The Opposite of Cute

When people ask me to describe the main character of my book, Ruby Tabeata, the first thing that comes to mind is “not cute.” I wanted to write for middle-grade students because it seemed less likely they'd want a book centered on “romance”—and more likely they'd want something reflecting their tastes, interests and abilities.

I wanted to create a story about a young girl who was strong-willed, adventurous, courageous and rebellious. I also wanted someone my own 11-year-old self would have liked and enjoyed meeting (and being). So I created someone who could be dark and fierce, but also kind and loving—and passionate about living life the way she thought an artist should live it.

Beat Generation artists seemed like the best setting for this sort of character because they didn’t believe in “cute” either. The culture was based around rebelling against all society’s conventions—and in 1958 there were quite a few, for women, especially. They included wearing bows and crinolines and hiding one’s ambition to do anything other than making a guy the center of your universe.

I couldn’t see my heroine dotting her “I’s” with circles or drawing purple hearts with magic marker on her poetry or letters. She wouldn’t want cute clothes and wouldn’t wear big skirts and party dresses. She does have a bit of a crush (on Jack Kerouac) but she is not revolving her life around any one guy.

Of course, she is a little young for that by design, but I like to think as she gets older she will continue to be unconventional and strong. (And since I’m writing her, no worries).

I hope my 11-year-old self would have approved. After changing schools from a very orthodox Jewish day school to a junior high in New Jersey where classmates cared mostly about clothes and boys, I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.

While I didn’t grow up in the middle of the Beat Generation, reading about Beat poets gave me hope that somewhere, I could find an artistic community where the emphasis was more on what you could do and say and paint and write instead of what you wore and who wanted to go out with you.

That’s where Ruby came from and it will continue to be where she is going. It doesn’t mean if you draw purple hearts on your notes you won’t like her. But it may mean she can offer you a different point of view.

For more information on the Beat Generation and cultural changes in the 1950s, take a look at the articles below:

·         A “Beat” Generation: Influence and Knowledge from the Masters

·         Bob Dylan, the Beat Generation and Allen Ginsberg’s America: Sean Wilentz

·         The Beat Generation

Why This Book? Why Now?

Author's note: Soon after hearing that Booktrope's UPdrift Imprint would be publishing The Beat on Ruby's Street, I was asked by the imprint's managing editor to write about what propelled me to write this particular novel--and why it was important to write it now. I posted my response a few months back; but I'm sharing it again because the book will launch this week, and in case you haven't been avidly reading my every word since last May... :) ...I thought it would be helpful to repost.

When my son Josh was about six, we found a children’s book at the library with short stories and he fixed on one, in particular, that fascinated him. It surprised us both because it wasn’t what you would normally call a “children’s” story. 

Instead, it was about how a mother prevented Death from taking her baby. She did this by making a recording of her baby’s cry and setting up recordings in different rooms. Somehow or other, the time limit for Death ran out and the baby was saved.

We read this story over and over again. Josh was beginning to learn about death and had already learned about divorce, as his dad and I split up when he was five. While we talked about everyone being born and dying, and of course living in between, I think my son was most intrigued with the notion of defeating something undefeatable.

“You know books are different than real life, because the author gets to make up the story, and decides what happens to the characters in it,” I said. “I know,” he said, but still wanted to read the story with me every night before he went to bed.

I think of it now as his first introduction to the mind of an artist, and how art can sometimes triumph over harsh realities. As a boy, Josh’s imagination soared over the world as it was, making me remember the imaginary friends and animals I had as a child. I began to think if one could pass on traits like hair and eye color, maybe one could (and did) also pass on artistic inclinations and a certain way of seeing life.

When I wrote The Beat on Ruby’s Street, I began putting together bits and pieces of my own childhood and then glommed on to the one I’d always wanted. I was raised in suburban New Jersey but never felt I belonged there. The streets of Manhattan, pulsing with hippies when I was a child and punk rockers when I returned after college, seemed closer to the kind of world I was looking for.

Though I did not grow up during the “Beat Generation” era, I always thought the poets and artists of 1950s Greenwich Village paved the way for the hippies, rebels, punk rockers and rule breakers of the future. When everyone else was falling in step with two-car garages and Mad-Men lifestyles, Beats were trying to wean themselves away from materialism and superficial attachments.

They were accused of being spoiled children who refused to buckle down and work—but if you read their books and poetry, you see a different story. It recognizes that yes, life can be beautiful and joyful—but it also has all kinds of curve balls waiting to trip you up, and there is no real way to solve them. If you are here, on this earth, chances are you will hopefully have fun, but you are also going to suffer. And suffering is useless unless it is transformative—and that’s what art has the power to give us.

The Beat on Ruby’s Street brings us into the teeming, complicated life of a young girl whose world falls apart despite her frantic efforts to keep it together. Coming of age and coming out of it is only possible because she is able to find her own voice through the tumultuous, messy, artistic minds around her. It is a journey we all take in one way or another, but whether we are artists or  not doesn’t matter. In the end, I think art can help us get through what might otherwise be unbearable.

That’s what Ruby searches for throughout The Beat on Ruby’s Street—and it’s what propelled me to write this book.

Mother & baby: Bob Whitehead

Josh: family photo

Man with motorcycle: Axel Bȕhrmann