Author Interview

You use some strange names, including Native American names. How did you come up with them?
We have some wonderful names in Oklahoma, names that carry their own images, their own rhythms--Whitecotton, Nation, Goodluck, Husband. I didn't have to work hard to find them. Even the name Americus is connected to Oklahoma. It was once a small community here but it's gone now, disappeared.

Why did you settle on Wal-Mart as such an important part of your book?
Many small towns in our part of the country have central meeting places, the social centers of the towns--churches, high school gyms, football fields, and, increasingly so, the Wal-Mart store, which has changed not only business on Main Street, but the very rhythms and movements of these communities. So, for my story, the Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, was the most likely place for Novalee to encounter Sister Husband, a white woman, Moses Whitecotton, a black man, and Benny Goodluck, a Native American boy.

Your book includes characters from a variety of cultures. How did that come about?
We hear so much about America's urban areas and the various ethnic communities in them--the great melting pot. I suspect that the common perception on the coasts is still that the great middle is populated by Anglo ranchers and wheat farmers. And they do live here. But our ethnic diversity would surprise most people.

Do you know that Oklahoma almost came into the union as a black state? That at one time Oklahoma had a multitude of black towns? And of course the various Native American tribes were in place on their lands even before statehood. But the limits and boundaries of the black towns and Indian communities have largely dissolved to contribute to a cultural diversity in the state.

Why is Novalee, an uneducated, pregnant, seventeen-year-old, your main character?
Oklahoma has a high rate of teenage pregnancy. As a result, we have many single mothers, either recently divorced or never married. I've known many of these young women--students in my college classes. They often hold marginal jobs as waitresses, motel maids, nursing home workers. They are poor and uneducated, often victims of alcoholic, redneck, small town he-men. But these are Ma Joad's children--they keep coming, keep trying. And Novalee Nation is among the best of them.

How did you settle on Sister Husband and Moses Whitecotton and Forney Hull as Novalee's mentors? How is Where the Heart Is an "Oklahoma story"?
Some people have described Sister Husband as "wacky." Let's see. She's loving, giving, accepting, and nurturing. Maybe in late-twentieth-century America that's wacky. If it is, I've had a grandmother, aunts, cousins, and friends who are, according to that definition, wacky. Come to my house and I'll invite a houseful of Sister Husbands of a variety of ages, sizes, and inclinations. Sister is as much a part of me as Saturday night family musicals and Sunday morning church.

Moses Whitecotton is based on a real man--Claude Adams--a friend who died several years ago. He moved from a difficult time and place in this society to help hundreds of people better their lives. You've never heard of him, but anyone who ever knew him will never forget what he gave to each of us.

And Forney Hull? America has a tradition of anti-intellectualism and so does Oklahoma. Intellectuals, or simply anyone who listens to a variety of music or who goes to a play or who reads too many books, are suspect. But they are here. And, as in any society, they are our soul. How did I come up with these characters? Hell, they're people I know.

Several of your characters' names are changed or miscalled during the course of the book. When Sister Husband first meets Novalee, she calls her "Ruth Ann." Moses Whitecotton is called "Mose" by the manager at the Wal-Mart even though he's dealt with Moses several times. Lexie Coop's children are never called by their real names until late in the story. And Willy Jack's name is changed to "Billy Shadow." I'm curious about your reasons for doing that.
If these characters were lawyers, bankers, corporate executives, or celebrities, there's little chance people would take the liberty of changing their names. But the characters you've mentioned are poor, uneducated--without power. When I was teaching , I often used Maya Angelou's work in my classes, in particular, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Ms. Angelou relates an incident in which a white woman she works for decides to change her name, Marguerite, to "Mary." Can you imagine how that must feel? That someone with the power of social status and wealth could, on a whim, decide to change your name?

Many of your characters are disfigured in some way. Novalee has a scar that runs from her wrist to her elbow; Jolene, the teenaged girl Willy Jack meets in Santa Rosa, is missing her two front teeth, and Willy Jack himself has teeth marred by cavities "the size of raisins." Claire Hudson has so many cuts and scrapes that it seems her entire body is covered by Band-Aids, and Lexie Coop's eyelid is ruined. You obviously wanted readers to "see" these disfigurements, didn't you?
Yes, I did. Think about how these people live and what happens to them as a result. Novalee's scar came from a woman in a bar where Novalee worked, a woman crazy and drunk. Jolene and Willy Jack are trying to survive in whatever way they can. People like that can't be overly concerned with oral hygiene. Claire Hudson covers herself with Band-Aids less because of visible wounds than because she is trying to hide, to protect herself from pain. Lexie is the victim of a man who preys on vulnerable women and children. Now I'm not suggesting that people with money and power can avoid crazy people with knives or dangerous degenerates or even bad teeth, but I believe people like the characters in my book have far fewer resources with which to deal with their disfigurements, both figuratively and literally.

Did you sit down and plot out the book character by character, interaction by interaction, or did it come to life as you were writing it? Is Where the Heart Is the novel you set out to write?
I had parts of the story in my head when I started. I knew who the major characters were and I knew how the story was going to end, but I didn't know many of the twists and turns that would take me there.

The first time I actually roughed out an outline, when I was seventy or eighty pages into the first draft, I came up with seventeen chapters. As you know, the book ended up being thirty-eight chapters long, so I guess outlining isn't my strong point.

Is it the novel I set out to write? Yes, I'd have to say it is even though I got there almost by accident, just sort of stumbling from one chapter to another, from one event to another.

In what ways did the novel change as you wrote it? Did you find some characters developing in unexpected ways?
Forney Hull was a big surprise for me. I knew he was going to be instrumental in changing Novalee's life by introducing her to the world of books and learning. But I had no notion that he would fall in love with her. When he did, I was really amazed. And when she discovered she loved him, I was absolutely astonished. Astonished, but pleased.

Can you talk a bit about Novalee? How did she come about? Was she the impetus for writing the novel or did the story come first?
I was in Wal-Mart one day and the thought came to me that someone could probably live there for weeks, months...years, maybe, without ever having to go outside. And just like that I came up with the idea of a girl hiding out in that store, living there, because she had nowhere else to go. Then, as the story began to take shape, the girl became a pregnant teenager faced with some very adult, very difficult decisions. And in Novalee's case, a teenager who had a history full of grief.

This novel has won awards in the young adult category. What is it about the book that speaks to teenagers?
I've heard from young people all over the country--many have written to me; some I've met in person--but most have made similar comments: they identify with Novalee because they, too, have felt lost, abandoned, alone; they want to believe there are places in America like Sequoyah, where racism, sexism, and classism do not override hopes and possibility. And because so many of them come from splintered families, they trust that they, like Novalee, might be lucky enough to find caring people out there who will help them build "families" of their own.

Where the Heart Is is set in America's "heartland" and deals with quintessentially American characters, yet it has been translated into twelve languages. How would you account for its cross-cultural appeal?
I don't know, but I'm glad. I'm glad that Scandinavians and Europeans and Asians and Latin Americans will read about Moses, Sister Husband, Forney, Novalee, and the other fine folks of Sequoyah, Oklahoma, and realize that people of good heart don't exist just in the pages of books, but live next door, in the neighboring town, in bordering nations, and countries halfway around the world.