The Faculty Lounge

By Jennifer Mathieu

(Dutton)

Interview by Diane Slocum

When retired Baldwin High teacher and beloved substitute Mr. Lehrer took his last breath while reclining on the couch in the faculty lounge, the repercussions were felt throughout the school year. The unauthorized spreading of ashes gone awry didn’t help. As the year progresses, we meet the teachers, administrators and staff at the school, dealing with this and other issues such as two of the young teachers sharing a school lockdown (is it a drill?) in a remote book storage closet. Or a missent email regarding the ashes and the imperious head of the parents’ organization.

AUTHORLINK: What were your first thoughts about this story? Where did you go from there?

MATHIEU: To be totally honest, there was a delightful older man, well into his 80s, who was substituting at my high school. He had a habit of taking naps in the faculty lounge, and one day I did wonder what might happen if he did not wake up. (Fear not, he always did!) This little observation became the seed for the first chapter of The Faculty Lounge, which actually started as a collection of short stories. I pulled a background character from that first chapter and wrote another story and then another. Initially, I wasn’t thinking of these stories as a novel. I was simply driven to write something that revealed the full humanity of teachers and other adults who work in schools, and at first this writing took the form of short stories.

AUTHORLINK: In some ways, your novel is a collection of interconnected short stories because each chapter features a different character or pair of characters, often including the characters featured in the other chapters. Tell about using that technique.

MATHIEU: Initially, I envisioned this as a collection of short stories, but unfortunately, it’s sometimes difficult to find a home for these sorts of collections. My agent and I initially stitched them together with a few interchapters, most which took the form of emails and text exchanges. I always loved the idea of having one character featured prominently in one moment and then hovering in the background in another. As a reader, I love moments like this. It feels like being in on a secret as you note a minor character and realize you know so much about them from another part of the book. When The Faculty Lounge sold to Dutton, my acquiring editor Lexy Cassola wisely suggested we remove the interchapters and instead find a way to connect the stories through a plotline that carries through the entire school year. That’s where the spreading of Mr. Lehrer’s ashes came into play.

 

AUTHORLINK: Did any of your characters grow from being secondary characters into having chapters of their own after you got to know them? Did you drop any characters on re-writes?

MATHIEU: The character of Ms. Jimenez, the snarky teacher who runs the holiday swap, was initially inserted into stories as comic relief. I realized she deserved her own chapter, and I loved giving her a backstory that is just a little bit sad and maybe explains her use of dark humor as a coping mechanism. The character of Jessica Patterson, the high-powered mom, was not in the original draft. She was a lot of fun to write, too. I didn’t drop any characters. In fact, I would have been happy to write even more although it may have overwhelmed the reader! I am a character-driven writer for sure.

AUTHORLINK: You have published seven novels for young adults. How did you decide to flip over to the other side and write about teachers? What was different about writing a novel for adults?

MATHIEU: I’ve spent the last ten years putting out books for young people and enjoying it very much. When I started writing young adult, I was in my very early thirties (although my first novel was not published until my late thirties), I did not have any children of my own, and I was much, much closer to my own adolescence than I am now. I’m currently 47, the mother of a teenager, and staunchly in middle age, and I’d like to explore adulthood a little more. In writing my last two YA novels, I sometimes found myself more curious about the adult characters, like the parents of my protagonists. As a writer, I just sensed it was time to try something new. I would not say the craft of writing or the way I approach my writing is any different in the world of adult books, although my books for young adults are all written in first person present. It’s been something of a rush to write in third person past!

AUTHORLINK: One chapter does feature a student, Emilio. How was that important?

MATHIEU: I did not consciously choose to write a story that features a student. In fact, Ms. Brennan’s story – while it appears at the end of the novel – was one of the first ones that I wrote. So I don’t think I was trying to make sure I squeezed in mention of a student or anything like that. I have taught the children of neighbors both next door and across the street, so that was something of a seed for that chapter. I think what I ended up loving about writing the character of Emilio is that he is totally off base when it comes to perceiving certain specifics about Ms. Brennan, but in the end, he is able to give her words she really needs to hear. I loved writing him. As a high school teacher, my own students’ sweet words, cards, and encouragement have saved my teacher soul more than once. Any good teacher knows what that feels like, and I wanted to include a nod to that, too.

AUTHORLINK: One of your YA books was made into a movie. Tell me about that experience.

MATHIEU: Utterly surreal. I will never forget the day I was grading essays in (you guessed it!) the faculty lounge, and my agent called me to tell me Amy Poehler was interested in the Moxie manuscript. I literally wrote down the words “Amy Poehler” on my planner as if I would forget! Amy and her entire team were absolutely wonderful, from start to finish. While they didn’t have to seek it, they asked for my feedback on the screenplay, and I was able to visit the film set and even did a cameo as a chemistry teacher. (Blink and you’ll miss it and feel free to blink!) The first time I walked onto the set of the film, I got tears in my eyes. To see an entire world that I’d built in my mind constructed on a film set was bizarre and wonderful. The film is different from the novel in some big ways, but I was really pleased with it. It captured the spirit of the novel completely.

AUTHORLINK: You do include some digs at various aspects of the education system. As a writer and a teacher yourself, how do you think fiction helps us get a more personal view of societal problems?

MATHIEU: I’m a firm believer that you change minds through stories. People don’t typically respond to a long litany of statistics, and they don’t respond when they’re pummeled with repetitive rhetoric. But when you can attach a face or a name to a problem or issue, it makes it real. I think reading makes us more empathetic human beings because books function as not only mirrors but windows. If anyone walks away from reading The Faculty Lounge and takes time to think about how we fund schools and how we support the people working in them, then I’m glad for that.

AUTHORLINK: What are you working on next?

MATHIEU: I’m at the stage in life where I’m captivated by those Sliding Doors moments that, unbeknownst to us, probably permanently changed the path we were on. For the past several years, I’ve been marinating on an idea that centers on two middle-aged teachers at a fancy prep school who are friends. The reader is aware that they had a chance meeting as teenagers, but neither character realizes it. This chance meeting alters the entire course of both of their lives and plays out in their friendship. It’s itching to come out of me, and I think I have to write it soon or try to.

About the author: Jennifer Mathieu graduated from Northwestern University. She was a journalist and has now been teaching high school for about 20 years. She has written seven young adult novels including Moxie which was made into a motion picture for Netflix. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages. She lives with her family in Houston.