Isamu Fukui
The Author’s Own Words:
THE STORY OF HOW TRUANCY CAME TO BE PUBLISHED
By Isamu Fukui
My very first interest in writing can be traced back four years to the summer of 2002, when I was twelve years old. Before that summer, I had never had much interest in writing, and writing assignments were among my least favorite in school. I was, on the other hand, an avid reader, my favorite book at the time being Lord of the Rings. Nonetheless I had never had any serious inclination to write anything except what was required by school.
And so it was during that summer that I came across the notes and drafts for J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as published in The Return of the Shadow. For the first time in my life I was able to get a glimpse into the mind of an author, and what I saw left a deep impression upon me. I could see Tolkien’s story slowly evolve and shift into the masterpiece it ultimately became, and I could see how he painstakingly crafted each detail in his narrative and made it all flow together as one. It was then that I first told myself “I want to be able to do that." But at the time even I thought it to be a lofty, impossible dream, and so I shared it with no one.
The next year, in 7th grade and at the age of thirteen, I first began to take a great interest in writing fan fiction stories set in the existing universes of my favorite games and shows – I did this purely for fun, much like other kids enjoyed chatting on the phone or drawing in their free time. By the time I had finished 7th grade, I had begun to dream about taking the next step and writing my own novel. Accordingly, I sketched out an outline and planned a fantasy story that I had dreamed up, one that wouldn't use any tired clichés like dragons or elves. I got about a hundred pages into that book during that summer, before realizing that the project was overly ambitious and that I wasn't yet ready as a writer.
However, during that same summer, something else happened to me that sparked some important inspiration. While walking through a street fair in the City, I bought an overly expensive plastic cup of lemonade and began walking home. As I walked down the street I lived on, I found it strangely empty except for myself, and inexplicably a simple and strange scenario popped into my head:
I envisioned some sort of wise mentor absurdly maintaining a lemonade stand on a completely empty street with no one to sell to. On the other side of the stand sat his pupil, nervously buying a cup of lemonade.
When I got home I promptly jotted the idea down and forgot about it for a while, as I was busy with my attempted fantasy novel. But that simple idea was the seed from which Truancy would grow, and it evolved into the relationship between Tak and Umasi. Before I had ever decided upon a title for Truancy, I gave it the tentative title of Project Lemonade. But the idea had nothing to do with school, not yet at least.
The next year in 8th grade was a particularly difficult school year for me, as I was one of the most unpopular kids in the entire grade (as most of my peers found me to be weird and annoying), and things got so bad that the following year I would transfer to a different one. During that year, as a means of relieving my stress, I began to write down every single thing that had bothered me in school, and first began entertaining thoughts of incorporating them into a story where school was the villain. That was the year in the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition that I won the National Gold Award and a Regional Gold Key in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category, as well as a Regional Silver Key for a separate Short Story entry.
It was in 9th grade, and at my new school, when I remembered my old lemonade idea and fused it with my frustrations about school. On the side I did produce another competition entry and won a Regional Silver Key in the Personal Essay category, but during the school year my main focus was forging an outline for Project Lemonade, and writing a few nonlinear bits and pieces that I knew would be part of it. I read some of these bits to some of my fellow students, who were all hugely enthusiastic about it. “This kid is writing a novel! A novel!” One of them had exclaimed to another, as if he couldn't quite wrap his head around the concept.
It was only the third year that I had been writing, but I noticed that I had truly improved dramatically with each year – I wasn't the same writer that had bit off more than he could chew back in 7th grade. This time, I knew I was ready.
At that point I really hadn't written much more than a few pages yet, but I was now determined to finish what I started. And so it was during that summer of 2005 that I went up to Maine to visit my aunt and uncle. While there, I worked constantly on the book in isolation, setting for myself a strict quota of one chapter a day. While the rest of my family and relatives fished and boated in the ocean, I sat and wrote day and night. The only time I took a break was the one day after I had worked so hard that I drove myself to sickness and was too delirious to type – but I returned to work the very next day.
In the space of approximately one month, at the self-imposed rate of one chapter a day, I wrote and completed my first draft of Truancy, which now had its true title. I had kept my parents in the dark about the project, and they didn't know much about the story other than that it existed, but they helped me bind some hard copies of the manuscript anyway. I had long valued my writing as a private treasure that I was not eager to share with my family, and so I asked my parents not to read it. However, that night I saw the light on in their room and caught my father reading the manuscript, a transgression that appropriately outraged me.
But having read the manuscript, my father decided that it was good enough to show to his friend, a writer named Carter Ratcliff, who then passed it on to his literary agent Matt Bialer, which is how the story ultimately came to light.
In the Words of the Father:
THE STORY OF HOW TRUANCY CAME TO BE PUBLISHED
By Nobu Fukui
Every year since he was born Isamu spent the month of August in Maine with his mother and brother Tomo, and usually I joined them later for a week or ten days. The summer of 2005 started no differently from any other year, we spent the month of July at home, and then his mother took Isamu and Tomo and drove down to Machias, Maine which is a small town about an hour drive from Canadian border. There my wife's sister and her husband have a house by the water. Usually Isamu enjoys kayaking and fishing in the ocean very much but this year somehow he didn't want to do any of that. He locked himself up and took his brother's laptop computer, and he was writing. He declared that he was going to write one chapter a day and finish the 500 page novel by the time they got back to New York.
Sometimes he was writing all night and slept until late afternoon. His eating pattern went totally irregular, and sometimes he didn't eat all day. His mother was worried and his uncle and aunt didn't understand what was going on. When I joined them in the third week of the month, he told me he had written about two-thirds of the story and he was confident he could finish it by the end of the month.
A few days after we came home and the book was finished, we had an old friend for dinner, Carter Ratcliff. Carter is a poet and a writer who has published numerous books on art as well as a few poetry books. I showed Isamu's book to him and he read through a few chapters and seemed to be very impressed. He told me that he had a new agent and now they were discussing a book possibility, and that this agent handled a lot of science fiction and fantasy books. Carter promised me that he would talk to him. A few days later Carter called me and asked me to send Isamu's manuscript to Matt Bialer.”
In the Words of the Agent:
THE STORY OF HOW TRUANCY CAME TO BE PUBLISHED
By Matt Bialer
One day a new client of mine (Carter Ratcliff) who writes art criticism e-mailed me that there is this 15-year-old boy (the son of an artist friend of his) that he knows who has written a young adult novel that has caused a stir among some of his Stuyvesant High School English teachers. Carter asked me if I knew of any agents who handled children's books. I told him to send me the manuscript.
Isamu is the son of a prominent artist in New York named Nobu Fukui. Nobu dropped his son's manuscript off at my office. I read it quickly because I had a feeling about it. I actually read it in a night and the following morning. I was very excited because I felt there was a new voice here and I almost could not believe that a 15 year old boy had written such an exciting and insightful story. Here was a natural storyteller if I ever saw one! I immediately called Isamu's father and told him how impressed I was. Isamu and his father Nobu came in to see me and I told them that I was very, very interested in representing it. I thought that editors would be impressed with this intriguing novel.
It was around Holiday time 2005, but I gave the book to our foreign rights agent Teri Tobias. She read the book and loved it and asked me if she could send it out to publishers abroad. I was not sure of what my submission plans were yet but I told Teri that she should play this however she wants to. She sent the manuscript to our foreign subagents and there was immediately an auction in the book in Italy. It was between a few publishers and it went on for something like two months!!! And then we sold the novel in Germany and Spain. The total sales were well in to the six figures. I decided that here in the States I wanted to find a good home.
The book is not your average kids book and I needed a publisher that really understood the science fiction and kids' books department. And thus Tor came in to the picture. The perfect combination of author and publisher!
Find out more about Isamu Fukui at www.thetruancy.com.
Reviews
Truancy
Isamu Fukui
What happens when society begins to focus too much on the education of our youth and the expectations go beyond what is deemed normal to the point of complete chaos? Out of the smoke and mirrors comes a story that shows the dangers of using brute force to herd our youth into submission and control. This book exposes problems with educating inner-city students. These young adults want to be free from adult control and make their own decisions. As the adults struggle to gain control over a gang of truants, they are left with death and destruction throughout the city. The mayor explores all avenues and finally fights fire with fire. Our hero, Tack, begins the story as an innocent who seeks answers to society’s woes. His search leads him to Umasi. The two become close friends as the war rages on. When it becomes personal for Tack, his innocence is shattered and revenge drives him to the point of no return. Will Tack survive his own inner demons? Can this dysfunctional city regain control and heal? What is the secret that Umasi holds dear to his heart? Isamu Fukui, an adolescent, weaves an intricate story about the problems of young people and how they view their world. Although the plot and action moves the story, the characters seem one-dimensional and are not average people that readers will relate too. This intriguing story makes one think, but it is moral-driven and does not allow readers to reach their own conclusions. Due to violent content, I would not recommend this book for any reader under fifteen. 2008, Tom Doherty Associates Book, $17.95. Ages 15 to 18. Julia Beiker (Children's Literature).
Perfect control through education": that’s the goal of a despotic Mayor who rules an unnamed City where students are punished for the least infraction. The “Zero Tolerance Policy" is taken to an extreme, enforced by armed Educators, and expelled students are executed. Naturally, repression breeds rebellion, and the Truancy, an underground armed revolt by teenagers, is trying to destroy the system. Fifteen-year-old Tack is just trying to make it through school, but when he meets Umasi, a mysterious boy who trains him in fighting skills, and then loses his sister in a violent attack by the Truancy, he runs off and joins the group, hoping to destroy it from within to avenge her. The Truancy is led by the charismatic Zyid, and Tack’s skills soon make him Zyid’s second-in-command. Gradually, however, Tack’s allegiance to the Truancy conflicts with his desire for vengeance for his sister’s death. Will he accept the Truancy’s cause as his own? Dedicated to “every student who has suffered in the name of education," this astounding and action-packed novel by a 15-year-old New York City student is sure to appeal to adolescents everywhere with its theme of brave students vs. oppressive educators. It’s melodramatic, to say the least, but highly effective. With lots of violence, martial arts battles, and even a touch of romance, it’s sure to be a big hit, just the kind of subversive tale YAs recommend to each other. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS*--Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2008, Tor, 432p., $17.95. Ages 12 to 18. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick (KLIATT Review, March 2008 (Vol. 42, No.2))
ISBN: 978-0-7653-1767-4
ISBN: 0-7653-1767-2
Added 04/24/08
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