CJ Harper

CJ Harper

About Author

C.J. Harper is a graduate of the Bath Spa MA in Creative Writing for Young People and a former Waterstone's children's bookseller. THE DISAPPEARED is her first novel.

Interview

THE DISAPPEARED

SIMON & SCHUSTER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

FEBRUARY 2013


The Disappeared contemplates a future society divided between those destined for government and professional careers and those who will be shuttled through inadequate schooling and into factory work.

Jackson, part of the elite, finds himself excluded from all he has known after an attack leaves his friend dead and himself injured. Adapting to survive, he begins to uncover the leadership's role in creating this society - and discovers that the leader is after him.... (Age range 11+)

Author CJ Harper talked to ReadingZone about some of the ideas behind The Disappeared.


Q: Why did you decide a novel about the future, and why do you think the interest in dystopia novels is so prevalent now?

A: While I was teaching a particularly challenging class, a couple of students physically backed me into a corner. It occurred to me that teachers might feel safer if they taught from behind the kind of reinforced glass that they have in banks. Since I doubted my ability to convince the head teacher to introduce it, I knew if I wanted to write a story about teachers in protective cages then it would have to be set in the future.

I think that dystopia novels are popular because teenagers are interested in how societies work and they have an emerging awareness that appearances can be deceptive.

Dystopias are particularly pertinent in todays climate where young people are leaving school with uncertain futures and, due to recent events, a more critical attitude towards government and the media.

Q: How did you develop the idea of a future where children are 'segregated' from birth?

A: I think it started with talking to my colleagues about selective schools and whether it was really possible to test children's potential. My school were also discussing the value of vocational qualifications.

In The Disappeared both these things are taken to the extreme and children are tested at age five and those who end up in the Academy are only trained for the factory work that they're going to do. Everything else is left out.

Q: When you set out to write the novel, did you expect discrimination to be a dominant issue?

A: It gradually became one of the key themes. I started out considering why people allow bad things to happen in their society, which lead me to thinking about how, throughout history, perpetrators of the mistreatment of a group of people justify it by finding a way to consider themselves superior to their victims.

I knew that I wanted my main character to be guilty of that sort of behaviour and that in order for him to understand his own misconceived attitudes, I was going to make him experience discrimination too.

I also wanted to show how arbitrary the selection of 'in' and 'out' groups can be. That's why I chose to reverse roles by having a group traditionally discriminated against (redheads) setting themselves up as a supremacists at the Academy.

Q: You turn Jackson's perceptions upside down by taking him into an 'Academy', which he mistakenly believes is for young people who are somehow inferior. How important is it that young people are encouraged to see life from other perspectives?

A: It's very important and I've always found books a great place to start. Growing up, I attended six different schools, and I wish that the girls from the private school and the kids from the comprehensive could have swapped places with each other for a few weeks. I think they both would have learned a lot.

So many horrible things happen because people perceive a difference between themselves and others. Empathy is vital, but the further apart two groups are kept, the less likely they are to feel it.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your views of language and power, a key theme in The Disappeared?

A: Language is powerful. The Disappeared shows language being used to manipulate, control and label, but Jackson also likens literacy to fighting skills and demonstrates the strength a command of language gives you.

When I taught English, students would often say to me, 'I don't need to know this, Miss. I'm going to be a plumber/ hairdresser/ footballer's wife'. But the reason I wanted to teach English in the first place was to give children skills for life, not for a specific job. Everybody needs to be able to communicate well. You have to be able to express yourself to make sure youre heard.

Q: You directly pit young people against corrupted political systems - is that a reflection on contemporary society?

Yes. Jackson feels like he's the only one who cares what's going on and I think many teenagers feel the same way when they're confronted with political apathy and an aversion to change.

In my experience young people make fearless political protesters; they've got high ideals and they refuse to be limited by deficiencies in the current system.

Q: Are there any settings that inspired the storys Academy for you? Is the name any reflection on todays new 'academy' system?

A: It probably says something about the interior of my mind that the 'grid' that students are strapped to and the disgusting 'feeding pods' are straight out of my imagination!

The only setting that was inspired by a real location is the drum-shaped fighting room, which is taken from a school I worked at. I used to fantasize about making the rudest children battle it out there, in gladiator style.

By calling the schools Academies I may have been trying to suggest that there is a great deal more to ensuring happiness and success within an educational institute than rebranding it with a fancy name.

Q: What would you like young people to take away from reading The Disappeared?

A: Question what you are taught.

Q: What have you got planned next for Jackson and how many books do you expect to write about him?

A: The Disappeared is the first in a trilogy. The next book finds Jackson in the one place he feared even more than the Academy, the Wilderness.

Here, in a ghost city, he finds a bloodthirsty captain training a ruthless Resistance who are everything Jackson has hoped for, except for one thing: they're a bunch of kids.

Jackson thinks he can use the Resistance's plans to get close enough to kill his father, The Leader, ending his brutal and bloody treatment of the underclass. Simple.

But what Jackson discovers about his father and the devastating methods of the Resistance is anything but simple. Who is controlling the country? And who can Jackson trust?

Q: What made you develop The Disappeared as a series rather than a one-off book?

A: It started as one book, but as I got further in I realised that the story fell into three distinct parts. I've known the ending of the trilogy right from the beginning.

Q: Do you see yourself as a natural teen writer, or do you plan to write for other age ranges? Why do you enjoy writing for teenagers?

A: I've always wanted to write for teens. For me, the exciting thing about writing for and about young adults is that they are at a time in their life where massive decisions are being made. They're considering what they want to do with their lives and what kind of person they hope to be. It's exciting to write about someone who is developing and changing.

As well as the dramatic things that are going on internally, I find teenagers are interested in what's going on around them and that they like to explore important issues. I enjoy writing about big questions especially as, in my experience, teenagers, unlike many adults, are still making up their minds and are completely open to considering things from all sides.

Q: How does your writing day go? Any bad habits? Where do you do your writing?

A: My worst habit is eBay. It may not be possible to provide my children with all the super '80s toys from my childhood, but I am having a good go.

Usually, once I've got my daughter to school and the baby in his bouncer, I sit on my sofa and have my first bash. I type fast and miss out lots of things. Then there's some playing with Duplo and making lunch. When my son has a nap I have another go.

If I'm lucky, my husband gets home early enough for me to have another session before I put the baby to bed. In the evening I often go back over things, reinserting all the letters I've missed out and filling in bits where I've written WRITE SOMETHING REALLY GOOD HERE. I usually write every single day.


Q: What are you working on now?

A: I've just done the copy-edits for a very different teen book that will be published in June called Have a Little Faith (written as Candy Harper).

Faith is in big trouble because her head of year, Miss Ramsbottom, seems to think that she is always blowing stuff up and giving supply-teachers radical haircuts. Whereas, as Faith points out, it was actually just that one time.

Faith's diary charts her blood feud with Miss Ramsbottom, and also her attempts to ignore the immaturity of old people, and her quest to find herself a boyfriend who knows how to have a good cheese fight.


Q: What do you do to relax when youre not writing?

A: I read. It's the quickest and cheapest way to go on holiday that I know. Also, I enjoy wrestling with my children. Sometimes for fun and sometimes just to get them into the bath.

Q: What are your top five book recommendations for teenagers?

A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly
Pure by Julianna Baggott
My sister lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Author's Titles