Twelve-year-old Leo has a talent for transforming the everyday into the extraordinary. That's why they call him fog boy. He's always dreaming, always replaying things to his brain. He fantasizes about who he is in order to discover who he will become. As an actor in the school play, he is poised and ready for the curtain to open. But in the play that is his life, Leo is eager to find out what part will be his.
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The main character, Leo, reminds me of a young Walter Mitty, replaying events in his mind, casting himself as a hero instead of a little sardine. I like the way Leo also replays his father's life as he reads his autobiography and the way this is echoed in the play Leo is in. Rumpopo replays his life too, through stories. I hope readers will also enjoy having the full text of the Rumpopo play at the end of the book, so they can act it out.
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So what inspired this book? Two things mainly. The first was that I was thinking about how much of my life involves spinning scenes in my mind and then onto paper and I wondered if that came from the needing or wanting to reshape or replay the often chaotic scenes of real life. Here's what Leo says when he is thinking about his father telling stories and about himself, Leo, now doing the same thing.
"It seemed to Leo that he - Leo -- was only doing what Papa did every day, taking little moments and dressing them up so that they were more pleasing to your eye, your ear, your mind. And once you had dressed them up like that, they took root in your mind, replacing the other, more drab or hurtful ones."
And maybe that is what I am trying to do in each book I write. Offer readers little moments that are more pleasing to their ears, eyes, minds. Moments which might replace other more drab or hurtful ones they encounter in the real world.
The other impetus for this book came from my granddaughter, Pearl, who is now three years old and with whom I am completely besotted. She has a very rich, imaginative life, adoring books and spinning her own little stories. One of the first stories she told, very short, was when she was two. It went like this: "Once upon a time in Spain there was an angel. And the angel was me." There, a two year old already replaying her life, recasting herself as an angel. Ahh.
Pearl is full up to the top of her curly blond head with joy. She sings and dances where ever we go. To the park, to the mall, in the grocery store, people stop and smile at her, they say "ahh." And so while I was thinking about how much time I spend replaying scenes in my mind, I had this image of the joyful Pearl dancing. And out of that came Leo, a boy who tap-dances in the attic and who has a rich, imaginative life, replaying scenes in his mind.
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