The Body of Christopher Creed (28 page)

I would venture to say that Chris Creed does not want to be exposed, for fear of his parents.

I would venture to say that you should not bother him with urgings to come forth until he is, quite possibly, twenty-five.

I would venture to say that, while your earnest desire to uncover him is admirable, he wishes to remain undiscovered for the time being. Thank you for sharing your story. And thank you for sharing your name...

Yours most truly,
Victor Adams

1. When Torey hears that the Creeds believe their son Chris was "grounded" and "normal," he is amazed at how clueless these parents are about the way their kid really was. Do you think your parents know the real you? How might they describe your personality to others? How is it different from the way your friends might describe you?
   
2. This story explores the repercussions that one person or event can have on an entire community. Can you think of an example of this—either positive or negative—in your community, or in the news?
   
3. Chris Creed's disappearance brings up lots of questions for Torey, like these: "If Creed had written that note, we would have had to point the finger at ourselves, or at least take a good long look at our ways and agonize over questions. Like, could we have played it out differently? Could we have been nicer? Do we have a heartless streak, and can we be bastards?" What are your feelings on these issues? Have you ever wondered how the manner in which you treat people affects them? Do you think even good people are capable of being "heartless" at times?
   
4. This story demonstrates the sometimes devastating impact of rumors and gossip. Cite some examples of this in the story. Have you ever been affected by gossip?
   
5. Ali says, "People are blind ... All they see is a person's reputation." This is certainly true of Bo, along with other characters in the story. What kinds of assumptions does Torey have about Bo before he gets to know him? What surprises him about the "real" Bo? What qualities does Bo possess that Torey admires?
   
6. If you had been in Torey's place, would you have let Bo take the blame for the phone call from the baseball field? Why or why not?
   
7. When the police come to school to take Bo away, Torey is stunned. He muses, "I was scared that these allegedly respectable people let this thing get so bad. I guess I thought seeing a situation clearly was just part of being a grown-up." How do the grown-ups in this story fail to see things clearly, in Torey's opinion? Was there ever a moment in your life when you realized that adults are capable of making mistakes, too? How did that make you feel?
   
8. How does Mrs. Creed's upbringing influence her opinion of Bo and her treatment of Chris? How might she have been different if she had not been raised a "boon"?
   
9. What do you think Mr. Ames wanted Mrs. Creed to understand about her son? Why did he request that Torey tell her?
   
10. What positive traits does Mrs. Creed believe she was passing to her son? Can you think of an example in real life of a person's best intentions hindering the progress of another person or situation?
    
11. Mr. Ames wonders, "Why do people have so much trouble seeing their own faults but such and easy time seeing everyone else's?" Why do you think this is so? Cite an example of someone in the story doing this.
    
12. Why does Torey stop associating with Leandra, Alex, Ryan, and Renee? How do they contribute to the madness surrounding Chris Creed's disappearance? Do you think Bo was right to reveal what he knew about Chief Bowen to Renee?
    
13. If Chris Creed is alive, what kind of changes do you think he would want to make in his life after leaving Steepleton?
    

Question: How long have you been writing?

Carol Plum-Ucci:
I wrote my first poem when I was eight. In fourth and fifth grades, I placed in (may have won) the city-wide essay contests. My kids are pretty jealous; I just never had any doubts about what I wanted to do, save that period most of us go through in seventh and eighth grade where we want to be either a veterinarian or a pediatrician. I went there, but bounced back after a couple months.

Q: What is your writing process? Do you work certain hours or days?

CP-U:
I've been very prone to writer's block, so I write whenever I get the urge, and I stick with it until the block gets me again. I've written all of my published books that way. I do have to be somewhat scheduled, as I also teach college (English) and homeschool my daughter (she's eleven as I'm writing this). Duty is ever calling, but when you get the inspiration, nothing can really stop it. I don't worry about it anymore.

Q: Are your characters inspired by people you know?

CP-U:
Lani Garver was inspired by a real friend of mine whom I call "my angel." He gave me a lot of fodder for Lani's past by telling me his past. But that's unusual, at least for me. Generally, characters are part of the author's psyche. To create characters, an author is actually paring off parts of his psyche and doling them out. Almost all my characters are like that.

Q: How do you come up with story ideas?

CP-U:
Generally some issue charges me up, and that's the fodder. It's the type of issue that makes you think, "Wow, that is so unfair. Why is life like that? What can be done about it?" For example,
Streams of Babel
came from my reflections on how people of other nations can really dislike Americans. We're just people, trying to make life work well with what we're given, and it feels strange and uncomfortable to me, this being an object of disdain because of where I was born and raised. Hence, the book arose on what average, small town people would feel like if terrorists took a shot at them.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

CP-U:
My first bit of advice is to keep it fun. If an aspiring writer, still in high school, feels like he is forcing himself to do the daily discipline thing, forget about it for a while. For me personally, high school was a great input time. I barely wrote a short story. That came later, when I was older and my time was more my own.

My second bit of advice is to seek out a college major other than creative writing. Students are better off majoring in journalism or advertising or even something like psychology, where they're prepared to do 'real life' during the day and use that to fill their idea tanks. Novels get written, regardless, and you can either be fed or starving in the process.

Q: You often write about the strained relationship between teens and authority figures. Many of your stories expose the hypocrisy of parents, teachers, or the police. Do you think it is important for teens to question authority?

CP-U:
I'm always surprised to hear that (though I hear it often), because extremely grounded adults are always in the forefront of my stories, and I feel great affection for them. Some great examples include Torey's parents and Principal Ames in
The Body of Christopher Creed;
Claire's father, all the doctors and medics, and all the guys in the band in
Lani Garver;
Evan's entire family, Principal Ashaad, and Edwin Church in
The She;
and Captain Lutz in
The Night My Sister Went Missing.
For some reason, the bad adults eclipse the good ones, and I'm not sure why that is, except that scandal tends to be more noticeable than stability.

I don't have personal issues with authority, though obviously, it is important for anyone of any age to question situations with which they're uncomfortable. I always tell my students, "Just because it appears in the pages of a book doesn't mean it's accurate."

Q: Many of your books feature characters who are missing, possibly dead. What do you hope readers will take away from your exploration of these ambiguous situations?

CP-U:
I don't really know why I keep revisiting the theme of missing people. I have Chris Creed, of course, and Lani Garver, and Casey Carmody in
The Night My Sister Went Missing.
It could be something as simple as that I have a peaceful nature and just don't have what it would take to create a serial killer for intrigue. It could also have something to do with my fixation on spirituality. Missing people tend to take on a divine status. They become mythical and may personify my journey through the mysteries of life and death.

Q: The ocean is often a key element in your stories. What does the sea represent to you, and what draws you to write about it?

CP-U:
When I first became a writer and it became obvious that I would have to do some public speaking, I started to examine my normal life for interesting fodder and realized how extraordinary certain aspects were. For one, I was raised in a funeral home. I spent half of my nights awake, waiting for corpses to come up the stairs. As well, I was raised on a barrier island. The islands speak to me, as do the Pine Barrens, where
Creed
took place. I realized I didn't need to go anywhere to have the perfect settings. I'm drawn back to them again and again, and in fact, I've broken writer's block by moving the settings of novels out of some other place, like the mountains, and down to the shore, where I can smell the sea and taste the salt in the air. Good settings work like characters, and I know mine very well.

Q: Many of your stories feature characters who are trying desperately to get a grip on reality—but are unsure what
is
reality. Do you think this is something that teens struggle with?

CP-U:
I use words in my stories like "convenient reality" and "his own version of reality," and heroes accuse antagonists of "picking their truths like melons at Superfresh." Much of this is lower language expressing my higher convictions about the supernatural.

What is truth?
is a question most people struggle with, especially today, when it is considered very uncool to say something is ultimately true, unless it's that nothing is ultimately true. If you're one of these people who truly believes something is ultimately true—I'm talking here about spirituality and the nature of God—you'll experience some tension. Most people still believe in an intelligent God; most people still believe in God's willingness to reveal his nature to man. However, once a person claims to have been a recipient, he's crossed a line that most will find intolerable, unless it's to do with concepts very trendy, very vague, or very convenient. We believe universally what we can't endure personally, and it gets us stuck in neutral.

I'm mentioning this because I think many teens feel the tension surrounding the pursuit of higher belief today. But art has always been the great peacemaker, the great means for us all to say all that we desire, and I've enjoyed watching rich symbolism, bearing out my favorite truths, appearing endlessly in my stories.

Q: In
The Body of Christopher Creed,
many characters reputations belie their true selves. Do you think it is important to second-guess our perceptions and judgments of others? What do you think we learn from stepping outside of our comfort zones and rejecting assumptions?

CP-U:
This gets back to one of my favorite themes:
Nothing is as it appears to be.
It's a good philosophy to hold to, I think, because it prevents people from passing judgment too quickly. I have a saying a girlfriend sent to me in an email that I posted by my terminal for a while: "Remember that everyone is fighting different battles." Hence, when somebody is mean or hurts my feelings or forgets to return my call when I really need them, I try to remember that they could have problems like Bo's or Ali's. It's more to do with them than with me. It helps.

A fun moment for me in
Creed
was writing about Torey bringing his guitar to school one time. Bo Richardson had been standing around and admiring Torey's spontaneous concert and asked if he could play the guitar sometime. Torey responded something like, "Do you know how to not drop it?" And Bo replied, "Do you know how not to be an asshole?"

It was one of those moments where Torey went from taking a remark at face value to understanding some of the anxiety that inspired it, and it was a turning point. I think Torey became less apt that day to blindly throw out remarks that could sound condescending and proud.

We are not soothsayers. We can't often know what battles people are fighting, but we can all assume that everyone is fighting them. So, let's turn the other cheek, not because it shows some sort of remarkable charity, but because it shows that we're seeing life how it really is. And mercy tends to come back to us when we need it the most.

Q: The mystery in your stories is often deepened by a touch of the supernatural. What draws you to write about the unknown?

CP-U:
I think I'm drawn to answering the big questions: What are we doing here, and what does it all mean? Certainly, the things we can see, smell, touch, taste, and hear leave clues to the meaning of life, but they are far from sufficient to answer these big questions. I'm kind of obsessed with the afterlife, which started in the funeral home when I was about eleven years old. One job of mine was to sweep up flower petals dropped by the flower shops delivering funeral arrangements before a viewing. I had to do this before the family came in, and it was a dreaded job. (Never turn your back on a corpse. Why not? I don't know. Just don't.)

One time I had one eye on the petals, one eye on the gentleman in the casket, and I realized that, for the first time, I was seeing someone whom I had known when he was alive. It took me a minute to recognize him, because people do look different when they're dead. My dad was a master craftsman at making death look dignified, but you can't put that spark of life back, no matter how good you are. So, I stood there and stared, remembering this man, the many things I had seen him doing.