In the spring of 2006, a grandmother in Texas had skimmed through the book her granddaughter was reading and was so shocked by what she read that she marched into the girl’s middle school library and demanded that the book be permanently removed from circulation. The offending book was Detour for Emmy, a teen pregnancy story that is part of my “True-to-Life Series From Hamilton High.” She also demanded that all of my other books be taken out of circulation. Of course, the grandmother had every right to monitor her granddaughter’s reading, at least if the granddaughter’s parents agreed. But it was outrageous to think she could ban certain books from the whole student body.
The middle school librarian had a comprehensive challenge policy in place and also had the support of the school’s principal. As per policy, the book was read by members of the community, a minister, parents, business people and other educators. They ultimately decided, unanimously, that the book was appropriate for middle school readers and it stayed on the shelves. But this was not before an enormous brouhaha that had made the Dallas/Fort Worth 7 o’clock news for a full week.
In addition to the Texas challenge, there had been several other Detour for Emmy challenges during 2006. There are always a few. Over the years there’ve been challenges in Tennessee, South Carolina, Arizona, Illinois, and California, and probably many more that I don’t know about. On the cover of each of my teen fiction books is the statement “True-to-Life Series from Hamilton High.” So, teen pregnancy? Realistic? Yes, Emmy and her boyfriend had sex.
The other books in the series are also sometimes challenged. Nearly always they meet the challenge and stay on the shelves, and the news media are not involved. But between the Texas grandmother and other challenges, Detour for Emmy ended up in the No. 6 slot on the 2006 American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books list.
Mike couldn’t have been more amused and proud of my growing reputation among certain circles as a writer of dirty books, a writer who was leading the youth of our nation astray. He happily spread the word to friends and colleagues that I had joined the ranks of others whose books had been banned—Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Judy Blume, and on and on. What good company I was keeping! Hosted by the American Library Association, Mike accompanied me to Chicago where I, along with many others, spoke at the 2007 annual ALA Banned Books Week event. Mike was charming, totally engaged.
In addition to attending ALA events, we spent an afternoon at The Field Museum of Natural History. We marveled at the huge Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park. We enjoyed dinner at some famous but now forgotten restaurant. But within a day of returning home, Mike was again dissatisfied and unhappy. It was beginning to seem as if it took a getaway for Mike to find any pleasure in life.
At home, what I was hearing from Mike was depression and discouragement. Try as I might, I couldn’t get past my own take on life to have total empathy for him. I couldn’t help feeling that his constant repetition of all that was wrong in his life, and his near total neglect of whatever was right, was partly to blame for his state of mind. Plus, I was tired of hearing it. One day, after a litany of complaints, I asked, “Is there anything, ever, you can enjoy or feel good about?”
“Of course,” he said.
I asked that we spend just 15 minutes each day telling each other about whatever good had occurred during the previous 24 hours. We could do it when we had our pre-dinner glass of wine, I suggested. He agreed.
The first evening of our new ritual I expressed several things for which I was grateful. When it was Mike’s turn he managed to comment that Sunny looked nice when he picked her up from the groomers, that he’d liked that I’d gone to breakfast with him that morning, and he was looking forward to the symphony. Our combined “goods of the day” lasted about five minutes before Mike shifted into complaining about a neighbor.
“Our 15 minutes isn’t up yet,” I told him, laughing. “No complaining for another 10 minutes!” I pointed out the window to the flowering plum tree. “Look how beautiful that is.”
We somehow managed another 10 minutes. I thanked Mike, telling him how much I needed to hear some of the good stuff. We kept to the ritual a total of three nights. On the fourth night he said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“I do,” I said.
“It feels phony to me. I’m not playing that game,” he said, and that was the end of it.
How could I stay with a man who was either incapable or unwilling to offer me even 15 minutes a day of positive conversation? On the other hand, maybe he needed an adjustment in meds? Maybe we should take a trip? Maybe if he could get a long-talked-about solo show going?
Looking back, it seems I was already the frog in the warming pot of water, not registering the gradually increasing heat, in danger of waiting until it was too late to jump, already bound for the soup factory.