Melody Maysonet

Melody Maysonet is the author of the critically acclaimed novel A Work of Art and has been an English teacher, editor, columnist, and ghostwriter. After growing up in Illinois, she moved to South Florida to see how much greener the grass could be ... and discovered that life is what you make of it, wherever that happens to be.

What We Wish For is Maysonet's second novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My working title for a long time was Out of Mind because the main character’s mom is out of her mind, but it was also a play on “out of sight, out of mind,” as in, Layla, the main character, is trying to hide who she really is.

Then I settled on What We Wish For as the title, which is a play on the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for.” Layla thinks she gets everything she wishes for when her rich aunt and uncle swoop in to save her from the homeless shelter, sending her mom to fancy addiction rehab and moving Layla into their mansion. Layla thinks all her dreams have come true but finds out that getting everything she wished for comes with its own price tag.

The title is also a reference to hope—as in, there are so many things we wish for, and oftentimes we don’t get them, but the point is to keep hope alive. In What We Wish For, Layla longs for a better life—for herself, for her mom. She longs to be a better person, to be a better friend, a better daughter. She struggles and gets knocked down and falls backwards, but she never gives up hope, and that’s her saving grace.

What's in a name?

One of Layla’s love interests in the novel is a teenager named Gabriel. I picked that name for a few reasons. The seed for this book was planted when I was volunteer teaching at a homeless shelter and I was introduced to some new residents, including a mom and her teenage son. The kid’s name was Gabriel, and I remember wondering what his life was like. Did he resent his mom for their living situation? Did the kids at school know where he was living? I know nothing else about this real-life kid except his name, which I thought would be a good name for someone who has a positive influence on Layla. Like Layla, Gabriel lives in the homeless shelter, and to me, he’s the epitome of cool. But he’s also a sort of mentor for Layla—an angel, if you will—so I thought the name was appropriate.

Layla’s snotty cousin (who Layla ends up living with once she moves in with her aunt and uncle) is named Celeste, and I chose that name because I like how it implies something celestial or otherworldly, which plays into the theme of wishing. Celeste herself isn’t exactly angelic. In fact, she starts out pretty unlikeable, but I think she redeems herself by the end, and that plays into another of the book’s themes, which is to look beyond the surface of things.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Once I know where a book is going, the ending kind of writes itself. But the first chapter? That’s a tough one. One of my earlier drafts had Layla whining about living in a homeless shelter, and I realized that it made her unlikeable. Chapter one went through a bunch of rewrites, and now it begins with Layla sitting in an AA meeting with her mom. And yeah, they’re homeless, and yeah, her mom is struggling to stay sober, but Layla is determined to stay positive, even though all the evidence is sending up alarm bells.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Layla is definitely based on me. Like her, I was poor growing up, and like her, I struggled in high school. I tried to project this attitude of “I don’t care what you think of me,” but I did care, and I felt very much less-than. I also wrote quite a bit of poetry when I was a teen, just like Layla, and like her, I was told by an English teacher at my school that my poems were “too filled with teenage angst.”

Layla’s mom, the struggling alcoholic, is also based on me. I’m an alcoholic, and though I’ve been in recovery for almost 18 years, I remember how awful it was to wake up telling myself I wouldn’t drink that day only to fail over and over. For years, I was a shell of a human being, but thankfully I found a way out, and for that, I am so very grateful.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My sister Dawn Freeman is one of the coolest people I know, and she had a huge influence on me. Dawn wrote poetry in high school, which made want to write poetry. In fact, Layla’s poetry shirt is based on a sweatshirt my sister wore in high school that she’d covered in lines from her poems, each of them written in different-colored Sharpie. I’m pretty sure people made fun of that shirt, so it took a lot of bravery for her to wear it. That’s the kind of person Layla wants to be—someone brave—but she’s too embarrassed to show off her own poetry, so her shirt is covered with famous poems instead of her own.

Visit Melody Maysonet's website.

The Page 69 Test: What We Wish For.

--Marshal Zeringue