Authors and Artists for Young Adults on Judith Clarke
Judith Clarke writes incisive fictional novels for teens that have earned praise for their humor and deft handling of weighty issues. This former teacher and librarian, who is a parent herself, enjoyed her first taste of success as an author with The Heroic Life of Al Capsella, a 1988 novel set in Clarke's native Australia. Two other novels featuring the likable teen followed, and in these and subsequent young-adult titles that deal with more serious topics or crises, the universal appeal of Clarke's protagonists and their dilemmas have prompted reviewers to note that the books should undoubtedly resonate with a global readership as well. After the success of Clarke's debut as a writer--The Heroic Life earned a finalist's spot in a government-sponsored literature competition in Australia--nearly all of her books have been published in the United States by Holt.
Clarke was born in Sydney in 1943 and earned an advanced degree from the Australian National University in 1966. Two years later she married an anthropologist, with whom she had a son, Yask. The author once stated: "Although I didn't write much during the period when my own family was young--probably because I was consumed with just the kind of parental anxieties that dog the parents in the 'Capsella' series--I can remember very clearly my first attempt at writing. I was very young, probably about four, had not gone to school yet, and had no idea of how to 'write' in the sense of forming actual letters. My mother had given me an empty notebook to draw in, and I used it to write a 'book' (it even had chapters) about a doll who'd fallen from her pram and had a series of horrendous adventures. The actual 'writing' was a kind of scribble--long wavy lines--but the story itself was a heartrending tale, and when I finished it, I gave it to my uncle to read. I watched him closely, expecting him to dissolve into sympathetic tears, but to my amazement and fury he burst out laughing. Perhaps this unsettling experience is what turned me toward comedy so many years after."
Introducing Al Capsella
The hero of the Al Capsella series is actually named Almeric, an odd name with which his parents have saddled him in just one example of their loving eccentricity and the first in a series of burdens fully outlined in the 1988 debut, The Heroic Life of Al Capsella. The work was published in the United States two years later. Al is fourteen and wishes his parents were conformist and "normal," rather than intellectual and decidedly different from the other households he observes. His mother writes romance novels and wears secondhand clothes, while his father is a university professor who finds it difficult to keep up on the yard work that is the hallmark of perfection in their suburban community. Al states that the ideal set of parents would be "perfectly ordinary and unobtrusive, quiet and orderly, well dressed and polite, hardworking and as wealthy as possible."
On a visit to the home of his grandparents--whose household is a veritable model of the ordinary--"Al discovers what 'normal' is with a vengeance," noted Ronald A. Van De Voorde in School Library Journal. Stephanie Zvirin, writing in Booklist, commended Clarke for her ability to craft oddly endearing adult characters that provide Al with the appropriate amount of teen angst, yet "beneath the comic veneer she has created," Zvirin opined, "lurks a fondness and respect for people--even parents--despite their strange ways."
In her next book, Al Capsella and the Watchdogs, Clarke depicts Al attempting to forge a life for himself as a more independent teenager. He feels that parents worry far too much--they give him permission to attend a party, for instance, but then his mother borrows a dog and takes it for a walk in order to spy on him and his friends. When his grandparents come for a visit, Al realizes that his mother endured--and still endures--the same constant, overprotective hovering he experiences. Zvirin, reviewing it for Booklist, again praised Clarke as a writer with a unique ability to relate to teens; the cast of adult characters in the Capsella series, she noted, "ring true in surprising, subtle ways."
A third book in the series appeared with a revised American title Al Capsella Takes a Vacation in 1993. Now sixteen, Al is able to convince his parents that he and his friend are mature enough for their own holiday at Christmastime, when it is summer in Australia. Lured by another friend's exaggerations, they cart their surfboards off to what they envision as their beachfront party paradise. Instead they find themselves in a deadly dull rural nightmare two-hundred miles inland; a leech-filled pond awaits, and they are forced to fend for themselves, even to the point of cooking their own food. "Al's wry, almost deadpan narrative is the perfect vehicle for describing a fantasy vacation gone awry," remarked Zvirin in Booklist. Clarke's attempt to age her protagonist and show some character development did not escape the notice of School Library Journal reviewer Kathy Piehl. "The maturing Al has grown a bit reflective, and a new poignancy surfaces in his consideration of the world," noted Piehl.
Examines Mature Themes
With her 1994 young adult novel Friend of My Heart, Clarke began attempting to address more serious issues in her fiction. The work revolves around a shy, overweight boy whose grandparent suffers from senile dementia, a difficult situation prompted by the author's own experience with her mother. Another trying event that occurred in the author's household spurred Clarke to delve into even more realistic plots for her fiction: the suicide of a friend of her teenage son. As Clarke told Magpies interviewer Margot Hillel, "I would find it very hard to write books like the Capsella series any more, because I would be thinking in the back of my mind that it wasn't actually true. Nothing bad could ever happen to Al Capsella or within the structure of those stories."
Clarke's 1997 novel The Lost Day explores what happens when a friend mysteriously disappears. Australian teens Vinny and his friend Jasper spend a Saturday evening at the Hanging Gardens, but Jasper is still sad over a breakup with his girlfriend and doesn't notice when Vinny disappears. He is still missing the next day, and the effect this has on Jasper and several other friends makes up the bulk of the action in the novel. All seem at a crossroads in life, and Clarke attempts to give an accurate example of the stress and strain teens face from parents, school, economics, and their peers. Anne Briggs, who reviewed The Lost Day for Magpies, called it a "clever and memorable book" and praised Clarke for her ability to merge "the most original and lyrical language with perfectly realised teenage slang," as well as for the series of "brilliant vignettes" that reveal Vinny, Jasper, and the cast of other characters. The work was published in the United States in 1999.
Clarke's 1998 novel Night Train won unstinting praise for presenting depression and suicide in an empathetic manner. Luke, the young protagonist, feels increasingly isolated from those around him. Clarke begins the novel at the end of Luke's life, retracing his last weeks. Because of a learning disability, he does poorly in school, though he is intelligent. Teachers and school officials fail to recognize the depth of his problem, and the bad grades and expulsions cause his father to treat him harshly. His mother and sister fail to sympathize, mired in their own problems, and it is only his youngest sister, Naomi, who tries to show Luke that someone needs him.
Luke's only comfort comes from the sound of the night train, but he begins to question his own sanity when he learns that no one else hears it. Jane Connolly, writing in Magpies, commended Clarke for her deft handling of the difficult subject matter. "By providing the end before the beginning, Clarke changes this story from simply one of despair and ultimate death to an examination of the care we provide or deny young people in obvious need," Connolly declared. "The story becomes a powerful question about responsibility."
Clarke sometimes feels compelled to answer charges that her work is too starkly realistic for young adults. She disagrees and supports her belief with the strongly approving letters she receives from her teen readers. "I want people to read my books and feel a kind of empathy, to feel that they understand how it is," Clarke told Hillel in Magpies. "That's what I want really, I want a child to read a book and think that's just like me or that's how it is for me, and there is somebody who understands. I do believe that something you read in a book can change your life for good."
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