Q&A with Linda Kass

  

Photo by Lorn Spolter

 

 

Linda Kass is the author of the new novel World News from Waverley High. Her other books include the novel Bessie. She is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books in central Ohio.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write World News from Waverley High, and how did you create your character Lena Rosen?

 

A: Each of my three previous novels were inspired by a real-life character and his or her unique and extraordinary circumstances. From there I could inhabit the character, put them in situations, then imagine those scenes and conversations and relationships that grew into my stories.

 

My new novel began quite differently. I read a book, 1969: The Year Everything Changed, and was drawn back in time when I was in high school. I thought about the stark contrast between the everyday life of a teenager—navigating high school hallways, feeling the world was full of possibilities—and that life on the outside, all the goings on in the world then—the Vietnam War, racism, environmental destruction.

 

My inspiration came from that time and place. Ohio. 1969 to 1970. An urban integrated high school like the one I attended. As the story began to form in my mind, I thought of the high school as both a character and a place. I recall thinking of it as an ecosystem of social bonds, individual relationships, and a physical space.

 

I wanted to inhabit that singular moment again so many years later and see it through the lens of these teenagers. I envisioned them as a cast of characters at first, considering what they, as a group, wanted—to be loved, to be seen, to be safe, to fit in.

 

As I thought about so many school scenarios and dramatic historical moments of 1969 and 1970, I began to imagine this one student who could tell the story—her name came to me, Lena Rosen.

 

And then, so many characteristics follow. Her family—she has an older sister in college and a younger brother in junior high. Her culture—she is Jewish, fitting into the microcosm of a school where there were Jewish students, Black students, and Christian students all navigating the hallways together. Her physical attributes and behavior—she isn’t pretty in an obvious way. She wears glasses, and is self-conscious about her glasses, about her immigrant parents, and about being smart.

 

I decide she’s a reporter for the school newspaper, making it easier to engage with classmates given her tendency to be an introvert, and also because it will allow her to see all that’s going on in the school: she covers school plays, sports, the band, and pretty much everything.

 

I also have her taking a class called Current History where the textbook is Time magazine and discussion covers the national news.

 

I was struggling to find the name of the high school and couldn’t begin the novel until I came up with it. Once I landed on the name Waverley High, I sat down one morning in early 2024 and wrote that first short chapter in first person, with Lena asking, “What’s in a name?”

 

From there, Lena’s voice and personality came to me fully formed and held steady through the entire novel.

 

Q: The writer Helen Schulman said of the book, “Linda Kass’s powerful new novel...compels the reader to reflect on how the anxieties of then compare to the turbocharged anxieties of now.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I believe social media and nonstop news and all the virtual transmission of images from around the globe are what have turbocharged our anxieties today. There was plenty of anxiety to go around in the ‘60s. It just wasn’t ubiquitous as it is today.

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything especially surprising?

 

A: I read a combination of books about the ‘60s—books by Rob Kirkpatrick, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Tom Hayden, Kevin Boyle, Brian VanDeMark, Joan Didion—to anchor myself in that period. I read coming-of age-novels with teenagers, like Prep, Election, and Never Let Me Go that put me in the teenage mindset.

 

I also explored my own memories and emotions and that of old high school friends. There was a wide range of what we remembered. That surprised me. My own recollections were more vivid around racial tensions than politics, for example.

 

My research also helped me reconstruct the big historical moments of that year, whether it was the unrest on Ohio State University’s campus or the national shock following Nixon’s Cambodia invasion, because I knew I wanted those moments to intrude into the high school’s rhythm.

 

And speaking of rhythm, I researched the music of the time—there is a soundtrack very present in my novel with specific songs that help tell the story. An Apple Music and Spotify playlist can be accessed in the back of the book.

 

Of course, there’s the culture and the media of the time, from Walter Cronkite to Ed Sullivan to Doris Day, that is also so much a part of the story.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the novel?

 

A: Perspective. The era of my novel was a time when the anti-Vietnam anger in America was boiling.

 

By October of 1969, a single act of protest—M Day, the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam—was a strike against the war that involved thousands. While peaceful, the march around the White House and on the streets of Washington triggered a series of mass demonstrations across the country, like today’s No Kings protests.

 

By looking back at this singular moment in American history, I hope readers can see the parallels and, also see the way that technology has inflamed our perspective.

 

My novel shows that cycles of protest, reform, and renewal continue. It suggests that while history rarely repeats itself exactly, it often rhymes—and every generation must decide what kind of future to fight for.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have several ideas floating around. Nothing that I can say stirs me enough at this point to commit myself to beginning my next novel.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’ve become ever more aware of how our advancements have fragmented us.

 

First, cable television with hundreds of channels, then digital communications where our screens are tiny, just us and our device, and so much of our connections with others is on digital media.

 

Writing my novel, I inhabited a country with three network television networks, daily newspapers, and an array of national magazines. It all felt very human. We watched the same television images from our living rooms, we read (and held) the same newspapers and magazines. We formed our conclusions from a shared narrative.

 

There was a single dominant youth soundtrack back then, with the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, and Motown artists helping define the 1960s. Today, our ability to stream and build highly personalized playlists has fragmented our music landscape as well.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Linda Kass.