I suppose then that I fit under the definitiion of a Latino writer. Why then the quick negative response? It wasn’t a negative, defensive, I’m-offended kind of response. I am very proud of my heritage and culture and the peculiar tugs and pulls that course through my veins by virtue of my birthplace, my native language, my genes, my culture and history. The quick response, I think, was due to a flash interpretation that the question “do you feel limited as a Latino writer” meant “do you feel constrained to write about “Latino issues” whatever they may be. And my “I don’t consider myself a Latino Writer” answer really meant: I don’t feel that I should or that I am only able to write or that I am somehow for the sake of publication, more inclined to write about “Latino issues.” Latino issues are what? The alienation and disenfranchisement of immigrants; stories that describe the food we eat and the fiestas we celebrate? I think that if I want to be a good Latino writer I have to be a good writer first. My interest is the human soul and the human condition. My main characters will be Latino but they haven’t always been poor people struggling to survive across the border. Some of them have been successful individuals who like many other successful individuals have come to realize that success is not all it is cracked up to be. Whatever good I can achieve for the social problems that affect Latinos will come as a result of being a good writer - someone who portrays Latino characters as believable human beings. To recognize ourselves in the soul of another - isnt’t that a good to be valued? And so yes, I am a Latino writer although I don’t see myself as one. And yes, I would like my books to be read and perhaps to inspire young Latino kids because many of them are like me and many of them need good role models, but still, I’m just someone trying to tell a good story and, if I’m fortunate, maybe I will bring a flicker, glimmer of truth and beauty to our world.

From: Teenreadstoo.com 

BEHIND THE EYES by Francisco X. Stork
Category:  Contemporary
Age Recommendation:  Grades 9+
Release Date:  6/1/06
Publisher:  Dutton
Reviewed by:  Jocelyn Pearce
Rating:  5 Stars

Sixteen-year-old Hector Robles’s life will never be the same again. Living his entire life in the projects of El Paso, Texas, he’s always stayed away from the gangs–but his brother Filiberto brought an end to that. A little more than a year after the death of their father, Hector, Fili and their younger sister Aurora have a run-in with some members of the Discipulos. Hector would like to keep out of their way after that, as would Aurora, but Fili sets his sights on Gloria…Who just happens to be dating Chava, leader of the Discipulos.Fili just can’t let it go. His conflict with Chava escalates until one night, he ends up dead. In less than a year and a half, Hector has lost his older brother and his father. Even though it’s not something he could have imagined himself doing, Hector goes after Chava.Chava does more damage to Hector than Hector does to him, leaving Hector with various rather serious injuries, including the loss of his hearing in one ear. When he recovers, a social worker has some rather grave news for him: Chava wants him dead. The only way he can keep safe, as well as protect his mother and sister, is to leave town. Mrs. Garza, the social worker, tells him there’s one good place for him to go now. He’s charged with the aggravated assault of Chava, and there’s a school in another city that accepts kids who have been in trouble with the law. There, he’ll be safe from the Discipulos, he’ll get a good education, and his mother and sister won’t be involved with the gangs anymore. Hector makes a decision: he’ll go to Furman.There, he makes friends with a colorful cast of characters, and could maybe have a fresh start and a new life…If his past can ever stop following him.

 BEHIND THE EYES is divided up into three parts. The first and last part deal with Hector’s time after his brother’s death, and the second part takes place before Fili’s “accident.” Francisco X. Stork tells the story of whatever is going on in each section of the book in the past tense, and flashbacks are in the present tense, which threw me a little at first, but I quickly got used to it. The non-chronological division of the book was also a little odd, but I did like the way it was divided, and, in the end, it made sense.Stork is a brilliant writer, and BEHIND THE EYES is a page-turner. It’s told in a fresh, captivating voice, and the story itself is a fascinating one. It was inspired by Stork’s own time living in the projects of El Paso, and some of the Chicano teenagers he knew there. That Stork knows what he’s writing really shows, and it adds an extra dimension to an already wonderful book. The characters are diverse, fascinating and believable, each one well-thought out and three-dimensional. It’s a character-driven story, and a fantastic one.  This is definitely one of my favorites of 2006. 

What is keeping you from taking a pen and a notebook and writing? Maybe you feel as I do when I see before me a trillion zillion leaves covering my yard. Where do I start? There is no way that I will ever get every single leaf. And look there are still some hanging on the trees and all around me brown, orange and red leaves twirl to the ground in their own unique spiral. Of all the answers that great authors have given to the question “why do you write?” I like Flannery O’Connor’s the best: “because it would be worse if I didn’t.” As hopeless as it looks to rake all those leaves, as hopeless as it looks to ever write a work of beauty or a work that will be read, it will be worse if you don’t.

As I start raking, I put aside the vision of a leafless yard and think only of the movement of my arms. Slow, even movements that are not rushed. I will rake for an hour, I say to myself. Tomorrow, Sunday, I will rake another hour. Soon, little piles of leaves start forming in the yard and in spots, the grass which is still green, reveals itself like a blue sky when clouds drift out.

One sentence, two sentences. I will write for an hour. The pen gliding on the white, blue-lined paper. Words appear out of nothingness and now they exist. What I write is so different from that vision of beauty or that work of meaning and value I seek to create. But it doesn’t matter. I concentrate on sentences and paragraphs. One pile of leaves at a time. One circle of grass is clear. Then I start a new one, each circle connected to the next.

No matter how hard I try, I will never get every single leaf. A gust of wind comes and blows leafs from my piles. I can’t even get one small circle totally clear, leafless. I am shooting for percentages here. I have to. If I don’t, I’ll go crazy with anxiety. I’ll start to damn the leaf that falls and mars the green. Or I’ll say the hell with it. Let the leaves fall as they may. What do I care? Who needs more clarity?

So I protect myself and my task. Eighty percent, if I can get there, would be great. I’ll work for an hour today. An hour tomorrow. I’m grateful for the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, poor as they are. I am grateful. Because it would be worse without them.