Dana schwartz twitter9/24/2023 Nora, as most teenagers are, is very wrapped up in herself and focused on herself, and not paying attention to the challenges and difficulties her mother is going through. So she’s not privy to her mother’s thoughts or inner struggles or that she’s going through more serious issues. I think I had help with that because the story’s narrated by Nora. How did you balance resolving characters’ story lines vs the reality of them having big problems that might take a while to solve? One thing I really liked about the book was how it was honest about how some problems are too complex to be wrapped up in a tidy narrative. Nora’s advantage is that she has her mother acting as the other voice saying, “That can’t be all you are.” Even though the mother’s presented as the villain for a bit of the book–the foil to Nora’s ambitions–I hope that the reader recognizes that coming to terms with your own identity means being a full person in every respect, which means building your relationship with your mom, expanding your skill set, and not just defining yourself by being an artist or as a successful artist, and especially not by the boys you date. Usually when someone has a skill, like being an artist, you pigeonhole yourself and you define yourself as that. Figuring out who you are is a lifelong journey. I’m twenty-four and still figuring that out myself. I’ve had to wrestle with that myself and I didn’t get there as quickly as Nora did. Can you talk about how that theme made its way into the book? (laughs) What happened was I went to Belgium and some of those frustrations that Nora has happened to me and then I exaggerated a bit because A., teenagers hate things, and then hopefully for a bit of comedic effect.Ī big part of the book is Nora figuring out who she is and what her identity is apart from her family or her friends or the guys she’s interested in. Although maybe I’ll refrain from visiting because I’ll show up at the border and they’ll haul me away. No, the nation of Belgium has not addressed my ire, nor have I been banned from the country to my knowledge. Have you gotten any feedback from Belgium yet? Nora’s pretty merciless in her depiction of Belgium. No, I was not with my mom! (laughs) I was alone for seven days and then I was with a friend from high school. That experience was still really fresh in my mind when I was writing the book and I wanted it to read as accurately as possible.Īnd did you travel with your mother, like Nora does? I didn’t really know what I wanted to career-wise and so I was lucky enough to be able to spend a little time abroad, country hopping through Europe. Last year I graduated from college and I took a trip through Europe. How did those pieces of the book make their way into the story? The book seems to veer off from other Americans abroad stories because it really captures the mundane parts of travel, like the bus station on the edge of town, and going to a tourist attraction only to find out that it’s closed. I think that’s where I got out all my middle school angst. I was a big My Chemical Romance fan when I was a teenager. My sister read it to me, I went to all the midnight book parties–I would get the books at midnight and stay up all day reading them. I know it’s cliche, but it’s cliche for a reason. What were the important pieces of pop culture for you when you were growing up?ĭefinitely Harry Potter was a biggie for me. Nora’s steeped in pop culture, always referencing books and movies, plus running a successful fan art business on her tumblr. Schwartz spoke to Brendan Dowling via telephone on May 9th, 2017. With a deft eye for character and plotting, Schwartz crafts a winning road trip while also exploring topics like identity, creativity, and of course, mother-daughter relationships. All of this is thrown away when her mother, nursing her own wounds after a painful divorce, decides at the last moment to accompany Nora on the trip. Nora Holmes is set to spend the summer before her senior high school at a prestigious art institute in Ireland, the perfect place to be with like-minded students, escape the gaze of her tightly wound mother, and shed the memories of a fizzled relationship. While readers might be familiar with Dana Schwartz through her extremely popular twitter parody accounts, and they will be introduced to another side of her with her charming and insightful novel, And We’re Off.
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