Questions and answers on LIE

I’ve been asked so many questions regarding my debut novel LIE that I decided to write up a few the most interesting questions – and my answers. If you’ve read LIE I’d love to hear your thoughts!

On the surface, LIE is about white teens and a hate crime against Hispanics. Was there a particular incident that made you interested in this subject?
In 2008, I became aware of news stories about attacks against Hispanics in suburban areas, including on Long Island, where a group of mostly white teenagers attacked Marcelo Lucero and his brother. Marcelo Lucero ultimately died from the attack. And there were other attacks by suburban teens against Hispanics-- in Brooklyn, New York and in Pennsylvania. I am not saying these were the first, or will be the last, incidences of racism in the suburbs, but it was just the moment when I opened my eyes.
At the same time, after ending a long career in cable television, I started attending The City College of New York MFA-Fiction program in Harlem. I had people from all over the world in my classes. I thought surely some writer, somewhere, should take the idea of racism in the suburbs and run with it. But then I thought: Why can’t this person be me? I started writing, furiously, and finished a first draft in about three months. So, while this story was inspired by true events, it is wholly fictional – all the characters are sprung from my imagination.

But the crime seems to be a launching off for something more. What would you say that ‘more’ is?

The ‘more’ is a key question. The ‘more’ in my head is this: What makes good people follow others who are not? What makes some people followers and other leaders? What makes those leaders be bullies or haters? Ultimately, there’s a famous quote – “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” (Edmund Burke), and I kept turning that over in my head as created all these characters, who are grappling what they should do going forward, especially Skylar Thompson and Sean Mayer, the two teens at the heart of the story.

Why should teens care about evil triumphing or not?
Why should anybody? We live in a world were we have to make choices every day that affect others in big and little ways. We’re all interconnected, aren’t we? On some level? Though, admittedly, I know I made some pretty bad choices at time because I thought everybody else was thinking the same way.

What kind of bad choices?
I think I’m going to save that for my next novel!

P.S. My next novel, BEFORE MY EYES, is coming out in 2014 from St. Martin's Press! More about LIE at www.carolinebock.com.Lie