Jennifer Lynn Barnes is the perfect person to take my Disreputable History interview because she went to YALE, which is full of secret societies! Plus she is a prankster. Plus her new book, THE SQUAD: Pefect Cover, is all about cheerleaders leading secret lives as government agents. Part Charlie's Angels, part Bring it On. Here, from Powell's.
“If you cross Ally Carter's spy books with Meg Cabot's THE MEDIATOR series, you've got your smart-aleck anti-social heroine kicking butt and taking names...in a cheerleader outfit. If you haven't discovered this series yet, you're really missing out.”
–Teensreadtoo.com, Gold Star Award for Excellence and a Reviewer’s Choice Top Ten Pick
Really, what could be cooler?
Um. Maybe the elevator prank she describes below? Or maybe her definition of feminism.
Oh, also, THE SQUAD: Perfect Cover is the start of a series. And the sequel comes out....
NOW. At the same time as the first one. THE SQUAD: Killer Spirit. Read more on them here.
In my new book, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, the heroine infiltrates an all-male secret society and stages ornate and controversial pranks on the campus of her boarding school.
1. Tell me the sneakiest thing you ever did.
I have a brother who's two years older than I am. When we were little, the two of us played together a lot- except when he had friends over, and then I was completely ousted from all activities, given that (a) I was a "baby" and (b) I was a girl. One day when I was about five, my brother had a friend over who was very anti-girl- so much so that my brother not only refused to let me play with them, but also went so far as to deny he ever played with me, because I was just a stupid girl who wanted to do stupid girl things, and what would he want with me anyway? To get back at him, I invited my own friend over, and the two of us snuck into my brother's room while the boys were outside. We very diligently dressed all of his action figures up in doll clothes, and "decorated" his room to look as girly as was humanly possible, with dress-up clothes and doll accessories scattered everywhere. Then we went outside to play, and the boys- predictably- went inside to get away from us. My brother took his friend upstairs and was aghast to discover what we'd done to his room- especially since I very convincingly disavowed all knowledge of it and convinced his friend that Justin (my brother) was always trying to get me to play dolls with him, even when I wanted to do other things. I think I even complained about how unfair it was that Justin hogged all of the prettiest dress-up clothes. My brother was mortified, but my mom thought it was hilarious. As best I can recall, that was the last time my brother ever refused to play with me because I was a girl- from there on out, when he didn't want me tagging along, he stuck with the somewhat safer assertion that I was just too young.
2. Tell me the sneakiest thing that happens in your new book.
The Squad books are full of sneakiness. For starters, all of the main characters are living double lives- high school cheerleaders by day and secret agents by night. They're constantly being underestimated by their peers and by adults in the community, and they're not above using it to their advantage. For example, one of the girls is a professional-level profiler and she uses the tiniest cues- like body language and reactions to a manufactured rumor- to draw up profiles on her classmates. Another of the girls manages to knock out an enemy agent using nothing but an iPod. All of them are much, much more than people give them credit for being.
3. Are you a prankster? Tell me a story.
I don't prank often, but when I do prank, things tend to get somewhat elaborate. One February when I was in college, my roommate and I went to visit a friend of hers at NYU for the weekend. We were on the fourteenth floor of one of the NYU dorms, and we spent one night running back and forth to the floor below. The staircase was situated right next to one of the dorm rooms, and my roommate accidentally burst into that room, mistaking it for the stairs. The room's owner was understandably freaked out, but she was also rather nasty about it. The next night, my roommate, her friend, and I got really bored. After noticing that the rest of the dorm seemed to be partying pretty heavily, we somehow decided that the best relief for our boredom would be to simultaneously prank the vast number of loud and inebriated people on the fourteenth floor AND the girl whose room was next to the stairs.
Armed with a video camera, three sheets of paper, and a Sharpie, we commenced what we referred to as "Project Stairs Relocated." First, we constructed three signs. The first, which we affixed to the elevator, read: "Elevator out of order. Please use stairs." We then very helpfully drew an arrow towards the stairs, located around the corner from the elevator. Then, on the door to the stairs, we taped up a second sign, which said simply, "Stairs Relocated" with a HUGE arrow pointing to the room next door (which was, in fact, the dorm my friend had accidentally mistaken for the stairs earlier). Finally, on the door of the dorm room in question, we put up a sign that said "STAIRS HERE NOW." We then sat down at the end of the hallway with the video camera and taped all of the drunk people attempting to use the elevator. Believe me when I say that's hours of entertainment right there.
Every ten minutes or so, some loud drunk people would go up to the elevator, see our sign, and start cursing really loudly. Then, they'd walk over to the stairs and see the second sign. Some people were still in their right minds enough to realize that the staircase had probably not been "relocated" in the past hour and that, in fact, "relocating" a staircase would be rather difficult to do. Of these individuals, about half successfully made the inference that if the stairs had not been relocated, the sign about the elevator- written in the same, uneven Sharpie lettering- was probably somewhat less than legit as well. The other half just took the stairs anyway- cursing all the way down (fourteen floors!). Another group of people seemed to be really unsure about the current location of the stairs. Some would look from one sign to the other and then back again, pace the hallway a bit, and then, finally, open the door to where the stairs usually were very slowly and peak in cautiously- as if they expected the stairs to have completely disappeared. Their facial expressions during this process were seriously the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Finally, we had a few people who fell for the entire prank, barging into the girl's dorm room and demanding to know "where the stairs went." It wasn't until the very end of the night that someone finally connected any of this with the three girls rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically while they video taped the whole thing.
4. Were you in any clubs or societies in high school? Did any of those club activities make it into your novels?
I was in a lot of clubs in high school- everything from the Multicultural Awareness Club to the Table Tennis Federation, the yearbook staff, and the volleyball team. None of those clubs have made it into my books yet, but my experiences on my middle school competitive cheerleading team definitely laid the basis for THE SQUAD.
5. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why, or why not?
I do consider myself a feminist, but in a kind of contrary way, because there are a lot of feminists who I feel like really restrict the definition of what it means to be a strong woman. I really firmly believe that girls should strive to follow their passions, no matter what those passions are. There's no right or wrong way to be a strong, smart woman, and sometimes I feel like there are versions of feminism which actually limit the kinds of things a girl can care about or enjoy. I don't just believe that girls can do anything boys can do- I believe that girls can do anything period.
6. How does your answer to question 5 show up in your new book?
THE SQUAD is about a group of girls who are able to succeed as secret agents because they belong to a group that is generally stereotyped as ditzy, bitchy, or shallow. It doesn't occur to a lot of the books' characters that a girl can be a cheerleader AND highly intelligent AND capable of disarming a bomb in record time. The series is very much so entrenched in the idea that a girl can be "girly" and brilliant, or fashion-obsessed, but incredibly strong, or any other combination of things that a lot of people assume just don't "go together."
7. The club in my book is called The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. If you were to found a secret society, what would it be called, and what would its mission be?
Yale is full of secret societies, so my senior year, my roommates and I actually did make up a name for our own "secret society." You can find the name in question in the dedication to my second book, Tattoo. Our mission, however, is still top secret.
Carrie Jones is on the GCC with me and her first book was Tips on Having a Gay (Ex)Boyfriend, while her second is Love and Other Uses for Duct Tape -- a sequel!
