paired TheThe discussion questions John Green & Celeste Ng

BOOK CLUB GUIDE 1. Little Fires Everywhere shifts perspectives between characters. Turtles All the Way Down creates a vocabulary for Aza’s very interior experiences with anxiety. How does point-of-view impact a novel?

2. Both novels explore mother-daughter relationships. How does each author approach that question? How does that relationship look different through the lens of the mother or the daughter?

3. Writers are readers, too! John Green and Celeste Ng had questions for each other about themes and craft. What question do you wish you could ask an author?

A perfect Q&A

pairing for Celeste Ng asks John Green your book club! about Turtles All the Way Down Celeste: You’ve spoken about your own struggles with anxiety and obsessive thoughts, and in the novel, we get a window into Aza’s mind as she struggles with similar issues. Download materials for Did writing Aza’s story change the way you view your own mental health? What do you hope readers with mental your book club at health concerns—or their friends—take away from the novel? LittleTurtlesEverywhere.com John: Writing the book certainly didn‘t cure me, but it did change the way I understand myself and my mental illness. While writing the story, I found myself feeling a lot of compas- sion toward Aza. She didn‘t want this disordered thinking to occupy so much of her life, or to have it spread so malignantly life before her dad died. It‘s a thing of his that she can use every into the lives of people she loved. I could be generous toward her day, a thing that still containspaired the last tape he listened to, and so in a way that I‘ve struggled to be generous toward myself, and her pure love is partly due to the pure and somewhat romanti- that experience has been useful to me. cizeddiscussion way we often love the dead, questions as opposed to the complex I wanted to write Turtles All the Way Down for intensely and messy but still loving relationship she has with her mom. personal reasons--I desperately wanted to find some kind of form Celeste: Daisy’s fanfic adds a delightful meta-level to the or direct description for this deeply interior and abstract experi- novel—it’s a nod to the vibrant world of fanfic that exists in ence of obsessive thoughts in the hope that readers who live with our world, but of course the stories mirror Daisy and Aza’s it might feel less alone, and also in the hope that people who love world, too. Did you (or do you) ever write fanfic? Do you read someone with a mental illness might get a glimpse of how the fanfic people write about your characters? Why or why difficult and scary and excruciating psychic pain can be. It is so, so not? difficult to communicate anything about pain, either physical or psychic. Elaine Scarry wrote in her brilliant book The Body in Pain, John: I have written fanfic, but not in a long time, and not very ”To have pain is to have certainty. To hear about pain is to have well! And I do sometimes read fanfic that people write about my doubt.” I think that‘s partly because we don‘t have language for characters. It always makes me feel overwhelmed with gratitude experiences of pain, and I wanted to try to find language for that people care enough about my characters to imagine stories it—not least because I wanted to be able to describe my own beyond the ones I‘ve written. It makes me really grateful to know pain to people I love. that the characters are still alive in other people‘s imaginations, and that the world in which they live has expanded so far beyond me. Celeste: I loved that you mentioned Ed Yong’s book I Contain Multitudes in your acknowledgments—I’m a huge fan Celeste: This is a book about teens trying to do the right of Ed’s work as well. Can you talk about how that book thing, cope with loss, plan for the future, navigate love, and influenced Turtles—or your own thinking in general? manage their emotions. Adults help, but the teens are steer- ing their own paths. Reading it, I also couldn’t help thinking John: That book was so helpful to me! Aza‘s thinking around about the recent teen-led protests across the country, and microbes is obviously irrational, but she‘s right that we are feeling: you know, I think the kids are all right. What would inundated with microscopic life, and that humans are by cell count you want to tell adults about teens—and vice versa? about 50 percent microbial. Aza is very concerned about free will—not as an abstract concept, but because she doesn‘t feel like John: Yeah, the kids are all right. In many ways, they‘re leading she gets to choose her thoughts, which undermines the whole us, and I‘m ready and willing to follow. I think it can be difficult for idea of her self as a sovereign being. Reading I Contain Multi- adults to see that—I think teenagers are intellectually sophisticat- tudes, I kept thinking about how bacteria really do shape who we ed and grappling with big questions, but we often misunderstand are—they affect our health, but they also communicate with our them because of the way teens express themselves (or don‘t!) to brain through the gut-brain information axis. They seem to tell us adults. That‘s actually one of the things I love about Little Fires what kind of foods to crave, and may even be linked to anxiety Everywhere—it examines both adolescent and adult problems and major depression. So much of Turtles All the Way Down came with equal seriousness, while also exploring the challenges of out of reading that book and thinking about the relationship listening and being heard across generational divides. between ”self” and these beings within us that aren‘t us. Celeste: One of my favorite characters was Harold, Aza’s DISCUSSION Questions About car. She loves him so purely, and their relationship is one that seems to bring her a lot of comfort and joy. What was the TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN inspiration for Harold? John: I got a car when I was a senior in high school, and it meant so much to me—it meant freedom and mobility, and also, 1. John Green’s depiction of Aza’s mental health is different from because I had roommates at boarding school, it represented a what is often seen in literature and other media. How does Turtles space of my own. So Aza‘s love for Harold was partly inspired by All the Way Down change the way you think about mental health? my love for that car, which I called Arlo. (I love that young people 2. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “Green finds language to often name their cars; I think it speaks to how deeply connected describe the indescribable.” What is the significance of having they are to them and the freedom they embody.) But I also language to understand Aza’s experience? How does finding a wanted Harold to be a symbol for her dad and for the time in her vocabulary for the indescribable help people to connect? 3. Aza’s mental illness means it’s hard for her to see outside herself, which doesn’t always make her a good friend. How does that impact Daisy? 4. Was it a betrayal for Daisy to have created Ayala in her fan Q&A fiction as an outlet for her frustrations with Aza? Would Aza have been able to understand Daisy’s resentments if confronted with them directly? John Green asks Celeste Ng 5. Aza says, “Of course, you pretend to be the author. You have to about Little Fires Everywhere . . . You think you’re the painter, but you’re the canvas.” As readers, we know Aza is narrating her own story. Once we start to John: I‘m fascinated by how writers come up with memora- tell our own stories, are we fictionalizing ourselves? ble lines, and I‘m in awe of Lexie‘s line that gives the novel its title: “The firemen said there were little fires everywhere. 6. Davis and Aza have both lost a parent. How have they each Multiple points of origin. Possible use of accelerant. Not an processed grief? How does that common experience impact their accident.” This seems to reflect so much in the novel—the relationship? secret little fires that are in everyone‘s lives, the way that 7. Harold—the car that once belonged to her father—and her accelerants like gender and race and class affect those fires, father’s phone hold a lot of emotional significance for Aza. Why and so on. I wonder if you remember writing that line, and does interacting with those objects make Aza feel close to him? whether the line came first or the story did. 8. Several characters in the novel process their emotions through Celeste: The truth is that the line came first! Chapter one was fiction and poetry. If you were to use a quote from this novel to the first part of the novel I wrote—unusual for me as I don’t begin an essay about your life, which would it be and why? What usually work in order. For most of the writing process, the book other literary quotes particularly resonant for you? was actually untitled, but when we were ready to submit the book to my editor, I had to come up with something. On my 9. Daisy tells Aza, “Your privileges are just oxygen to you.” Money agent’s advice, I went through the entire book and wrote down and privilege are central to the novel. How does economic status every phrase that could possibly be used as a title. I think I came color each character’s experiences and decisions? Their up with four single-spaced pages. Most were terrible, but we understanding of themselves and others? kept coming back to one: Little Fires Everywhere. The more I 10. The last few paragraphs of Turtles All the Way Down zoom out thought about it, the more I liked it as a title for the book. It to reframe Aza’s time perspective of her own story. How does this refers to the literal fire that opens the novel, of course, but it shift change the way you think about Aza? How does it change the also highlights the idea that there’s often no one cause for a way you think about mental illness? disaster; often, there are many issues smoldering that ultimately 11. Daisy says, “You pick your endings, and your beginnings. You reach a tipping point. Now I can’t imagine the book with any get to pick the frame, you know? Maybe you don’t choose what’s other title. in the picture, but you decide on the frame.” What does that mean John: I loved the way you explore motherhood in this novel. to you? Especially in scenes involving May Ling/Mirabelle, but really 12. The title, Turtles All the Way Down, refers to a theory of the throughout the novel, I kept thinking of something my mom universe. Aza and Daisy interpret this idea in different ways. How told me when my son was born: “A parent is something you do you interpret Daisy’s story? are, but also something you become over time.” I‘ve rarely read such nuanced and empathetic explorations of parenthood in all its many splendors and horrors. Why was writing about John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of Looking for Alaska, mothers and mothering important to you, and how do you An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David answer the big question you posed in the novel: “What made Levithan), and The Fault in Our Stars. His many accolades include the Printz Medal, someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love?” a Printz Honor, and the Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Celeste: Oh, I love that statement of your mom’s. I think People in the World. With his brother, Hank, John is one half of the Vlogbrothers and that’s so true. You become a parent when you have a child, but cocreated the online educational series CrashCourse. You can join the millions who follow him on Twitter @johngreen and Instagram @johngreenwritesbooks or visit it’s also an ongoing process: I think I’m constantly learning how him online at johngreenbooks.com. John lives with his family in Indianapolis, to parent, and in particular, how to parent the specific child that Indiana. Author photo © Marina Waters. is my son. I’ve always been interested in parent-child relation ships, because they’re our first relationships, and they’re so DISCUSSION Questions About formative, whether we’re trying to become our parents, trying actively to not become them, or shaping ourselves against Little Fires Everywhere their absence. It’s become an even more fascinating topic for me because I’m in this in-between spot: I’m both a mother and a child right now, so I’m looking at parent-child relationships 1. Shaker Heights is almost another character in the novel. Do you from both directions. That kind of double vision has made me believe that “the best communities are planned”? Why or why more understanding of my mother’s parenting choices when I not? was young, and it’s had a big influence on the ways I try to form my relationship with my son. 2. There are many different kinds of mother-daughter relationships As for the big question: Biological ties definitely matter—as in the novel. Which ones did you find most compelling? Do a small example, I often see my son knit his brow in the exact mothers have a unique ability to spark fires, for good and ill, in us? same way my mother does, and I know I make that exact same 3. Which of the Richardson children is most changed by the events face myself. In that, and so many other ways both physical and of the novel? How do you think this time ultimately changes behavioral, the links between us are so apparent. Even if I’d Lexie’s life? Trip’s? Moody’s? Izzy’s? never known my mother, so much of me would be influenced by her purely through genetics. But it’s sort of like what your 4. The debate over the fate of May Ling/Mirabelle is multilayered mom told you: mothering is also an act, and in that sense many and heartbreaking. Who do you think should raise her? people act as mother figures even when there’s no biological 5. How is motherhood defined throughout the book? How do relationship involved. Many people find that their mothers choice, opportunity, and circumstances impact different characters’ don’t act like mothers to them, and many people find other approach to motherhood? mother figures in mentors, teachers, relatives, friends. So I guess what I’m saying is: It’s both. 6. Mia’s journey to becoming an artist is almost a beautiful novella of its own. Mia’s art clearly has the power to change lives. What John: At one point, you describe how people can be piece of art has shaped your life in an important way? places—”to a parent, your child wasn‘t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia.” But it‘s also a novel in 7. Pearl has led a singular life before arriving in Shaker, but once which a place, Shaker Heights, is a major character. Little she meets the Richardsons, she has the chance to become a “normal” teenager. Is that a good thing? Fires Everywhere is one of the only books I‘ve read that treated U.S. suburbia with seriousness and deep empathy, 8. What ultimately bothers Elena most about Mia? and that‘s one of the reasons I think your book will be remembered for a long time. Why did you choose to write 9. The novel begins with a great conflagration, but its conclusion is about Shaker Heights? even more devastating. What do you think happens to Elena after the novel ends? To Mia and Pearl? To Izzy? Do you think Izzy ever Celeste: The book grew out of me looking back on my time returns to Shaker and her family? Why or why not? in Shaker Heights and trying to process it. It was a lovely place to grow up, and it shaped me into the person I am: intellectual, 10. Celeste Ng is noted for her ability to shift between the civic-minded, deeply idealistic. I moved away from Shaker perspective of different characters in her work. How does that Heights to go to college, and after I’d been away from home choice shape the reader’s experience of the novel? for about a decade, I found I was able to look at my hometown 11. We see how race and class underline the experiences of all the with a little more clarity. In that time, I’d started to learn just characters and how they interact with one another. In what ways how unusual it was. There aren’t many other places that try to are attitudes toward race and class different and the same today talk about race relations as openly, or that have such a firm as in the late 1990s, when the book is set? belief that perfection—or at least improvement—is possible if we just try hard enough. At the same time, I’d seen myself how 12. What does the title mean to you? What about the book’s even the most careful planning couldn’t eliminate all the dedication? complicated and messy human dynamics. Race is still a huge Celeste Ng grew up in , Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She point of tension; it was when I lived there, it was before, and it attended and earned an MFA from the . still is now. The same is true of class. I wanted to explore that Her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, won the Massachusetts Book Award, contradiction, how a place with such high ideals and a strong the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the ALA’s Alex Award. She is a 2016 NEA fellow, and she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.You can follow her on sense of exceptionalism could still fall prey to moral compro- twitter @pronounced_ing or visit her online at www.celesteng.com. Author photo © mises, just like everywhere else. Kevin Day.