Songs for Isabel Walker

I'm not sure who came first, Isabel or Jack, but it's Isabel who ends up dominating much of A Special Education. Since a lot of the book is based on my own experiences growing up in NE Calgary, as Isabel does, there's been quite a bit of interest in the inspiration for this rough-and-tumble girl in the St. Jude's honour class. One of the earliest scenes I wrote featuring her takes place on the last day of school at her junior high. We see Isabel throwing a temper tantrum in her room, for no particular reason, and then shaving off her hair. She knows she's the only one from her school going to St. Jude and really wants to feel like she's leaving everyone else behind with a new future in front of her.

The inspiration for this scene came from my memories of watching Sinead O'Connor perform and the Grammies, right around the time A Special Education takes place. O'Connor's character in "The Emperor's New Clothes" is also trying to navigate a whole new lifestyle and set of expectations, coupled with a fair amount of underlying and unresolved anger. This is very much like Isabel, who enters high school with much promise and hope. As the my writing progressed, I switched this scene with Jack, primarily because the tension Isabel feels between her old neighbourhood and her new one, the conflicting advice she receives from different authority figures as to how to make good on her potential, all became important themes that run throughout A Special Education.