Orphan Monster Spy
Page 31
I could keep going, but I’d fill another book. By all means, reach out to ask me for more details, or indeed, correct me where you think I’ve gotten something wrong.
While Sarah Goldstein did not exist, her world was all too real. Worse still, it lives on today in insidious ways.
The idea that Sarah was her mother’s only caregiver sounds abusive, yet she was what is now called a young carer. There are about 700,000 in the UK and 1.4 million in the US, children as young as six taking responsibility for sick or disabled relatives who have no one else to turn to. Sixty-eight percent of these caregivers are bullied in school and exhibit anxiety, depression, and feelings of worthlessness. Then there are one in five children in the UK who are affected by their parents’ drinking. 6.6 million children in the US live in a house with one alcoholic parent. These children can look forward to a lifetime of struggle with their own mental health.
In 2015, nineteen states in the USA still permitted corporal punishment in schools, even though to strike criminals is considered “cruel and inhuman” by the Supreme Court. Despite overwhelming medical evidence for the irreversible damage caused by caning a child’s open palm, where there is no protective tissue, this is still used by some schools today.
Children have been living in relative poverty in some of the world’s richest countries for decades. However, after the 2008 banking crash caused by greed and immorality in the banking sector, and the economically self-defeating austerity measures enacted by western governments, we have hungry children in the UK and US. In some towns, one in five children goes to school with an empty belly.
Recent years have revealed to us just how widespread the sexual abuse of children and other vulnerable people by those in positions of authority has been. This abuse was and is often institutionalized, concealed, or dismissed as trivial by churches, youth organizations, broadcasters, children’s homes, schools, sporting federations, and even governments.
People often wonder how the German people allowed the Nazis to take power. They scoff at the idea that “innocent” Germans did not speak up. At some point, people say, they would have stood up, complained and protested about all those small incremental injustices that built up, until it was too late.
Right now, children care for adults, experience abuse, and go hungry. All that is required to make this stop is the will of enough people. Movements can and must start with just one person. Stand up, complain, and protest.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IF IT TAKES a village to raise a child, it appears that it takes a cohort, a university, a society, and a family to write a book—let alone get it published. It’s a possibility that this work could have existed without their contribution and their deadlines, but you probably wouldn’t be reading it right now.
Those requiring thanks are just too numerous to be contained here, so the following is an “including, but not limited to” list. Conversely, markedly different expressions of gratitude are not abundant enough to make these acknowledgements a good read, and those that do exist are woefully inadequate.
I have to start with a tale of two Scoobies.
There is my MA cohort at Manchester Metropolitan University, aka the Scooby Gang. We met weekly online, in a watcher’s library of the mind, salivating over maps, dragons, and the necessity for dead monks. We made each other better, we made each other laugh, and we messed royally with our tutors. A more supportive and talented bunch of writers it would be difficult to find, with a chemistry impossible to replicate. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to Marie Dentan, Jason E. Hill, Kim Hutson, Anna Mainwaring, Luci Nettleton, Alison Padley-Woods, Katy Simmonds, and Paula Warrington, not forgetting Dave and Jane who we lost along the way. If there’s something bad out there, we’ll find, you’ll slay, we’ll party. I love you all.
Thank you also to the MMU staff whose belief and tutelage turned a hack into an author—Livi Michael, Iris Feindt, Catherine Fox, N M Browne, and Ellie Byrne, with special gratitude to Sherry Ashworth for praise and validation at a critical moment.
The second set of Scoobies are the members, volunteers, and organizers of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, or SCBWI. This is a very special organization, uniquely caring and genuinely helpful, with a real all for one and one for all spirit. We’re not in competition. One person’s success is everyone’s success. Add to this free wine, tables of cake, and the best costume parties. I can’t possibly name every Scooby who has touched my life, and I couldn’t single out any one person for fear of neglecting someone. Look, you know who you are. See you at the next conference or retreat.
SCBWI also gave me the opportunity to meet some authors and professionals whose advice and encouragement changed my career—or at least gave me a sound bite to get me through the dark times. Being told I “could be the YA Graham Greene” is right up there with once being mistaken for Johnny Depp in a restaurant. Thank you to Elizabeth Wein, Melvin Burgess, and Lauren Fortune, to name but three.
There is, of course, nothing like someone staking their professional reputation on you and loving your work as much as you do. Enter Molly Ker Hawn at TBA, the Great Santini of editing and the kind of agent I spend every writing day trying to be worthy of. Thank you, Molly, and may your eyes be forever tiny-spider-free.
Which brings me to my editors Kendra Levin at Viking and Sarah Stewart at Usborne, whose very real connection to and empathy with the story and characters made many hard choices easy ones. Thank you for the belief and achievable deadlines. Gratitude must also go to Jody Corbett and Janet B. Pascal for keeping me on my toes.
To everyone else who expressed a preference, the deepest gratitude for your kind words and compelling stories.
I have to thank those who contributed to the story in some vital way—my Jewish consultant Deborah Goldstein, self-described “disappointing gymnast” Leila Sales, Paula and Luci for horses and Norse mythology respectively, Jo Wyton for seismic advice, and Dr. Jennifer Naparstek Klein whose counsel on childhood trauma I took (and occasionally ignored). Danke & dzięki to Kornelia Lemberger and Jannina Broders. Thanks also to the innumerable librarians, online historians, and museum curators whose help and work have been invaluable, especially the Center for Jewish History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Miscellaneous thanks to the late great Mal Peet, SF Said, Sarwat Chadda, Kathryn Evans, Peter Bunzl, Vanessa Curtis, Clare Furniss, Non Pratt, Robin Stevens, Emma Solomon, Miriam Craig, Alexandra Boyd, Louise Palfreyman, Anna’s students, and my other unnamed readers, for feedback and guidance.
Before I get to my real family, I want to express a measure of gratitude to my colleagues and friends at the company that isn’t, in fact, called TLG, for their support, tutelage, and moments of invaluable humanity. Thank you Jeremy, Ali, Heidi, Greg, Janne, Lauren, and everyone in Enfield for making me part of your clan. Never forget that det bedste er ikke for godt.
Thank you to my big brothers, Andy and Ben, the BAM, orphans all. In particular, Andrew Killeen, a grown-up writer of thrilling and NSFW historical fiction, who has been an inspiration to me for my entire life. He was the arbiter elegantiarum of my teens and childhood—yes, even the Emerson, Lake & Palmer—so he gets a degree of credit (and blame) for the person I’ve become.
Thank you to Coco-Mojo for keeping me fit. Who’s a good girl? You are. Yes, you are.
Thank you to my children, Elliott and little FH, who delight and challenge me by equal turns, delighting me as they infuriate. You are inspirational, motivational, and as close to a meaning for existence as I’ve found. You are wonderful people who make me proud. I love you with all my heart and with an intensity for which words are inadequate.
As for Anne-Marie, my sweetest and only . . . as a description, “muse” doesn’t really do you justice. Writers are often asked, “Is your partner supportive?” by which they mean, “How do they stand you being emotionally unavailable and moody, spending all your time alone w
ith fictional people who enrage you, and making no money in the process? Is it possible they still love you in any way?” Yes, you are supportive. You invented supportive. Thank you for helping me become myself, in every way. This book is yours.
Matt Killeen was born in Birmingham, in the UK, back when trousers were wide and everything was brown. Early instruction in his craft included being told that a drawing of a Cylon exploding isn’t writing and copying out your mother’s payslip isn’t an essay “about my family.” Several alternative careers beckoned, some involving laser guns and guitars, before he finally returned to words and attempted to make a living as an advertising copywriter and largely ignored music and sports journalist. He fulfilled a childhood ambition and became a writer for the world’s best loved toy company in 2010, as it wasn’t possible to be an X-wing pilot. Married to his Nuyorican soul mate, he is parent to both an unfeasibly clever teenager and a toddler who is challenging his father’s anti-establishment credentials by repeatedly writing on the walls. He accidentally moved to the countryside in 2016.
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