The Outsider, the Rogue, the Anti-hero
Today, three of my four children started school--new schools in a new state, not knowing a soul, for the most part. It poured this morning, and I stood with my commuter mug at the bus stop in the rain and wanted to cry. Not only would I miss them, not only do I feel, at times, equally out of place, but I watched them, separate from the other kids a bit, outsiders, and my soul left me for a bit. I was always the outsider, and when you have children, they are so much a part of you that you feel their pains in ways no one can prepare you for. If you don't have kids, you can't understand, and if you do, no further words are necessary.
When I write YAs, I can tap into that immediately. The outsider girl, the keeper of secrets, the one no one understands for the things she has seen and knows. Lucy, in HIGH SCHOOL BITES is the outsider girl from the house that looks like the Munsters live there. She is the motherless girl, the girl who grieves but has to be responsible.
As Americans, I think we are fascinated by outsiders . . . and outsiders grow up to be rogues or anti-heroes (or anti-heroines). They stay outside the norm, never quite fitting in and deciding they prefer it better that way--skirting the law or skirting convention. I dress all in black--and people judge me . . . but it's not that I am dark or even dramatic (things I am accused of) but that it's simply easier and I never have to worry if I match. I don't give a thought to my clothes--black goes with black. What could be simpler? Yet it seems so different from the Barbie Moms. And that's okay. I've been outside the norm for so long I don't think I'd know what to do if I was suddenly invited to the club, so to speak.
I love the rogue. I love the anti-hero. My favorite hero was Robin Hood, and I would, in a heartbeat, lie, cheat, or steal for the inner-city kids I have mentored. I would bend the rules. Look the other way. And if I admire a hero who takes it a step further . . . well, I can't help it, I don't think. It's the outsider all grown up.
So how about you? Your favorite anti-hero? Your favorite rogue? Or do you color inside the lines?
When I write YAs, I can tap into that immediately. The outsider girl, the keeper of secrets, the one no one understands for the things she has seen and knows. Lucy, in HIGH SCHOOL BITES is the outsider girl from the house that looks like the Munsters live there. She is the motherless girl, the girl who grieves but has to be responsible.
As Americans, I think we are fascinated by outsiders . . . and outsiders grow up to be rogues or anti-heroes (or anti-heroines). They stay outside the norm, never quite fitting in and deciding they prefer it better that way--skirting the law or skirting convention. I dress all in black--and people judge me . . . but it's not that I am dark or even dramatic (things I am accused of) but that it's simply easier and I never have to worry if I match. I don't give a thought to my clothes--black goes with black. What could be simpler? Yet it seems so different from the Barbie Moms. And that's okay. I've been outside the norm for so long I don't think I'd know what to do if I was suddenly invited to the club, so to speak.
I love the rogue. I love the anti-hero. My favorite hero was Robin Hood, and I would, in a heartbeat, lie, cheat, or steal for the inner-city kids I have mentored. I would bend the rules. Look the other way. And if I admire a hero who takes it a step further . . . well, I can't help it, I don't think. It's the outsider all grown up.
So how about you? Your favorite anti-hero? Your favorite rogue? Or do you color inside the lines?
posted by Erica Orloff at 1:17 PM
24 Comments:
Excellent post, Erica. And thanks for answering my question about how the first morning of school went. :)
I have to go pick mine up right now, so I'll have more thoughts on the subject later. For now I'll just say that you and I have a lot in common.
Hi Jude:
Child #1 checked in--day went OK--but hard being the new kid. Don't know about #s 2 and 3.
In thinking more on the topic, it seems like YA (for girls at least) falls squarely into outsider stories, or insider stories (like Gossip Girls or other trendsetters), just as I presume the authors fall into those camps if you look at their YA lives.
E
I wasn't being sarcastic (I know, hard to tell with me sometimes). I loved your heartfelt description of seeing them off in the rain this morning.
Jude:
I know . . . I didn't take it that way. :-)
E
P.S. Because really, would a serial killer care about standing in the rain crying over the kids going back to school?
Hi Erica --
I've become a devoted lurker on your blog because of beautiful posts like this one. My oldest child starts kindergarten tomorrow, and your post touched on my dreams and fears for him.
I had the same kind of YA experience. Outsider city... :) Robin Hood is still my favorite. Though I must've read Watership Down 100 times between seventh and twelfth grade.
Michele
Michele:
Good luck! I always feel that the universe and all its guardian angels will try to look after our little ones . . . so I always pray special people get put in their paths.
Watership Down . . . I so adored that book I read it once as a teen--and then again and again and again. I think you've inspired me to get a copy and read it yet again.
E
Erica, I totally get feeling your kids pain. And when someone at school is mean to them it takes you all your 'grown-up' resolve not to go up to said kid and punch their lights out!!!!
Anti-heroes: anyone remember Alias Smith and Jones on TV hundreds of years ago????? Did I love Ben Murphy, or did I love Ben Murphy.....
My all-time favorite rogue is John D. MacDonald's Travis Magee. My newest favorite rogue is Andrew Vachss' Burke. If I can make my Nicholas Colt half as compelling as either of those guys, well, I guess I'm on my way.
I've been an outsider since day one, literally. Maybe I'll write a memoir some day. All I need to say right now is that I've come to accept it, and I feel an affinity for my fellow outsiders.
A long time ago I came up with what I thought would make a good bumper sticker for those of us who understand: Fuck The Joneses.
Sorry about the profanity, Erica, but there's no other way to say it.
Man, was this a poignant read for me.
I have always been a highly social introvert. I need people, the ones I click with, the ones I'm close to, but the ones I don't? It's excruciating being with them. Evidence the PTO meeting tonight.
I, too, have always been an outsider, a non-conformer (though not a rebel). I moved a lot growing up, which didn't help, and it took a long, long time to come to terms with who I am.
I've watched my 6th grader growing up being EXACTLY like me, and my constant struggle is to make her be okay with herself, and find the balance I only achieved in adulthood. So far, it's working. She doesn't show signs of the low self-esteem I had for too many years.
As for my writing, my knee-jerk response was that I can't write people like that--and immediately remembered that my current WIP features a woman EXACTLY like that. She's a superhero who is nothing like the other superheroes. Who wants to fit in because she never did, and still doesn't think she can.
Thanks for enlightening me about my own work! LOL
Jude:
You know I love Vachss's Burke. He was the very first author I ever bought on name--every one of his books. Prior to that, I read classics, or I might read my mom's books so who she bought I read. But Burke . . . I HAD to read them all!
E
Jude:
Oh, and P.S., I could never keep up with those Joneses anyway.
E
Sara . . .
My oldest is gifted--not in the overused way a lot of people use the expression, but just very, very smart. And she's played the violin since age 4. One day, about third grade, she was having a miserable time of things, and a wise older friend and mom called me and said, "You won't be the first mother whose gone to bed crying and praying for her child, and you won't be the last. Fact is, that's the part of motherhood no one tells you about." So true, and I've thought of her words a thousand times since then.
E
Natalie:
You sound very much like me. I love to entertain, and am very outgoing, but in truth . . . put me in social settings with the Barbie Moms, the PTA, anything like that, and I mostly want to throw up. :-)
My heroines are very much the Robin Hoods, and I have never, ever, written about a popular one, I don't think. I just don't know that experience. I write about the kind of woman who has a loyal "crew"--usually of men--and a world she is very comfortable in, but take her out of that element, and . . . she's a fish out of water. I also rarely write about parents . . . but when I did, Lily in Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven, she was a parent like me--outside the norm.
E
Erica: I read the first 100 pages of Vachss's Pain Management yesterday, and I'm definitely hooked. I'll have to get all his books now. Thanks so much for recommending him. Someone on another blog referred to Vachss's work as "hardboiled heaven," and I couldn't agree more.
It wasn't so bad when I was a kid. The outsider thing got a lot worse during puberty. Not fun at all.
Sometimes, you can seem to fit in, but inside, you don't really.
milady:
True enough . . . those who are in a crowd but still lonely. That's a very common feeling, I think.
E
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"A highly social introvert" Love it! Ditto. About the most conventional thing I do is drive a mini van, and that's because my dogs got too old to jump in my truck.
Always gravitated to the underdog--from the orphaned Anne who brought love to a loveless house on to Robin Hood, and recently because I've read a few, Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme. A fully described quadriplegic with a sharply enough developed personality and mind that he is held in esteem by the police department, solves the case and gets the girl. For me, a far more compelling character than the rich hunk in a sports car type detective.
TV, don't generally watch much, but I have to admit to being a follower of the caustic Dr. House. He most definitely colors outside the lines.
Sorry. I'm the delete. Posted a blathering comment earlier and got lost in space. Posted this time and showed up twice. Must be my twelve thumbs ;-)
Jude:
Apt description for Vachss's stuff. I used to write back and forth with him occasionally and he is also the real deal in his work/activism for kids.
E
lainey:
My best friend watched HOUSE. I love that actor. I think, though I don't watch it, from what I have heard, I love the idea of having a character who is addicted to pain pills and IN pain all the time. I know, for me, having Crohn's disease colors my view of the world--I am in pain daily . . . but after enough years with it, learned to kind of view it differently from when I was first diagnosed.
ALSO love the Rhyme character. Absolutely. I think sex--as I've blogged here before--isn't what's between your legs but what's between your ears. That character is great.
E
My favorite Anti-hero is The Man with No Name. Clint Eastwood in Sergo's trilogy. My favorite rogue is Archy McNally by Lawrence Sanders.
Steve:
Both great picks.
E
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