Margaret McMullan, author of Cashay

ETC: There are a lot of powerful messages in this book. What inspired you to write it?

McMullan: I always wanted to write about two sisters because I have a sister and we are very close. Also, both my sister and my husband were involved with tutoring so-called "difficult" kids, and I was interested in writing about their experiences. In addition, a long time ago, I cut out a newspaper article about a 7-year old boy getting shot accidentally on the way to school in Chicago. I wanted to write about that and how it is to live in a world that's both dangerous and hopeful.

ETC: Was it difficult to write in the first-person voice of an African-American teenage girl from an inner city neighborhood? Why or why not?

McMullan: An African-American girl came up to me once after a book talk and asked me, "Why don't you write a story about me?" I loved her confidence and I took on her request as a kind of challenge. And really, don't we all read to find some part of ourselves in a book? I researched my way into becoming Cashay, a girl very much like the girl who spoke to me and a girl I really love. I hung out in a local high school, which happens to be mostly African American. I visited the Cabrini Green area in Chicago. I interviewed willing college students who were African American. I took on this project like I took on other research projects for other books. I didn't know anything about the Civil War before I wrote How I Found the Strong, which is partly about the Civil War. The research is often the best, most challenging part of writing. It's also when I learn so much.

ETC: One of the central relationships in the novel is between Cashay, a black teen, and Allison, a white adult. How do these characters bridge the gaps of race, class, age, and life experience? When Cashay first goes to the afterschool center (pp. 43-44), she notices that all the mentors are white. Why did you make the choice to have all the mentors be white?

McMullan: Both Cashay and Allison learn from each other. They are diamonds in the rough - Cashay is angry and has to learn how to love and trust again. Allison is cut off from people. She is not very close to anyone when she first meets Cashay, and she essentially has no family. They don't know it, but both Cashay and Allison have to re- learn how to open themselves and their hearts to love - for each other, for other people, for the world. That is mostly what this book is about, not race. I wanted to keep putting Cashay into situations of conflict and struggle - I wanted her to be the odd person out so that hopefully we empathize with her more. She struggles daily. Having white mentors is just one more thing for Cashay to deal with, to get a little more angry about. But again, she deals. She starts not to notice color so much.
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