Anne: Hello, Chris! I’ve loved reading your many award-winning YA novels, and now to see that you’ve written for MG readers—well, it’s great news for MG Book Village. Welcome! Your MG novel Walkin’ the Dog comes out tomorrow, March 12. Would you please give readers a brief summary of what the story is all about?
Chris: Funny, the more one does these summaries, the harder it is to be brief. Because, I think, the book keeps growing in the author’s mind, to encompass so many ideas, the impulse to keep saying, “…and another thing…and another thing…” is strong. I will try to resist that impulse here.
Anne: This book has so many layers, it’s hard to sum up! Okay, what say you?
Chris: Thirteen-year-old Louis has been homeschooled for most of his life, and that has suited him fine. One of life’s happy and committed bystanders, he’s just not keen on getting involved. His activist mother nicknamed him “The Inactivist.” But things are changing, he is going to the local high school in the fall, and his mother is hospitalized with opioid-related issues. Circumstances dictate that he needs to get up and out—first as a favor to a family friend, then as a thriving business proposition—as a dog walker. As most people know, when you’re walkin’ dogs, all life eventually comes to you, and you to it. And this constitutes Louis’ pilgrim’s progress from reclusive kid to engaged citizen of the world.
Anne: Thank you. Louis ends up getting much more than a few bucks for his dog-walking efforts. The story is full of wisdom! And it’s really funny. You succeeded in making me laugh and cry. Seriously. And my question is: when you sit down to write, do you already know the themes you’ll weave into a story, or do they emerge along the way? What was your starting-point for Walkin’ the Dog?
Chris: The road to Walkin’ the Dog has been so long and twisty (first signed up in 2015) that I barely remember the starting point. Except that, as with all my work, it started with characters. The only two to make it through the whole journey were Louis and his older, gnarly brother, Ike. Ike changed a lot, but more importantly, the female characters came forward and took over much of the narrative. But I knew I wanted Louis to have a journey from ne’er-do-well to maybe-do-something. My editor, Kendra Levin, was the one who drove me to come up with a vehicle to get Louis out and about and into life. I’d long thought of dog walkers as making the world go round (how often do news items tell us that important stuff was discovered by people walking dogs?), and harbored dreams of using them in a book. So, rather than a starting point, I guess Kendra and the dogs represented the vital re-starting point of the book.
Anne: Nice. Your characters are unique and complex, including a fisherman dad, a quick-with-a-comeback younger sister, and (among others) two you already mentioned—Louis’s gnarly older brother and activist mom. How do you come up with your characters? Are any of them based on people you know?
Chris: Pretty much all my characters are composites. I don’t really like to lean too heavily on real people because I generally find that unfair. The people in our lives have not signed up for this life just because we fiction writers have signed up for it. So I hope there is deep enough cover at work that nobody I know feels violated by my work. Sometimes though, needs must, and I need to give credit where it’s due. The mother borrows heavily from an old family friend, Eleanor Batuyios, who worked for many years at Rosie’s Place, the women’s shelter in Boston. Eleanor was the model for Ma’s heroism and superhumanity, though not, I should emphasize, her personal issues.
Anne: That’s great. I hope Eleanor reads this.
Now, let’s talk about the dogs. They’re key characters, too. Clearly, you’re a dog-lover! You appreciate how therapeutic a relationship with a dog can be. Tell me about your dogs. Are any of the dogs in the story based on yours?
Chris: Dogs. Oy. I have had many magnificent mutts. I shall keep this brief because I could go on and on, but also for the next, obvious reason. Dexter, the dog with me in the book’s author photo, had to be put down in February. He saw me through so, so, so many things during his 13+ years, and it’s one of the great, rotten, cosmic jokes that he had to exit the stage one month before this particular book came out. But, if you knew Dex, you would be certain that this was just how he would have had it. No fuss suited him down to his paw pads.
Which leaves us with Selkie. Our wonderful blonde Lurcher (Greyhound/Saluki cross), who at least now can rocket across the park after tennis balls because she is not worrying about what Dexter is up to (which she did, constantly, charmingly, infuriatingly). We got the two of them at the same shelter, exactly 10 years apart. It closed this year.
I spent many glorious hours on the SSPCA website during the writing of WTD. Many critters—including the three-legged white Lurcher—came directly from those pages.
Anne: Oh, I sense how hard it must have been to say good-bye to Dexter. I’m sure Selkie misses him, too. In the book, your three-legged white Lurcher is a stunning character.
Now, back to the humans in the story: we tend to have a stereotypical view of a thirteen year-old as difficult and at odds with their parents, but Louis is nothing of the sort. He loves his parents. He cares about them. He’d do anything to please them. He’s a refreshing, endearing character! Tell me about you. What were you like when you were thirteen?
Chris: When I was thirteen? I suppose I think of that as calm-before-the-storm time. Eighth grade was one of the best years of my life. Bearing in mind I am fond of saying my memory is so keen I remember stuff that never happened.
Anne: Ha! Love it.
Chris: But there is no single phase of life that does not make me wince at my behavior to this day. I was overconfident and yet deeply lacking in self-confidence. I had friends, performed well in school, and managed being thirteen better than a lot of years before or since.
Anne: Much of the story’s underlying tension has to do with Louis not looking forward to high school in the fall. If you could once again imagine yourself as thirteen, anticipating the start of high school, what words of wisdom would you tell yourself?
Chris: On the precipice of high school, I would tell myself to find my true self. The world is opening up now, so find out who you are and how you fit within it. Then, as much as you can, be that guy, be great at being that guy and resist all the temptations (they will be overwhelming) to be somebody else.
Anne: Wise. Thank you. Makes me want to reread the book and soak up its wisdom all over again.
Chatting with you has been an honor. Let’s end with your social media links. Where can readers go to learn more about you? Google tells me your website is your name followed by “.link” but when I go there, I get a warning that the site has been compromised. Do I have the right URL?
Chris: As for a social media presence, I don’t really have one. There is a Facebook page or two, but I can’t even access them. The email that was used to set them up is long out of business, and Meta can’t let me redo my password because they would only do that with the email of record.
As for that other site, don’t bother if it’s compromised, as it’s not me anyway. Turns out there are a whole lot of other Chris Lynches out there, and some of them are writers. I guess if it can happen to Harvey Pekar, it can happen to anybody, right?
Anne: Okay, then I’ll link to this Simon and Schuster page that tells folks a bit more about the book and some of the great reviews it’s gotten.
Thank you so much, Chris, for spending a little time with us here at MG Book Village. I’m feeling Newbery vibes for Walkin’ the Dog, and I’ll be looking for it on next year’s Awards short lists.
Chris: Thank you, Anne, it has been a pleasure. I appreciated all your kind words. If my books can find readers, I’ll be a happy guy. I’m happy to just be able to keep doing what I do!
Chris Lynch is the award–winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including Printz Honor Book Freewill, Iceman, Gypsy Davey, and Shadow Boxer—all ALA Best Books for Young Adults—as well as Killing Time in Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Pieces, Kill Switch, Angry Young Man, and Inexcusable, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. Chris is the author of middle grade novel Walkin’ the Dog. He holds an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. He teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University. He lives in Boston and in Scotland.
Anne (A.B.) Westrick (she/her) is the author of the older-MG novel Brotherhood. You can learn more about Anne at the MG Book Village “About” page and her website, abwestrick.com.
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