Saturday, December 17, 2011

Jack Thomas, A Special Education

As much as Isabel felt that her old life was threatening to swallow her up at the end of junior high, I had always intended for Jack to feel the opposite. While Isabel feels compelled to use her potential to escape her friends, Jack is looking for ways to fit in with the kids around him without realizing that its the same gifts keeping him apart from everyone. When Jack and Isabel meet, part of what attracts them to each other is their background, and videos of late 1980s Fugazi always helped me keep this in mind. Jack wants to be a part of the aggressive crowd. He wants to be the one with his shirt off, body-surfing. Isabel is attractive to him because she's one of the few girls in the audience, and one of the only ones not standing in the back of the room.

"Waiting Room" was a good song for Jack because he also oscillates between these quiet brooding periods of sensitive reflection, and seemingly spontaneous explosions of emotions. Plus, early on, I imagined that it would be Jack who got the job in the parking lot as a means of "toughening" himself up, and this was also one of the songs that I listened to lot while working there myself. Luckily, my wife suggested switching that particular plot point around while the novel was still in the planning stages, yielding a far more interesting story.