Lookin' for Trouble: An Interview with K. L. Going

You excel at creating teen troublemakers—Troy Billings in Fat Kid Rules the World, Iggy Corso in Saint Iggy, and now Liam Geller, a kindhearted, drop-dead gorgeous guy who’s a first-class screwup. Growing up, you were a straight-A student and thought seriously about joining the Peace Corps. It doesn’t sound like you were much of a troublemaker yourself.

Honestly? I was such a good kid. I had such a great relationship with my parents that I could never truly rebel in that classic way of spitting-in-your-parents’-face type of thing. They were my best friends, and they always have been. On the other hand, my way of rebelling was to become good friends with all the kids who were troublemakers. I was a vicarious troublemaker.

Liam can’t help being the most popular kid in class—a gift that his father constantly belittles. So to gain his acceptance, Liam tries to become unpopular. Most teens would kill to be well liked. What inspired you to turn that notion on its head?

The first thing that came to me to start off the story was a photograph of Liam Gallagher from the band Oasis. In this photograph, he had just trashed this hotel room—and I mean the place was literally trashed—and yet he was standing in the midst of it just kind of shrugging his shoulders. He had this really innocent expression on his face, as if he was thinking, “How in the world did this happen?” Now obviously, he had done it. I thought it was this fabulous photograph. It made me laugh. It intrigued me. It made me wonder about him as a person, but also as a character.

A lot of young novelists write semiautobiographical stories, but yours seem to run in the opposite direction.

I’ve definitely never written in a hugely autobiographical way. Although I think there are always autobiographical elements that seep into your work, such as with Fat Kid Rules the World. I’ve always been a very self-conscious person, and translated that into Troy’s extreme self-consciousness [about his weight].

Were you self-conscious about your height—4'11½"?

That’s probably part of the reason. But personality-wise, I was always a self-conscious kid. I always had the personality of an observer. I studied sociology in college, which is, of course, the perfect major for somebody like that. I was also just a pretty quiet kid. I hated school, and I always did really well in it.

Why did you hate it?

I’ve thought back on that question a million times. What’s there to hate in kindergarten? I had a really wonderful idyllic life at home. I grew up on the Borden Estate [in New York], where they used to make the Borden’s ice cream. We had a lot of big barns, and there was an old greenhouse in the backyard. My mom stayed at home until I was in middle school, and then she took a job as a librarian. My dad was a biologist, and we would take lots of walks in the woods. We read together out loud all the time. My parents did not yell and at school when the teacher would yell, it was just—oh my gosh—it was something I had never experienced. I hated it.

Are kids surprised when they discover that your books were written by a woman?

Usually they are surprised. I’ve done some author appearances where the kids have been visibly shocked that I’m also not fat. Because they read Fat Kid Rules the World and they make these assumptions that there’s going to be a large fat guy who’s going to come in and talk to them. Then I come in and I’ve literally had kids visibly and vocally react. They’re like, “Oh my God.” It’s just really funny.