Joyce Maynard on The Cloud Chamber
People ask me if The Cloud Chamber was based on a real story. There are two different answers to that one. I do know someone like the character of Nate, in my story, who grew up on a farm and had the terrible experience, when he was thirteen years old, of having his father shoot himself. Like Nate's dad, my friend's father didn't die, but he disappeared from my friend's life for many years, and nobody would talk about what happened. Thirty years after that event, he was still struggling with what that had meant to him, growing up. So I tried to imagine how it might have been different for him if he'd been able to work things out with his family when he was young.
It is one of the things I love about writing stories like this one that you can reshuffle the deck, take an experience that happened one way and imagine how else it might have gone, and through that, maybe, you can find some answers. I hope this book offers a few. Or, short of that, that it sends a quiet little message to the many young readers I believe to be out there, struggling with their own hard family stories, that they are not alone. More than a story about the suicide or attempted suicide of a family member, my novel is a story about silences, in whatever form or situation, and that part of the story comes from my own experience as a child.
I grew up in an alcoholic family. I loved my parents a lot, and in so many ways, our home was a wonderful, inspiring place to live. We talked about everything under the sun-art, music, literature, politics, religion, and, in a way that I have emulated myself as a parent, they never spoke down to my sister and me. My parents treated us with enormous respect and conveyed, with their interest, that our ideas truly mattered. I love them forever for that.
But there was one subject we never mentioned in our house for all the years of my growing up, and that was the fact that almost every night, my father went up to the little art studio in our attic where he painted, and he got drunk. And every morning, we woke up and had breakfast and pretended nothing had happened. This left me with the strange sense of living a double life. And it left me with something else: a feeling of shame, and terrible anxiety about what would happen if anybody ever found out what really went on at our house. I couldn't invite friends over, and I lived with a lot of fear. And of course, when you are trying to keep up an image that is not authentic, about who you are and what your life is, you can't get very close to people. So I always felt like an outsider.
When I speak to groups-whether adults or young people-I always talk about this experience, because more than any other I know it has shaped the themes of my work and formed the basis for my ongoing belief in the importance of talking about painful and difficult issues, sharing one's experiences, speaking honestly about our lives. When I was growing up, I truly believed I was the only person on the face of the earth whose father had a problem with liquor, and because of that, I felt like a freak. If I had only known how many other kids in the world, and even on my street, shared the same experience, I would have felt so much less lonely.
I have written eight books, both for adults and young people. But one theme that runs through my work, regardless of the audience, is the importance of honest communication. This has probably never been more clear than in The Cloud Chamber. I imagine how different Nate's and Junie's experience might have been if only their mother and the rest of the family could have talked with them about what was going on. I know from my own life that not talking about a problem never makes it go away, and no demon is ever so terrifying once you turn the light on and look at it.
There's another theme in this book that is very close to my heart, and that is the relationship of siblings, and the possibility of finding in one's sister or brother an ally and friend and a source of support. So often, these days, when people talk about brothers and sisters, it is with irritation and impatience. We almost assume, when we hear about a little sister or brother, that he or she will be viewed as a pest, and sometimes I think that characterizing siblings in such a way for children almost makes that happen.
I did not grow up feeling very close or connected to my sister, and I don't fault either of us for that. When you live in a family of secrets and secret-keeping, you may not feel easy or comfortable trusting another person with your real feelings, your real self. But in my story-and knowing I was giving my characters a terrible and painful situation to deal with-I wanted to give them some source of comfort, too. The closeness that exists between Nate and Junie is something I've witnessed among my own three kids, and I know what it has meant to them, having that, as they have lived through the hard experiences of their own lives. (Starting with their parents' divorce. And others, too.) If there was one thing that might have made my own life less scary as a child, it would have been the ability to share my anxieties with my sister. So I gave that gift to Junie and to Nate.
At a school visit not long ago, I was speaking to a class of seventh graders who were in the middle of reading the novel I wrote before this one, in which my main character-a thirteen- year-old girl-also goes through a very painful loss, and a boy asked me whether I only wrote sad books. I told him I don't think either that book, or this new one, The Cloud Chamber, is a sad story in the end. It's a hopeful one. To me, the most believable kind of happy story is not one in which nothing difficult ever happens because life just isn't that way-but one in which, when the difficult things occur, as they inevitably do, the people who experience them are able to survive their hard times without being crushed by them. I like to think that Nate and his sister-though they will be changed forever by their experience with their father-will grow up to be strong, healthy people, and probably more compassionate ones too, because of what they have experienced. And something tells me that if a problem comes up in their lives, they are going to talk about it-with each other, with their friends, and one day, with their children.
I don't set out to teach lessons in my novels, by the way. My aim is pretty simple: to tell a good story that you won't want to put down. I want to make characters you care about and bring them to life on the page. (Along the way, I also want to include all kinds of things that interest me, like how to build a cloud chamber, or a Beatles album I love-Revolver and a little information about stars, and maybe even instructions for how to throw a screwball.)
But in the course of telling my stories, and deciding what my characters will do, I give a lot of thought to what it is I care about and believe in. For instance, when Junie says to Naomi's father (when he lectures her on the subject of hell), "If I can forgive those people you'd think that God could," that is me talking too.
I believe in forgiveness. I believe in going outdoors, being with animals, finding solace in nature, building science fair projects. I believe in inviting girls with cerebral palsy to your birthday party, making time capsules, being a good friend not just to the popular people, but the unpopular ones too. Most of all, though, the message of this novel, if there is one, is that children deserve the truth. They know what's going on, whether the adults in their lives talk about it or not. It is so much better when we do.
For more information on this author, visit her website
Contributor: Simon & Schuster
Reviews
The Cloud Chamber
Joyce Maynard
It was 1966 in Lonetree, Montana. The Chance's Dairy Farm was home to 14-year-old Nate, his younger sister Junie, and their parents Carl and Helen. One February day their world was turned upside-down. As the school bus dropped Nate and Junie off at home, they witnessed their bleeding father being led to an ambulance. Helen and the children found themselves in the middle of a police investigation as to whether Carl's gunshot wound to his head was self-inflicted, or did Helen shoot him? With the rifle missing, would this mystery ever be solved? To make matters worse, the family was shunned by their friends and neighbors. The science fair was fast-approaching and Nate needed a partner to assist him with building a cloud chamber. Since his best friend Larry chose another partner, Nate was left to pair-up with the other class outcast, Naomi. The family's lack of conversation about his father's tragedy stirred up feelings of frustration, anger and despair in Nate. Nate and Junie missed their father terribly and took desperate measures to visit him. And when they finally reached their dad at the mental hospital... This story is sure to evoke feelings of compassion for the Chance family, and will hold the reader's interest until the very last word. Joyce Maynard has included information on building a cloud chamber under Acknowledgments. 2005, Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing Division, Ages 11 to 14, $16.95. Reviewer: Mary Jo Edwards
ISBN: 0-689-87152-X
ISBN: 0-689-04328-7
ISBN: 0-689-04484-4
The Usual Rules
Joyce Maynard
Wendy is an eighth grader with eighth grade worries. Her mother is an ex-dancer settled down to domestic life with her new husband, jazz musician Josh, and their four-year-old son, Louie. Wendy loves her family but longs to know her real father, Garrett, who breezes into her life every few years and just as quickly whisks himself away. Then it all comes crumbling down. Wendy's mom worked on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center, the first one hit on September 11, 2001. She did not return home that day. Dazed and shocked, her family swims through a changed world, a landscape that prompts Wendy's little brother to ask, "Does God know about this?" Wendy--and thousands like her-- somehow plug through days where the usual rules of grief do not apply. Out of the blue, Wendy's father shows up with a plan to take her to California. Though wracked with guilt for leaving Josh and Louie behind, Wendy takes him up on his offer. What could have turned out to be the often-told story of a child caught in a tug-of-war between parents becomes instead the story of a girl's journey through unimaginable grief. Wendy's California acquaintances are different from her New York circle, but not worse than they are. Therein lays the genius of this work. Though there are many characters with various flaws, all are sympathetic and real. September 11 provides enough evil to fill volumes. Packed with devastatingly beautiful images and exquisite dialogue, this is as close to a perfect novel as you're libel to come across. When it comes to recommending a good book, the usual rules don't apply. This is a must read. 2003, St. Martin's Press, $24.95. Ages 12 up. Reviewer: Christopher Moning (Children's Literature).
Best Books:
Best Books for Young Adults, 2004 Top Ten; American Library Association-YALSA; United States
The Children's Literature Choice List, 2004; Children's Literature; United States
Senior High School Library Catalog, Sixteenth Edition, 2004 Supplement, 2004
ISBN: 0312242611
To stay up to date on new books by this author, consider subscribing to The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database. For your free trial, click here.
Added 5/27/05
To stay up to date on new books by this author, consider subscribing to The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database. For your free trial, click here.
If you're interested in reviewing children's and young adult books, then send a resume and writing sample to marilyn@childrenslit.com.