Pop (26 page)

How did you go about researching a book on this topic, and what was the most interesting thing you learned while writing it?

What was unique about the research for
Pop
was the fact that the study of sports brain injury is so new that the science changes from week to week. In fact, what was known as early-onset Alzheimer's disease while I was working on the book, now has its own medical name—Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. It was certainly tricky writing about a field of medicine that was changing so rapidly, but that also made it exciting. I've been in contact with some of the people who were on the vanguard of this issue, which made
Pop
feel particularly timely and relevant.

Can you identify any similarities between Troy and your other characters? Do you find there's a particular type of character that you like to explore?

I do a lot of school visits, so one thing I enjoy is populating my novels with an interesting and believable cast of characters—and I have a pretty large experiential base, both from my own childhood and from the thousands of kids I meet on the road. Troy was a great character to write because, at first glimpse, he's such a jerk. Yet, as the reader gets a fuller understanding of what's going on in his life, he really is one of the most sympathetic people in
Pop
. One of the biggest decisions that both Marcus and Troy have to make is whether or not they'll continue with football, despite knowing what happened to Charlie. I played around with this a lot in my own head. In the end, it made perfect sense to me that Troy would quit and Marcus would play on. But I doubt many readers would predict that in the first half of the story.

Was it difficult to write Charlie's story and show readers both sides of his illness, from Marcus's and Troy's different perspectives?

Probably the most challenging part of
Pop
was writing the scenes from Charlie's perspective. Obviously, no one really knows how a person suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia perceives the world. But having observed my grandmother during her years with Alzheimer's, I had a notion that I used as my starting point for Charlie. A lot of the world is confusing for him, so he naturally follows the things that make the most sense to him. Since his older memories are clearer than the more short-term ones, that path leads him to Three-Alarm Park, a place he frequented as a child and as a teenager. And when he sees a sixteen-year-old playing football there, it's very natural for him to see his high school buddy, Mack. Marcus was a much more familiar character to me as an author. What made him really cool to write was the fact that, for a lot of the story, he was solving the mystery of what was wrong with Charlie. So I could play it as a game, keeping Marcus—and the reader—guessing at the reason why a fifty-something NFL veteran would behave like an impulsive and irresponsible kid.

GORDON KORMAN
has written more than fifty middle-grade and teen novels. Favorites include the #1
New York Times
bestseller
THE
39
CLUES: ONE FALSE NOTE, SON OF THE MOB
, and
SCHOOLED
. Though he didn't play football in high school, Gordon's been a lifelong fan and season ticket holder. He says, “I‘ve always been fascinated by the ‘culture of collision' in football, and wanted to explore it—not just from the highlight films, but from its darker side as well.”

Gordon lives with his family on Long Island, New York. You can visit him online at www.gordonkorman.com.

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Cover art © 2011 by Paul Bradbury

Cover design by Polly Kanevsky

Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Pop

Copyright © 2009 by Gordon Korman

All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.harperteen.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Korman, Gordon.

Pop / by Gordon Korman.—1st ed.

       p.     cm.

“HarperTeen.”

Summary: Lonely after a midsummer move to a new town, high-school quarterback Marcus Jordan becomes friends with a retired professional linebacker whose erratic behavior confuses him, until Marcus discovers that the player is actually suffering from a neurological disease.

ISBN 978-0-06-174261-3

EPub Edition © MAY 2012 9780062218599

[1. Football—Fiction. 2. Alzheimer's disease—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Moving, Household—Fiction. 6. Divorce—Fiction.] I. Title.

11  12  13  14  15  CG/BV  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

First paperback edition, 2011

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