Welcome to July’s version of - First Friday - Five Favorite Things - Debut Novel Day. In this
monthly series, we ask five simple questions about a debut novel that will
hopefully entice anyone reading this post to pick up the novel and read it
themselves, and/or give them at a glance some insight into the author's writing
style and voice as well as how some of the characters might think or act. We do
this by presenting, first, answers to our
Five Favorite Things, followed by the author's answers in a follow-up post.
This month we're pleased to highlight debut YA novelist,
David Arnold and his novel, Mosquitoland.
After being uprooted from her home and mom in Cleveland, Ohio, Mary Iris Malone
(Mim) is not okay. She hates living in Jackson, Mississippi with her father and
stepmother. And now that all communication has been cut off with her mom, Mim
is on the run to save her mom.
1) What is your favorite line or paragraph from the novel as it relates to
the main character's development and/or growth?
Dave – Home is hard. Harder than reasons. It’s more than a storage unit for
your life and its collections. It’s more than an address, or even the house you
grew up in. People say home is where the heart is, but I think maybe home is
the heart. Not a place or a time, but an organ, pumping life into my life.
Marcy – Mim remembers when her mom would give a
homeless man money. She’d purposely go the long way to soccer practice so she
could give the man three dollars. One day Mim’s dad was with them. He started complaining
about how the lazy bum could get a job, when Mim’s mom rolled down the window
and handed Reggie three dollars.
Later, just before bed, I asked her if Dad was mad that she gave
three bucks to Reggie. She said no, but I knew better. I asked if Dad was right,
if Reggie was nothing but a lazy drunk. Mom said some homeless folk were like
that, but she didn’t think Reggie was one of them. She said if he were, she
would give him three bucks. She said it wasn’t her job to pick which ones were
genuinely starving and which ones were faking it.
“Help is help to anyone, Mary. Even if they don’t know they’re
asking for it.”
I said that made a whole lot of sense, because it did.
And it still does.
Here’s the thing, Iz: my mom needs help right now. And I know
it, even if she doesn’t.
2) What is your favorite chapter ending or cliffhanger?
Dave - I jog up to cement stairs, unable to hold back a smile of my young
adult life. This detour has already paid for itself.
Marcy –This paragraph speaks for itself.
I am tired of being alone.
“You need help?” Walt’s quiet voice brings me back to the now, the
real, the detour.
I, Mary Iris Malone, smile at the bright new moon. Wiping away my
tears, I wonder if things are finally changing, “Yeah, Walt, I might.”
3) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?
Dave – I chose Mom as my
favorite secondary character. She has so many lines that made her seem to me,
so carefree, so down-to-Earth. Mim, the main character, is worried her mother
is going to be mad after she got into a fight in school defending a friend.
“There are worse fates than being slow-witted,” she says. “You
broke that other kids nose, right? The one who made fun of Ricky?” I say, “yes
ma’am, I did.” “Good,” she says, taking another bite.
Marcy – This novel has an amazing lineup of
characters. I would choose Walt for his innocence and love of life. He has
down’s syndrome and has been abandoned by his father but has an amazing outlook
on life.
“Ready to swim?”
Walt looks up at me with wide-eyed enthusiasm. He’s shirtless now,
holding a flashlight and sporting a pair of cutoff daisy dukes. The Cubs hat
and the green Chucks he’s still wearing as well as that infectious smile that
sets my heart aflame. It’s the same smile my dad and I used when we made
waffles, only Walt’s is magnified somehow, like I-don’t-know-what…the Belgian
waffle version or something.
“Here,” he says, offering a wad of denim. “My backup pair.”
Hopping down from the boulder, I take the shorts and hold them out
in front of me. They’re a little wide in the waist, and far shorter than any
shorts I’ve ever worn.
Walt throws his finger in the air, spins on his heels, “This way
to my pool!”
4) What is your favorite line or paragraph of description?
Dave – As often happens, Marcy
and I choose similar favorite lines. She has chosen one below that I had
picked, so I will choose another. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory why I
chose this, as it paints a pretty vivid picture.
ED’S PLACE: CHICKEN-N-GAS The image in my brain is unsettling to
say the least: Ed, a disgruntled Vietnam vet, stands over a stove with two ashy
cigarillos hanging from either side of his mouth; he’s stirring a giant pot of
his famous chicken-petroleum soup.
Marcy – Mim gets wiser as she
gets closer to seeing her mom.
I swear, the older I get, the more I value bad examples over
good ones. It’s a good thing, too, because most people are egotistical,
neurotic, self-absorbed peons, insistent on wearing near-sighted glasses in a
far-sighted world. And it’s the exact sort of myopic ignorance that has led to
my groundbreaking new theory. I call it Mim’s Theorem of Monkey See Monkey
Don’t, and what it boils down to is this: it is my belief that there are some
people whose sole purpose of existence is to show the rest of us how not to
act.
5) What is your favorite line of dialogue?
Dave – This line of dialogue
from Walt, a homeless, mentally disabled young man, made me laugh when I read
it. It easily cinched my favorite when I read the end of the novel.
“Yes,” says Walt, going back to his
butterfly. “I’ll remember the rendezvouski.”
Marcy
– Words of wisdom from Mim’s mom:
My
mother was the greatest alarm clock of all time. Every morning, without fail,
she threw back the curtains to let the sun in, and always, she said the same
thing.
“Have
a vision, Mary, unclouded by fear.”
Congratulations
to David for the praise he’s received on this wonderful novel!
— ABA Indies Introduce Debut Authors and New Voices title
— A Junior Library Guild selection
To read more about David Arnold and his debut novel, Mosquitoland, please go to:
