Q&A with Julie Murphy (Side Effects May Vary, Dumplin’)

Julie Murphy lives in North Texas with her husband who loves her, her dog who adores her, and her cats who tolerate her. When she’s not writing or trying to catch stray cats, she can be found reading, traveling, or watching movies so bad they’re good. Her debut contemporary young adult novel, Side Effects May Vary, is out from Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins and has been well-received by Kirkus, School Library Journal, VOYA, Booklist, Seventeen Magazine, and Teen Vogue. Dumplin’, Julie’s sophomore novel has received glowing reviews including two stars from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Film rights have been optioned by Disney.

(This interview was conducted at this year’s Midwest Writer’s Workshop and focuses primarily on SIDE EFFECTS MAY VARY. A separate interview with Julie about DUMPLIN’ is available to read on Amanda Byk’s blog.)

RL: If Alice and Harvey went to Hogwarts, which house would each of them have been sorted into and why?

JM: Oh, mhm, this is a good question. It’s been a long time since I’ve written this book. Okay, I would have to say that Harvey is totally…hang on, oh my gosh. This is such a good question.

RL: [laughing] I’m putting you on the spot for their Hogwarts houses.

JM: No, no, no, I’m obsessed with Harry Potter, so this is a great question. Okay, so Harvey’s a Gryffindor, right? Harvey is such a Gryffindor. And not even because he necessarily meets the requirements of a Gryffindor, but Harvey is the person who would put the Sorting Hat on and ask the Sorting Hat to put him in Gryffindor. And I think that for those same reasons, Alice is a Slytherin. I think there are lots of thing about Alice that don’t necessarily make her Slytherin, but I think that she is one of those people who would self-select and be like, “Put me in Slytherin.” But she’s also manipulative and a little conniving, I say that like those are bad things — I’m also Slytherin. 

RL: I saw on your Twitter profile! I’m a Ravenclaw.

JM: I used to say that I was a Slytherclaw, but I’m pretty solidly Slytherin. But I think those two would self-select; I think they would have a clear idea of what they want.

RL: And it’s like a good match, since they’re at odds so much, but still kind of fit together.

JM: Yeah, yeah! It’s like Draco/Harry, like slash-fic, but with Alice and Harvey.

RL: Kind of going off Alice’s manipulations and such, then, I’ve read in other interviews where you talk about how Alice acts as her own antagonist, which I really love — but do you think that’s just her as a character or do you think it’s just a side effect of all of the experiences that she’s gone through, with her cancer and everything?

JM: I think Alice — Alice is sort of like, “What if the worst case scenario happened to someone who is already a prickly person?” You know what I mean? Someone who already is very specific about the people they hang out with, is very specific about everything they do, and everything they say. So I think that it’s a little bit of both. I think that her circumstances, like her mother cheating and her being diagnosed with cancer, have sort of created this caricature version of Alice. It’s sorted of created this worst-case-scenario, villainous version of Alice where normally this prickly version of Alice can navigate the world, and for the most part, not kill anyone. But when her world is exploding, that’s just not possible anymore.

RL: In what ways do you think you relate to both Alice and Harvey, since you tell it from both of their points-of-view?

JM: You know, I think that a younger version of myself relates a lot to Harvey because I have been in that position where I let someone else dictate a relationship, and I let them take advantage of me. And what was horrible about that position is that I’ve always felt like such an Alice. You know what I mean?

(At this point in the interview, Natalie C. Parker walked into the green room where we were recording, and Julie joked that she couldn’t be smart around Natalie. The previous question was repeated and picked back up after Natalie left — post-best friend banter between the two.)

JM: So I definitely feel like I have been a Harvey in the past, but what made being a Harvey so bad is that internally I’ve always been such an Alice, and I was aware that I was being manipulated, but love and infatuation and lust let you — no matter how strong of a person you are or no matter how aggressive of a person you are, you can be manipulated by those things. I think that those are some of the strongest passions that we have, you know? So I’ve been a little bit of both, but I think at heart I’m an Alice, like I’m a very cool — hopefully — a very cool, down, like leveled version of Alice, maybe a little bit like her mom, you know.

RL: Alice after she learns and grows!

JM: Yeah, Alice after the storm, I hope.

RL: If you had the power to travel to a different time, when would you travel and why, what would you do when you got there?

JM: You’re asking really difficult questions! Okay, so, I think, so this is a horrible answer and you guys probably don’t even know what I’m talking about ’cause you’re young and pretty — I am obsessed with Steel Magnolias. Okay? So I think if I could time travel back in time, let’s pretend that Steel Magnolias is its own alternate universe, in 80s Louisiana, with Dolly Parton. That’s what I would travel back to — I would just live in that little salon with Dolly Parton and gossip with everyone forever for the rest of my life. So it’s not real history, but — 

RL: It’s like an alternative history; I totally accept it. As writers, alternative universes are our thing.

RL: How did your writing process change from Side Effects May Vary to Dumplin’?

JM: So. Freaking. Much. So Side Effects May Vary, after I published this book, I got a lot of questions about like, “How did you handle the dual points of view? And the two various timelines? Like, how did you possibly do this?” And the answer to that question is that I didn’t — I didn’t know that was I was doing was difficult and I didn’t know any better. Because it was really easy for me as I was writing to write an Alice scene in the present and then for that Alice scene to then present questions that only a Harvey scene in the past could answer. So it sort of — it’s a horrible answer because I’m telling you it was a really lazy way that I came about it? Does that make sense? But it was also, like, a totally amateur — like, I was hungry for that story, and I was trying to fill in the blanks for that story, and I think everyone has this experience at least once when they’re writing a book where it’s just — you feel like you’re a savage, you just have to write this book because you want to know what happens next. And it’s not that I don’t like everything that I write now, but this is the only time I’ve ever felt like “If I don’t keep writing, I’m going to turn into a monster, and I have to keep writing this story right now.” And that’s part of the thing with the two timelines and the two points of view, is that I was coming up with these questions that I had to answer, and that was the only way that I could answer those questions.

RL: I had another question just about how you met Molly, because I’m her assistant [at the workshop], but you kind of answered that in the agent/author panel, so it’s a redundant question, I don’t want to make you talk about it twice. But were you thinking about how your novel might be received in response to the “sick lit” sub-genre of YA as you were writing it? Post-TFiOS?

JM: So Side Effects came out after out after The Fault in Our Stars, what’s funny about — everyone thinks that I’m going to be somehow upset about The Fault in Our Stars, or annoyed by it, but what’s actually wonderful about The Fault in Our Stars is it created a space for my book to sell very quickly. Because I queried — so The Fault in Our Stars came out in like January, right? Of whatever — of like, 2012? Yeah, whatever year it was, it came out in January of that year, and I queried in February of that year, and so I think the term “sick lit” is gross and disgusting, but people were looking for books about teenagers who were dealing with terminal illnesses, and so when I queried, it was like wild fire. And I think that Molly and I still would have found each other, ’cause she loves that book — I could take cancer out of that book, and she would still love that book, ’cause she loves that book for Alice, and she loves that book for Harvey, so the cancer is sort of like a moot point in that book. You could replace cancer with “Alice thought she was going to move out of town, and she ends up not moving at the very last minute.” So I understand why it gets categorized as “sick lit,” but I don’t think it’s necessarily defined by that term.

RL: I don’t like that term either, ’cause it just like — it puts everything into a box, and then the term “sick” itself is just kind of a bad term, and then it makes it sound like books within that society-created genre are bad, and it’s like, “No, books aren’t bad!” 

JM: No, they’re not bad — and I don’t think — it’s such an exploitive term, it makes it sound like I’m in some way exploiting people who’ve had cancer, but I think that — I mean that Molly would have found that book no matter what, and I think that, you know, the cancer thing is just the vehicle for the story, I think it could be replaced by something else. Hopefully all of the cancer and all of that stuff in the book is realistic, but I think it’s replaceable in the book, or at least I hope it is.

RL: Yeah, ’cause I was thinking when I was reading the book for the first time — it’s not even that much of a focal point. It’s something that affects Alice, but it’s like, you get Alice in the first chapter finding out and about her mom, but then by chapter three, in her next point of view chapter, you find out she’s in remission, so it’s not about her finding out or anything, it’s about dealing with the consequences and the side effects.

JM: Yeah, and I think that we — I was talking about this in my YA intensive class, there’s a lot of discussions about at what point should you start a book? Do you start a book when your character’s world changes? Or do you start a book when your character’s arc changes in response to their world changing? Do you know what I mean? So do I start the book when Alice is diagnosed with cancer, do I start the book — no, you start the book when she has to start reacting to the world around her, and that’s when — there are two specific arcs in the book, and that’s when she finds out her mom is cheating and when she finds out she’s in remission. That’s when Alice has her real emotional shifts in this book.