An old Lurlene interview

I ran across this interview with Lurlene from 2000 which is sort of illuminating. Like, I know I am super eager for more evidence that Sean is the favored son, so it made me kind of giddy that she mentions Eric by saying "Sean had a brother"! Oh, Sean, your diabetes made you so, so, so special!

Also interesting:

BP: Do you have a teenager that you use as a sounding board?
LM: Oh, I wish. Sean had a brother, Eric, who's a youth pastor in Alabama. I can be around kids if I need to be.

Then be around them MORE, Lurlene. I mean, okay, I know there are lots of people who write Y.A. lit who don't exactly spend their entire lives with teens, but I think it's especially important the further you get out of that age bracket to really prioritize that. I know the amazing Judy Blume won't write Y.A. anymore because she doesn't think she has anything left to say to teens. While that saddens me, knowing how many lives she touches with her Y.A. catalog, I really respect her for knowing that. Understand teens and be relevant to them, or stick with another genre. It's just essential.

Also:

BP: Do you write with an audience or gender in mind?
LM: I have always been amazed guys read these books and seem to enjoy them. Because I've raised boys, I like to think I can get inside a guy's mind. I try and make the boys talk like guys, sound like guys and react like guys. [Characters] say, "Well, you know, she's got cystic fibrosis, and that grosses me out." You've got to be realistic.

"Realistic", seriously? I mean, I will not deny the popularity of these books, but the dialogue is so crazily inaccurate; I genuinely don't know any kids who talk like they do in the Lurleneverse. Even when she nails the emotions, she rarely nails anything further.

BP: A poll taken by Book magazine lists both female and male teens' favorite authors. Your name was fourth for females and fifth for males. This must be immensely gratifying.
LM: That blew me away. I am very privileged and honored when someone chooses to read a book, especially a book of mine.

Listen, I am the last person to rattle on about gender differences, but even taking the position that most have to do with societal constructs, it sort of shocks me that dudes would list Lurlene as a favorite author. Right?

She talks a bit about Six Months to Live, but that's the next book I'm recapping, so I'll save my comments on that for the forthcoming recap.

Lurlene goes off on a tangent about teen suicide:

BP: Great. You know, many consider your works inspirational.
LM: Well, thank you. That's the goal I go for. You know not every book has to have a happy ending, but it has to have a satisfying ending. I like to tell young people -- you know one in four children die by their own hands -- no matter how bad things seem, just wait a day, wait a week. Life will turn around. I have known some magnificent young people who died very young but had wonderful lives and inspired many people by their short existence.

Do you guys think the one in four statistic is accurate? I know that, sadly, lots of kids DO kill themselves, but one in four? I only have one distant relative who did, and given that I've known hundreds of kids over my lifetime, I either have a statistically abnormally happy group of acquaintances, or Lurlene's full of crap.

(That said, her advice is pretty good.)

Interesting that Lurlene battled breast cancer; she's lucky she doesn't live in her own universe, because she is still alive today! That never, ever would have happened if she wrote a book about herself!

A Beautiful Photo Essay

In searching for an image for an upcoming recap, I stumbled upon what basically amounts to a photo essay of Lurlene! The essay starts with Lurlene as a young child with her parents and brother:


Lurlene and her brother were total hotties!:


Lurlene visits, for some reason, a Moroccan rug room:


Lurlene's got a snazzy office, of course:


Also, the McDaniel boys managed to marry total hotties. I wonder if they won them over with the kind of dialogue boys love spewin' in the pages of their mom's books?

Be sure to check out the whole thing!

Who is Lurlene?

Author bios vary a lot. Sometimes they take up a whole back cover, sometimes we learn little more than university attended or city born. With Lurlene, I knew to always expect basically the exact same bio, with the exact same picture:


I like how she's just chillaxing in that lounge chair. "Hey there, girlfriend," she seems to be telling me. "Sit right back and let me spin you a tale of death and disease." Um, all right, Lurlene, I'm onboard!

Lurlene McDaniel began writing inspirational novels about teenagers facing life-altering situations when her son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. "I saw firsthand how chronic illness affects every aspect of a person's life," she has said. "I want kids to know that while people don't get to choose what life gives to them, they do get to choose how they respond."

Lurlene McDaniel's novels are hard-hitting and realistic [if there are two descriptors I would never, ever use to describe Lurlene's books, they're "hard-hitting" and "realistic"], but also leave readers with inspiration and hope. Her books have received acclaim from readers, teachers, parents, and reviewers. Her recent novels, Angels Watching Over Me and its companions, Lifted Up by Angels and Until Angels Close my Eyes, have all been national bestsellers, as have Don't Die, My Love; I'll Be Seeing You; and Till Death Do Us Part. Six Months to Live was included in a literary time capsule at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Lurlene lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Okay, the time capsule thing is waaaaay too good to resist; it is seriously the GREATEST THING EVER. I did a little digging around online and found out that this capsule is to be opened in the year 2089. And in the year 2089, people will wonder just what the fuck we were reading, and why cancer was alllllll the rage. I mean SERIOUSLY. THE HELL. This is the craziest thing ever, you guys!! Like, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to witness this and cry for the level of literature their ancestors had to settle for.

Can you imagine? Seriously? You open a time capsule, looking for clues to your culture's past, and you pull out Six Months to fucking Live? Oh, holy hell, that's amazing.

So as a kid this is basically all I ever knew about Lurlene (except that time capsule thing, that's totes new info). And I must say, even though back then I thought these were really quality books, I thought it was kind of weird this whole thing took off for her just because her kid had diabetes. Now, listen, I'm not downplaying diabetes. Stacey McGill was my idol! But, like, it's manageable, you know? It's a whole different bag of bears than, say, cancer, right?

According to Lurlene's official web site (well, one of them):

McDaniel began writing about young adults when her son Sean was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 3. His illness changed the lives of everyone in her family forever. “I saw what life was like for someone who was chronically ill, and I experienced how it affected the dynamics of the family,” says McDaniel. She says she found that writing about the trauma and its effects was therapeutic.

I mean, I get it! Writing is totes cathartic; I've been there too, Lurlene! But you know? She didn't have a kid who died in a car wreck, or a kid who died from cancer, or a kid with AIDS. She had a kid who got this totally manageable illness. Yeah? I wonder how Sean feels that his diabetes spurred like fifty tomes of death, angst, destruction, and working mothers! Man, Sean, I'd be weirded out, if I were you.

On the site I also learned that Lurlene attended the University of South Florida in Tampa, where she actually got her B.A. in English. Dudes, for serious! I guess to be fair I've never found TECHNICAL fault with her writing. Also that was before her mind was opened up to the possibility of KIDS WITH DEATH, so who knows what she was writing back then.

Also I've gotta admit I'm always totes intrigued by ladies with jobs that involve them speaking out against other ladies with jobs!

Oh, so you guys want to know more about Lurlene's research process? Okay!:

To make certain that her books are medically accurate, McDaniel conducts extensive research. She interviews health care professionals and works with appropriate medical groups and hospice organizations, as well as the Tennessee Organ Donor Services. “I study medicine and traditional grief therapy techniques to give the novels a sense of serious medical reality,” she says. “I also study the Bible to instill the human element—the values and ethics often overlooked by the coldness of technology.”

I will say that I always felt like I was getting the full medical story with Lurlene. Hell, I probably could step in for a medical professional for Very Important Talks thanks to all I learned from the Lurleneverse.

As for the bible, I am not sure an ancient text is necessarily the BEST place to look for the human element ("the human element" totally sounds like a sci-fi movie, Y/N?), though to be fair it's not like I ever have caught her plagiarizing bible verses or anything. Okay, Lurlene, I'll give you a fair pass there.

Some readers—and their parents—have wondered why McDaniel chooses to write about sad situations. “I tell them that sometimes tragedy hits people—kids, too. They want answers. They want to know ‘why.’ By using novels, I show ordinary kids confronting and overcoming great odds.”

"Overcoming"? LOTS OF THE KIDS DIE.