Chris Crutcher

Bio

Chris Crutcher lives in Spokane, Washington. He was born to an Air Force pilot and a homemaker in July, 1946 in Dayton, Ohio and grew up in Cascade, Idaho, a tiny logging community north of Boise. Living in the rural Pacific Northwest definitely influenced Crutcher's fiction. "Everyone was into sports because there was not much else to do," he has said. But the heart of his work --- human struggle and triumph --- is universal and draws largely on his work as an educator (he was a teacher and the director of an alternative school) and, currently, as a therapist and child protection advocate. Critically acclaimed as an author, Crutcher was named the 2000 recipient of the ALA's Margaret A. Edwards Award for his ongoing devotion to young adults. He received the National Intellectual Freedom Award, given by the National Council of Teachers of English, in 1998 and has been honored twice by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents.

More About Chris Crutcher

After nine books and nearly twenty years as a novelist, Chris Crutcher has done more than prove his ability to tell a strong story. He's earned a reputation for writing fiction with a factual base --- real-life stories that ring true for readers.

Why is the truth so important to Crutcher? "[Because] I grew up with a lot of really well-meaning people telling me a lot of lies that felt good at the time," Crutcher says, "but they ended up coming back to bite me in the ass. Too often, the adults in your life don't tell you the truth --- they don't tell you what the world is really like. So a lot of what I do when I write is describe the world as I see it, rather than how I might like it to be." 

With twelve years as an educator and nearly two decades as a licensed therapist and child protection advocate under his belt, Crutcher's take on the truth can be unyielding and controversial. He has witnessed brutality --- abandonment, incest, torture, rape, suicide, murder --- and much of what sees eventually finds its way into his work.

But controversy, according to Crutcher, is a byproduct, not a goal. "I don't consciously look for those subjects," he says, "but I do write about the things about which I'm passionate. I work with people who have been savaged for who they are. If they're ever going to make it, they're going to have to learn how to stand up for themselves. That starts with telling the truth as you see it."

Not all truth is well received. During a dinner conversation with Texas high school educators the night before an author event, Crutcher was asked about "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune," a short story adapted to film by New Line Cinema in 1995. "This person hadn't seen 'Angus' and asked what it was about," Crutcher says, "so I said it was about a fat kid with gay parents." 

For the rest of the evening, the hostess followed Crutcher in search of a private moment, which never transpired. "At breakfast the next morning, about 5:30 AM, the waitress walked in saying telephone for Chris Crutcher," he recalls. It was his hostess.

"She said, 'When you talk with the kids today, will you mention anything about homosexuality?'  I said, 'Not unless they ask.' She said, 'Good. We don't mind rape and incest, but we'd rather not talk about being gay.' If there is a pervasive sickness in our culture," says Crutcher, "it's that we're afraid of the wrong things." 

Fortunately, Crutcher doesn't give in to those fears. "One thing that happens when I'm writing a story is I get immersed in it. By the time I'm two or three chapters into a book, my characters are real people to me. They may do things that surprise me, but I can't remember a time when I hesitated." 

Does Crutcher's work as a therapist influence his writer's voice? "I see the two as being intermeshed," he says. "When I work with a client in therapy, I try to tether myself to something, then dive into their problems. That's the process in therapy --- the two of us diving into their pain, then trying to find a way back out. I'm really an observer, and that's an honored spot. 

"It's the same with a writing a story for my readers. I'm an observer, diving into what drives my characters. Of course, there is more control with a story. And that's one of the reasons I write. It's nice to control the outcome.

"But in therapy and in writing, I'm trying in every way I know how to let people know that they are responsible for everything they do. In the term 'responsibility' the root word is 'response.'  You can't control everything that happens to you, but you can control your responses. Those responses dictate whether you're in control, or whether someone else is."

Once we take control, Crutcher says, success is within reach. "When it's all done, you're either whole or you're not because of what YOU did about it. That's the truth. And all my books reflect that. Kids are asking, 'Who will listen to me? Who will tell me the truth?'  It's a tall order, but I do my best not to tell a lie. When kids ask real questions, I'll go for real answers --- every single time."

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Interview

April 02, 2001

MAKING A SPLASH WITH CHRIS CRUTCHER

With the release of WHALE TALK, his long awaited eighth book for young adult readers, Chris Crutcher presents the smart but irreverent Tao Jones --- T.J. for short. As an athletic senior at Cutter High School, T.J. could have super-jock glory. But for a time, he decides against it.

"I'm sure not afraid to take a hit or to put a good lick on a guy," T.J. explains (via Crutcher's imagination), "but something inside me recoils at being told what to do, and that doesn't sit well with most coaches, who are paid to do exactly that. I don't blame them; I know it's me. But the better you know yourself, the better chance you have of staying clear of trouble…."

Kids and experts agree, Crutcher knows what being a teenager is really about --- the good, the bad and the ugly. How does he do it? We asked him a few quirky questions to try and find out.

Teenreads: You are known for the realistic teen characters you create in your books, and yet you're 54-years old. How do you pull it off? Is there a teenager living in your head?  

CC: That's exactly it. I usually end up dragging the 1964 Chris Crutcher, or parts of him, into the era in which I'm telling the story. At least I drag out his sensibilities. I also spend a lot of time with teenagers and with parents of teenagers in my work.

Teenreads: Do you feel differently now, as an adult, than you did as a teenager?

CC: I feel older, of course. I have experiences I didn't have then, so I have a different perspective on what was happening to me. But I have a good memory for feelings, and generally feelings are pretty much the same at any times in our lives, though they may diminish or intensify over time in response to events.

Teenreads: You were a teacher for a long time and the director of an alternative school. Do you think Chris Crutcher, the kid would have respected Chris Crutcher, the teacher, if he'd had you for a class?

CC: I don't know that I would have respected him for his pool of knowledge, but I think I would have respected him for his ability to hear me.

Teenreads: If you could go back and change any one event in your adolescence, what would it be and why?

CC: I can't think of one, really. There are events that give me goose bumps, but I am who I am because of my experiences (duh!) and I've been able to accommodate the things that happened in my life.

Teenreads: What was the first car you ever drove? What was the first car you ever bought?

CC: First vehicle I drove was my father's Volkswagen Van; one he used to haul mail and freight into the backcountry in Idaho. That was a time before those vans were a hippie-mobile. In Idaho you could get a daylight driver's license at 14, so it was a long time ago. The first car I ever bought was a 1964 Plymouth Barracuda.

Teenreads: A lot of your characters have been forced to deal with difficult teachers and coaches. Can you remember squaring off with any authority figures as a kid?

CC: At one time or another I squared off with almost every authority figure in my life. I didn't make a huge habit of it, but I had a pretty quick and not-so-pretty response when I felt I was being pushed unfairly. In spite of that, I was well liked by most authority figures.

Teenreads: What advice about surviving high school would you go back and give yourself, if time travel were possible?

CC: I'd tell myself to quit fighting it and learn something.

Teenreads: What popular trends from your teenage years would you bring back today if that were possible? And what trends would you like to erase from you teenage past?

CC: I liked the weekend dances at the Legion Hall. There was a certain simplicity to them... go and stand around and fantasize about asking a girl to dance. There is a sweetness to my memory of my thoughts back then. I can't think of anything I'd erase.

Teenreads: What of today's trends would you like to have experienced as a teen? And which modern trends would you like to erase?

CC: I wish there had been more sports for girls back in my time, and that girls had been treated as first class citizens, which they weren't. I think I would have done better on the teenage relationship scene if things had been more equal. I'd erase some of the violent tendencies that didn't seem to be there when I was younger.

Teenreads: A lot has been made of the fact that you weren't much of a reader when you were in high school. What kinds of books or educators might have made a difference to Chris Crutcher, the teen?

CC: Simply put, books about people like me. I would have liked to read about characters I thought could be my friends. I needed something more contemporary.

--- Interviewed by Kelly Milner Halls, KellyMilnerH@aol.com

© Copyright 2003, Teenreads.com. All rights reserved.

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PAST INTERVIEW

February 18, 2000

For years, his fans have eyed the American Library Association's prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award for Outstanding Literature for Young Adults wondering, "When will Chris Crutcher be added to the list?"  On Monday, January 17th, the ALA answered with resounding enthusiasm, naming Crutcher the millennial recipient of the coveted lifetime achievement award. How did an Ohio born Air Force brat, raised in rural Idaho earn such critical acclaim? "It's hard to say," Crutcher admits. But as you'll see in this interview, his sense of honesty and essential human connection most certainly played a pivotal role.  

TBB: Your educational background is in education, sociology and psychology.  When did it first occur to you to reach out to young people through literature?

CC: It never occurred to me for one minute to try and reach kids through literature.  When I write stories, it's totally selfish. It's about my response to what I write; my personal range of humor to tragedy; my use of every storytelling trick I know.  

In therapy, I'm listening to my client's rendition of their lives. I'm listening to their stories. I may be digging into it, asking where this came from, where that's going; but as a therapist I'm just receiving, exploring, playing around with what is.

As a writer I do just the opposite. I ask myself the same questions I would ask a client, same things I would have to discover from them; but I determine the outcome. I do take my stories from the confusion or the angst of teenagers, so you could say my stories may be a response to therapy.

TBB: Do you see your storytelling as surrogate therapy for kids who might not have the chance to experience professional intervention?

CC: Anything that has to do with belonging is therapeutic. If you're INCLUDING me, it's healthy. If you're EXCLUDING me, it's not. If a kid has an emotional response to a character in a book, it's therapeutic.  

So I guess the therapeutic reach of my books would depend on who picks them up and what they need when they do --- the reasons they need it. I do get a tremendous amount of mail that says, "How did you know this person?"  Or, "This person seems so much like me."  

The bottom line for me is to tell the truth. If a kid finds out it's true for me and true for others, there's the connection. There are kids out there who have been molested, who feel like it's their fault. There are kids who have engaged in something horrendous, because it was less painful than any alternative they could imagine.  They know the very details of what it's like to be treated badly; and when they see themselves in a book, they know they're not so isolated.    

They think, "Hey, Chris Crutcher might know what I'm talking about; so maybe there are other people out there who know this, too. Maybe if I find someone that likes Chris books, they'll understand this too." That's the piece that's therapeutic. If a kid comes to me and says, "God, read this," we can start talking about that story, but we are just one step away from talking about what's real. It gives kids and adults a place to begin.  

TBB: Do other people see your literature as therapeutic?  

CC: Some do. Walter Mayes has said my stories save lives, and I hear that sort of sentiment from teachers or other people who've used the stories in their work with kids. Some of the value is that teachers are able to do things with kids using these stories they couldn't have done without them.  

TBB: Is that element a conscious choice, or is it a byproduct of the work you do as a therapist?

CC: The first two or three stories I wrote, it wasn't there at all. So the connection has grown with my professional experience. When I wrote "The Deep End," people used to ask me if Wilson Corder, the main character, was actually me; but I didn't see him that way. I saw him as somebody who had my same values --- someone who knew what I knew. That made it easier for me to tell a story, because the last thing I want to do is to work or write from the outside.  

When I read a book, and I can tell someone has done that, it makes me mad. I know it in a minute, and I get irritated; because it means somebody has told himself or herself, "These are only kids --- they won't know."  I think we, as writers, have a responsibility to be at least emotionally accurate.

TBB: Have you ever received letters from readers who "saw the light" by way of your books?  

CC: What usually happens is I get a group of letters from a class full of kids who were reading "Crazy Horse" or something, maybe a reluctant reader class. Most of them are writing by assignment, a requirement. "Dear Mr. Crutcher…blah, blah, blah…" Then all of the sudden I get, "Oh, Mr. Crutcher, what would I do if my parents got divorced?" --- an absolute departure from the assignment. I know the book touched that kid in a place that made her think.  

I got a letter from a girl who was reading STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES the other day. Sarah Byrnes is disfigured. She is treated badly because of her appearance. This girl said, "I'm not one of those people on the outside; but I have treated people like that. After reading your book, I'm going to make a conscious choice to treat people better."
  
Kids instinctively know part of the deal with outsiders is the "there but for the grace of god go I," factor. And that's my thing. It not just the truth about the kids who are hurting. It's true about the kids driven to hurt as well. They all feel the pain.  

With the broad readership I have, it's clear I can't just appeal to the people who are on the outside. And that's a testament to how "outside" every adolescent actually feels. Molly Ringwald played it perfectly in "The Breakfast Club."  She was popular, but she was hurting, too. I was as popular as you could get in school. I hung out with whomever I wanted to hang out with; and, yet, I knew I was different. Everybody feels it. It's just unfortunate so many teachers can't seem to remember.

TBB: How seriously do you take those letters from kids?

CC: I take serious letters seriously, like a letter I got from a kid who was clearly being molested. I'm real quick to tell kids I can't do therapy in the mail. But I will stay with them long enough to guide them to professionals where they are. There are a lot of adult letters that I take seriously, too. A woman that read "Sarah Byrnes" said, "This is one of the three best books I've ever read --- and I'm not talking about YA literature. It's brave."  Those letters really move me.  

TBB: How do you feel about the concept of "YA" literature?

CC: I'm always one for elevating so called "YA literature." Too many people writing YA buy into that bullshit about "being careful with what we say to kids." And, of course, there are stories I wouldn't write "for kids," but that still gives me a broad canvas. I won't back off on a story because I think someone will be offended by it. I may be judicious in what I should write about; but once I decide, I won't leave anything out.  

TBB: How could we make literature a more powerful tool in reaching out to young readers?  

CC: We could be more willing to talk about the stories. That's one reason I get censored. My work makes people in a position to talk about the stories uncomfortable, because they shed light on difficult problems. Any school talking about those problems will need a competent school counselor, which is very often NOT the case. If I see a kid in deep trouble, I better know where to send them to get help.  

TBB: Can teachers play a therapeutic role in the lives of their students, through reading?

CC: In my experience, we play a therapeutic role anytime we make a connection with a kid; anytime we allow rather than exclude. In high schools, particularly, the reading list is chosen by way of "the classics."  As a result people have gotten totally fucked up about what literature is supposed to be about. We need to remember, when "the classics" were written, the people writing them didn't know they were classics. They were just trying to tell a story and connect with a reader. They happened to tap into something that turns a book INTO a classic --- endurance.  

We could also abandon this page length approach to good literature. The minute somebody says a book has to be a certain length to be of academic value, I write them off. It tells me they don't understand the true value of reading. Either that, or they are responding to some random requirement, some higher decree. Unfortunately, it's an adult driven process --- staid adults that say, "It was that way for me, it'll be that way for you."  They like to say, " It worked for me," but it didn't. It didn't work for them…they just endured it.

TBB: Would specialized training help teachers better connect with troubled and more traditional students?

CC: I am invited into schools to talk about the kind of kids that I have in my office all the time. And the thing that scares me, having been an educator, is they're not only in my office --- they are in YOUR schools. When you have a kid in your classroom that is terrified and in pain, that kid will act out his terror. And if you have 28 kids, 2 of them won't be able to tolerate your kindness.  

They are each saying, "I am a kid who knows from experience that good things turn bad. When you're really good to me, you terrify me. My anxiety will blow up, and I'll turn on you. But you will not understand why I've turned on you, so you'll write me off. So I'm gonna lose it. I may not have control over losing good things, but I do have control over pushing them away."

Now here's the thing about that. While there might be two kids like the one I've just described; there are all kinds of kids with lighter shades of that same frightened instinct, and they all hate to feel foolish or dumb or betrayed. So I think there are some things teachers need to study about child development --- about what's appropriate at certain ages. Alice Miller says, "Every behavior has a reason."  Our job is to find out what it is.  

I also think part of teacher training is to identify and bring out into the open our own issues. Teachers need to understand: the kid I get into it with is the kid who presses those buttons --- MY buttons. But that's not the kid's fault if he presses my buttons. To keep from turning on a kid, I need to know where I am with my own emotional stuff and defuse it.  

There are so many control freaks in education. It's big in education because it's easy. It's also lazy. Those people go into education partly because they feel like they can't make it in the adult world. So the classroom becomes a place where they can get control…"I am the king of my classroom."  They say, "These kids just don't respect us. We should go in tough and loosen up later."  I say, go in and establish structure and goals together. Say, "Here's what I want.  I have to do this because the state says I have to, but what do you want? How can we do this in a way you can participate in? Maybe you have some goals I haven't thought of."

It is about respect, but no kid will respect me if I don't respect him or her first. If I'm a kid, I cannot give back something I don't first know or receive. I can be afraid of you, but I'll hate your guts. Respect isn't about fear. It's about allowing them to be who they are. We, as adults, should be in a better developmental position to know what respect is and not confuse it with fear; go that distance within the classroom. If a kid feels respected, he won't fuck with me.

TBB: You frequently say you were a reluctant reader as a teen. Why?  

CC: Because people kept giving me the wrong stories to read. There are times when I don't know what's worse --- being Silas Marner, or reading about him. And that was what they kept throwing at me. The book I did enjoy reading was TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.  It was not a classic at the time. It was a movie with Gregory Peck. And it appealed to a kid with the sensibilities I had, because I lived in a small town with similar things going on.

The sad thing is, nobody learned from our responses to give us more books like that. Not to brag, but if somebody had given me my books in school, I'd have read every one of them. I'd have read writers like Chris Lynch, Rob Thomas and Lois Lowry, but they weren't around. And even if they were, nobody was going to give me their books. Nobody even gave me CATCHER IN THE RYE, and I would have read the hell out of that. They weren't giving us current stuff, because they were too afraid we might start thinking for ourselves.  

I hope sometime, after I'm dead, somebody hands some kid my book and the kid says why don't you give me something that is in my time, that I can care about? There is a place for the classics, but you have to be ready for them. If you're not, you can kill the beauty of a classic by forcing it.  

You could not make me sit down and read five words by Edgar Allan Poe. You almost can't sit me down to read Mark Twain. They almost ruined him for me. I didn't realize what a genius Twain was until I discovered him years later. My teachers didn't even appreciate what part we should have been celebrating.  

Art is art. It is expression. What I'm going to do, as a writer, is make the best connection I can make with my characters. If I do that well, the kid will take it from there. It's not my job to interpret once it's done. I trust my readers to do that for themselves.  

© Copyright 2003, Teenreads.com. All rights reserved.

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