Interview
Al Capone Does My Shirts was the most challenging book I’ve yet to write. While I was working on the book, I stood on my tippy toes stretching to do more than I was quite able. I’ve never worked so hard on anything, not ever. But I’ve also never felt so proud of anything I’ve done before.
Q: Where do you write?
I write in a tiny shoe box sized room in my home. The best thing about my writing space is my chair. I’m like the three little bears about my chair. It is neither too big or too small, too soft or too hard. It is my chair and it fits me just so. The second best thing about my writing space is my door. I keep it closed so my characters will stay inside with me and not wander all around the house.
Q: How do you develop a voice for your characters? Do you, or do they come to you full-blown?
The voice for Al Capone Does My Shirts did not come easily. The early drafts of the manuscript sounded like every 1930’s book, radio program or movie I’d ever heard all rolled into one. Then one day I realized there were millions and millions of people alive in 1935 — each with his or her own voice. That was a breakthrough. Moose’s voice came soon after that.
Q: Who is your favorite character in this book?
I love all the characters in Al Capone Does My Shirts, but I guess if you’re forcing me to pick, I’ll go with Theresa, Piper and of course Moose. I love Theresa because she reminds me of me when I was seven. I was quirky and pesty and I had to be included in absolutely everything.
I like Moose because he has a funny way of seeing the world. He’s kind and intelligent and he tries so hard to do the right thing. And I like Piper because she’s never apologetic. She’s clever, callous and cunning, not to mention supremely self-centered. But she’s also confident, extremely bright and full of great ideas. What I like best about Piper is how much she loves Moose. Something about the relationship between Moose and Piper fascinates me. There’s a magnetic attraction which brings both their personalities into balance somehow.
Q: What was the most challenging thing about writing this book?
Writing Al Capone Does My Shirts seemed like trying to get 300 dogs to howl all at the same time. For a long time it felt like I was writing two different books. Book one was about Moose’s exterior life, the life on the island and book two was about Moose’s interior life, his life with his family. It was very challenging to weave both those books together and yet it seemed so important because, like all of us, Moose behaves differently among his friends than he does at home. It didn’t seem possible to really see who he was unless we experienced both parts.
I have, quite honestly, never worked on any one project as hard as I worked on Al Capone Does My Shirts. Luckily for me I have a world class editor in Kathy Dawson who really “got” the book. And she kept nipping at my heels until I wrote the book we knew Al Capone Does My Shirts could be.
Q: Where did you get the idea for Al Capone Does My Shirts? And what kind of research did you have to do for this book, if any?
I got the idea for Al Capone Does My Shirts when I read an article in the newspaper about kids who grew up on Alcatraz. These children were the sons and daughters of the guards who worked in the cell house that housed some of America’s most notorious criminals. Within a week of reading the article, I signed up to work as a docent on Alcatraz.
I spent a year as a docent. I interviewed people who grew up on the island, read handwritten records of inmates, guards and kids who lived on the island. I went to an Alcatraz Island “Alumni Day” where I heard dozens of old Alcatraz residents (from both sides of the bars) speak. I hobnobbed with several of the many Alcatraz heads, who know every arcane fact about the place. I read dozens and dozens of books and spent countless hours roaming the island imagining how it would feel to be Moose.
I researched before I started writing, while I was writing, and while I was revising. I even had to look up a few things during the copy editing stage.
Q: Did anything unusual happen while you were working on the book?
Right from the beginning of the research, bizarre little coincidences began to occur. One day I’d come up with an incredibly wacky idea and a few days later I’d discover something remarkably similar actually happened in real life. Even the title has historic resonance.
Al Capone’s first job on Alcatraz was working the mangle in the laundry facility that serviced all of the people who lived on Alcatraz, including the guards, their wives and children. And so I figured if I were a kid living on Alcatraz I’d tell my friends “Al Capone does my shirts.” When the manuscript was finished one of the historians we used to vet Al Capone Does My Shirts asked me why I didn’t use the real quote. “What real quote?” I asked. “Al Capone does my shorts,” he said. Apparently WWII GIs sometimes used the phrase: Al Capone does my shorts” to indicate they were stationed in San Francisco.
Q: Did Al Capone Does My Shirts change very much from first draft to last? How?
When I speak on writing I talk about how important it is to consider the chemistry between the characters in your book. The example I use describes one of the significant changes I made in the manuscript.
“Ever have a party with people from different parts of your life, who don’t know each other and they all get together and WOW there’s this snap crackle pop thing happening. People are sparking. Your yoga teacher hits it off with your uncle the sharp shooter. Even the pets are getting along. The same thing can happen or fail to happen in your novel. I don’t know about you, but I’ve thrown dud parties too. Every person looks at his or her watch and has someplace else they have to be. I had a very polished draft of Al Capone Does My Shirts finished when I realized that my group of secondary characters — the kids on the island — didn’t have enough chemistry. It’s not that they were bad characters. They were funny. They were original. I liked them. But they didn’t gel with each other. So I kicked them out of the book. It was a huge amount of work. It just about killed me. But out of that came the funniest character in the whole novel, Theresa Mattaman. I didn’t plan her either. She just showed up one day.”
Q: What kind of challenges, if any, did you come across while writing this book?
The main reason Al Capone Does My Shirts means so much to me is because of the relationships in the book. Like the main character Moose, I grew up with a sibling who had autism. And though I am not Moose and my sister is not Natalie there’s no doubt that this experience fueled the book.
But the fact that this book is “close to home” gave it some additional baggage as well. It was extremely confusing and terribly frustrating to grow up with a sibling who had autism. I really wanted to reach out to other children who are the siblings of children with problems. It was very important to me that the book ring true to those kids.
On the other hand, I felt like I’d be doing the subject a great disservice if I wrote a dreary-downer-dealing-with-disease kind of book. I thought I’d do the topic greater justice if I wrote a more universal book — a fun book full of unexpected plot twists — a book everyone would want to read.
Q: Who influenced you to become a writer?
My strongest influence to become a writer and my strongest influence not to become a writer were the same person. My dad. Writing was my father’s passion. He wrote every day of his life. But, his regular 9–5 job was as a business executive and he was never able to get his work published, no matter how hard he tried. And he tried very hard.
And so I learned two things from him. One was that writing was a blast and two was it would break your heart. It took me a long time to come to terms with this for myself and to be willing to take the risks necessary to pursue a career as a writer. Unfortunately, my father died when I was a teenager, so he never lived to see me publish anything. But he was one of the most generous people I have ever known. I know he would have been very proud of me.
Q: What was your first job as a teen?
I braided manes and tails for horse shows. I was never as good as Lynn Moscrop or Lisa Polaire though, so they made a lot more money than I did. I soon moved on to my second job which was horse back riding instructor for blind and deaf children.
Q: If you could have any superpower, what would it be and what would you do with it?
I know I should say I’d like the power to create world peace, but the truth is what I’d really like is to be a fly on the wall … only I hate flies. So how about if I could borrow Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak? I am incredibly, amazingly, astoundingly nosy. I love to listen in on conversations I’m not supposed to hear. I love to know people’s secrets and to see how people act when they don’t think they’re being observed.
And I like to know all of this when I first meet a person. If I had my way I’d dispense with all small talk and go right for the heart of things. Hello-my-name-is-Gennifer-what-is-the-most-embarrassing-experience-of-your-entire-life?”
Q: What do you like on your pizza?
Black olives and red onions.