Neal Shusterman is a
great young adult writer.

Recently, I had the pleasure of hearing the mesmerizing words of Neal Shusterman, a young adult author with a slew of books that have earned him critical acclaim. The creative writing hints that Neal Shusterman delivers wow readers and makes writing novels like his seem like a much easier task than it surely is. Students from schools around the area came to see him again at the library where he was speaking. They couldn’t get enough of the powerful words and phrases he weaves throughout each and every one of his books.

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Neal Shusterman has over thirty teen novels published. Everything he writes has purpose and meaning behind its themes and plots. Listening to him speak was quite an experience, as he shared not only excerpts from his books, but how he developed the ideas that were so pivotal in his writing of his fascinating novels.

He says he aims to write “entertaining, page-turning, thought-provoking books.” It’s “more than coming up with a fun idea to tell.” He wants to find original ideas that have never been seen or read before, and which encompass universal themes that won’t leave him alone until he puts those ideas out there for readers to understand and enjoy as well.

His novel, Downsiders, is probably one of his most well-known novels, and one which allows fantasy to mix with reality, as real civilizations could exist under some of the same conditions, however to different degrees. He says he likes stories that take place underground, and has learned of the remains of the old underground of Seattle. Shusterman did a bit of creative writing research of his own about the “undergrounds” of cities, trying to find out the histories behind them, how they came to be, and what happened to them as people came to live on the “top side,” as he so eloquently calls it.

Neal Shusterman decided to make New York the setting of his underground metropolis, as that is where he grew up. The premise of the novel deals with the concept that less technologically advanced civilizations are somehow destroyed, and a cultural civilization is fighting to survive. After Shusterman’s editor read Downsiders he proceeded to say that, “Everytime I walk past a subway grate, I have to look down.” He was so entranced by the novel, the themes, and the intricacies of the plot that Shusterman had created, that he wondered if in fact there truly were “downsiders” who lived underground and had a civilization and a life all their own that rivaled that of the “topsiders.”

The main idea of the novel is that Talon, the main character, understands that he can’t go to the surface, however he rebels against conformity and brings a surface girl down to the world of the downsiders. For this, he is sentenced to death. The point of view that the novel takes on is one that tries to describe everything that Talon sees. Viewing the world as Talon sees it through a lense that is able to comprehend the vast differences between the underground and above-ground worlds, readers are able to adapt to the vastly different ideas presented to them. Despite his being sentenced to death, the novel moves on to tell the story of what happens to him after he is “executed” by his people and sent to the Land of the Dead.

“How do you describe something when you have no frame of reference?” Neal Shusterman asks readers. You must use terms you understand. For example, when Talon first sees the light of day and the sun in the sky above, he doesn’t know just how to describe it to his audience (the readers of the novel). Shusterman decided to describe the sky above like a beach, in terms that Talon would be able to understand, and readers would see that Talon was making the connection between what he knew a beach looked like and what the sky above consisted of, with its clouds, sunlight, airplanes, and other interesting features.

After reading a thrilling and exhilarating passage from Downsiders, we were treated to the literary stylings of Full Tilt, a psychological journey through the mind of a teenage boy named Blake. Blake is stuck in an amusement park, and the only way out of the park is to ride seven rides. Not only does he have to ride the seven rides to save himself and be free from the park, but his brother also is stuck inside, and Blake is trying with his utmost strength and energy to save Quinn from being stuck there any longer than he has to be. The most interesting part about this park is that each ride is a metaphorical representation of your worst fears, kind of like Fear Factor taking over Disneyworld, if you want to try for a visual.

The evil girl who runs the amusement park has a quote that sums up much of what teenagers think about life, with a bit of a dark twist added to it: “Life’s not fair; who said eternity has to be?” Shusterman says that the passage he read from Full Tilt is his favorite read-aloud excerpt. The repetition and the cycle that Blake must go through in order to free himself from the mind-numbing torture of the park is engaging and intoxicating for Shusterman as well as his readers. It allows readers to understand the pain and turmoil that a young boy goes through in his quest to save himself and his brother from a lifetime of anguish and heartache as they remember the scariest and darkest things that have ever happened to them. Reliving these memories is not something that Blake is fond of doing, and it is something which he tries at all costs to forget. The most interesting part of all of this is that sometimes facing your fears is the best thing to do in order to get past them. Check out Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman to find out what exactly happens and how it plays out in the end.

Everlost contains another mind-bending concept that readers are not apt to forget once they have read this novel. Shusterman says he came up with the idea a bit more than ten years ago. He was wondering about near-death experiences, and “what if you didn’t make it to the light?” He begins the novel by having two kids get into a head-on collision. They then find themselves in a world halfway between life and death. It took Shusterman ten years to write this book, as new ideas were always popping into his head, and he didn’t know just where to go with the story from the get-go.

The novel is filled with places in our world that no longer exist, but we still remember. The New York setting that Shusterman writes about in many of his books is evident here as well, as the Twin Towers that fell on September 11th are specially placed within the novel to make you remember a landmark that once stood tall, but was lost on that fateful day back in 2001. This concept of taking places from our world that have ceased to exist and etching them forever in our memories through the use of this novel proves especially intriguing to me. It reminded me of the Planet of the Apes movie with Charlton Heston, in which the Statue of Liberty was still there, hidden beneath mounds upon mounds of sand that only left the crown showing, and the new civilization living above the old New York.

“Knowing the World Trade Center would be there forever in Everlost made me want to write the book,” Shusterman states. The theme of hope and how to heal from loss allowed Neal Shusterman to be creative and instinctive in this book, as he engaged readers with the idea that the universe has a memory that is every bit as real as our world. Times will always be remembered, not only by people, but by the world that we live in, and the things that happen to us. He felt that including the idea of the Twin Towers, and other landmarks that have ceased to exist in our time now, was a respectful and reverential treatment of the idea he was working to write in this novel.

Everwild, the second book after Everlost is due out in November, 2009. Everlost itself was conceived as a trilogy.

When asked about the best book he feels he has ever written, Shusterman responded with Unwind. The book deals with many hot-button issues in society today. While doing his creative writing research, Shusterman uncovered a finding that says even if you don’t realize it, you’re voting for a candidate for president based on your position on abortion. These voting habits and reasons interested Shusterman, and he began to wonder whether the abortion issue could lead to a second Civil War in our country. His plotline for Unwind at first was a bit scary: from the moment of conception until a child is thirteen years old, life is untouchable; however, from the ages of thirteen to eighteen, life can be terminated at the parents’ discretion. He knew he couldn’t write this book, because he couldn’t believe that this type of idea would ever come to fruition. The book ended up being about teens who are unwanted by their parents and are “unwound” and salvaged for their body parts. One issue that the book deals with is terrorism; however, the term itself is not used, as Shusterman tried his utmost to lift the issues of the book out of the “here and now” and make them universally understandable to his readers.

The final novel that we were graced with an excerpt of was Antsy Does Time. Antsy is the main character in Neal Shusterman’s novel The Schwa Was Here, and is brought back as a character in this comedy that deals with death and the pains of high school life. The fact that this character was used again in a second novel caused Shusterman to elaborate a bit, and say that he will never settle until he has written something even better than his last book. This novel dealt with the concept of a high school boy who is supposedly dying, and everyone is giving him “borrowed time” from their own lives in an effort to extend his. The repercussions and tribulations that the characters go through are interesting and creative, as Shusterman’s novels always are.

In order to write, Shusterman says he must leave the house. Having four kids at home is not conducive to a proper writing environment. He goes to the library, coffee shops, food courts, and even writing retreats to focus in on his writing.

When asked how he approaches revision, Shusterman responded by stating, “Revision is the single most important part of the writing process. Only by going through that process does the book get to where it is.” While he’s editing, he says that sometimes he writes long essays to his editor explaining why he disagrees with the editor about certain changes that have been suggested. The funny part is that by the end of his long, drawn-out rant during which he has been constantly disagreeing with the editor, he changes his mind and begins to disagree with himself. Ironic, isn’t it?

Some favorite novelists of Neal Shusterman, although he had a hard time picking even these few, are Orson Scott Card, John Irving, and J.R.R. Tolkien, but he insists that he doesn’t have just one favorite author. He loves everything that Kurt Vonnegut has written, and if he had to pick just one novel that he likes the most, he would choose A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, but even this was a hard choice for him, as novels and authors are hard to choose from, according to his hesitation in choosing these.

If you are interested in reading more novels by Neal Shusterman, check your local library. You’re sure to find something that is intriguing and enjoyable.

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