I envy:

-People who can pay for college in full for five sons

-People who get shoeshines on their way to private corporate jets

-People who use the word 'envy' with such moral gravity to describe those who are struggling to pay bills, the middle class and all the rest of the 99%, as if there was time enough in our days for 'envy.'

When asked what he and his striking men wanted, Samuel Gompers, famous union organizer, simply replied: 'More.'

It's not envy to want more -- from our politicians, our country, and from ourselves.  We should be given the opportunity to want more -- and to dream too.

Envy, covet or

Want?  I prefer want, simpler:

Want more, envy less.

Truly, from author of LIE.  

I find it strange that some readers have claimed that kind of response to the hate crime described in LIE, my debut young adult novel, never could have happened, not this way.  LIE is the story of the aftermath of a brutal hate crime, of the decision of the two main characters, Skylar and Sean, to tell the truth, or to keep with their friends and lie about what happened. LIE is also the story of a community in the midst of upheaval and change, forced now to face ingrained sentiments about race, and hence, LIE is told in 10 distinct first person voices.   

Certainly, some character in the novel would have told about the beating sprees, or realized the 'true' character of the mastermind, Jimmy, behind them, and rebelled, or at least, personalizing the story, the readers claim that they would have come forward.

In fact, in the 2008 Long Island murder of Marcelo Lucero that, in part, inspired this novel, nobody came forward. Even though, according to news reports, it was widely known within the teen circles of this Long Island town that a group of their peers, including several school athletes, regularly went out to beat up Hispanics. I even start the novel with a quote from the real New York Times front page story attesting to this:  "The attacks were such an established pastime that the youths, who have pleaded not guilty, had a casual and derogatory term for it, 'beaner-hopping.'" 

So I find some readers comments strange. Strange.  

One last thought on 'strange.' I wrote LIE listening to Billie Holiday's famous song, "Strange Fruit" and re-reading the poem by the New York City schoolteacher, which comprises the words to this blues lyric about lynchings. I even taught the poem to my college world humanities class, played the song in class, and while we have traveled far from that song, I found it strange still, strange enough to write LIE.  

Bottom line:  You read LIE.  You decide. 

Onward into 2012 -- may it be a happy, healthy, inspired new year for all!

This murder, in part, inspired LIE:

From Newsday on Long Island -- Sunday, October 30:

Community advocates will hold remembrance events this week to call for unity and continued work against prejudice on the third anniversary of the hate killing of immigrant Marcelo Lucero.

Lucero was killed Nov. 8, 2008, when a mob of teens attacked him in Patchogue.

The Long Island Organizing Network, a Riverhead advocacy group, will hold an action meeting Tuesda at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood to discuss, among other subjects, the need for a permanent hate crimes task force and for passage of anti-bullying legislation in the county.

The meeting, slated to start at 7 p.m. in the campus’ theater located off Crooked Hill Road, seeks to foster “acceptance, understanding and respect, not just for Latinos but for every gender and race,” said lead network organizer Lisa Perry.

Lucero’s brother, Joselo Lucero, and other advocates will also hold an interfaith vigil, starting at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, at the St. Frances DeSales Parish Hall, located at 220 South Ocean Avenue in Patchogue.

“We want people of all faiths to come and for the event to take place every year, so that together we can create awareness that hate is not acceptable,” Lucero said. “We are not tolerating that conduct on Long Island.”

May Marcelo Lucero rest in peace

Last night, I watched the very compelling documentary "Light In the Darkness," on my PBS station.  Produced by the grassroots anti-hate organization, Not In Our Town, this documentary strives to tell the story of the Marcelo Lucero murder and the affect of this terrible murder by a group of teens on the town of Patchogue-Medford in Long Island.  I think it covered a lot of ground in a very effective way; it told the story of a town, working very hard to find 'answers' on how to move forward after a vicious hate crime. 

As I watched, I thought again, for the hundredth time,  why did it happen here, on Long Island?  Why, in this very decent middle class suburb?  What were these kids, their parents, their teachers, the principal, the police thinking before, during, after the crime?   How could these kids, and they were all high school kids --  on a regular basis, often on a weekly basis by their own admission-- beat up Hispanics at random -- for no reason other than that they were Hispanic -- why did this happen here?

Some may find this book 'difficult.'  Yes, it deals with a 'difficult' subject: Racism in American suburbs. What can I say?  It's true.  It's inspired by real hate crimes -- most notably. the murder of Marcelo Lucero on Long Island in November of 2009.  He was stabbed and beaten to death by a group of teenagers, who called the weekly sprees, 'beaner-hopping.'   If you are looking for a beach read, this isn't it.  If you want the next paranormal romance with vampires/zombies/werewolves, this isn't it.      

Some may say that there are too many characters.  There are 10 distinct first person points of views, including five teen and five adult, including three Hispanics.   I felt compelled to delve into, through multiple voices, the psychology of this town.  Each person is grappling, often desperately alone, with the aftermath of this crime.  I feel this is the story of a community as much as anyone individual.  I did not interview or even attempt to interview anyone from the town.  This is where I felt fiction had to take over.  I had to create characters so I could explore their motivations, pain, angst, anger, grief, struggle to do right or not. The main character, Skylar and Sean, are grappling with big questions of morality, of right and wrong, of  keeping quiet, or outright lying. 

According to the documentary, the 'real' high school kids in Patchogue-Medford struggled with this too -- they kept their code of silence.  No high school kid came forward to tell an adult about what they knew about these repeated, often weekly, sprees.  This  sentiment is echoed strongly in one character, Lisa Marie, who repeatedly says, "Everyone knows, nobody's talking."  I had read or heard about this community 'shut down' and it came alive in this line.

All through writing my debut young adult novel, I kept asking myself how could this happen?  Not only how could these beatings happen, but how could everyone keep silent?  This crime wasn't an isolated hate crime.  I knew that from my research of news articles.  I did know from research with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who I thank in my novel, that, not only could this happen here, but there had been a pattern of hate crimes on Long Island -- and a pattern of police indifference.  The police in the area routinely ignored or lacked follow up on crimes against Hispanics, that too was in the documentary and has been in several news reports.  But it also cried out to me to have a policeman in my story basically saying this.  Currently, in real life, the federal government is conducting a probe of the Suffolk County police department based on their conduct in hate crimes.  To their credit, according to the documentary and news reports, the Suffolk County Police are taking many steps toward rectifying this situation.

At every turn, I felt that each character embodied some small truth that fit into the larger picture, and only that way, with multiple voices, could a fuller picture of this community be drawn.  Of course, then each character had to be as fully developed a character as I could write.   You will not find 'easy' good or bad characters in the story, every character is multidimensional, struggling to find answers.   In one way, I hope LIE, is an 'Our Town," for the 21st century.

Ultimately, this well-made documentary, "Light in the Darkness," brought a lot of light on this town, on hate and racism in the suburbs.  I just wish it had gone further.  But a hour is a very short time to go very deep in television.   That's the role of fiction, or at least my fiction.

I think it will take 20 or 25 years for someone to write the "great" 9/11 novel... though even in LIE I mention 9/11 and keep turning it over in my head the idea of heroes.  Who's a hero and who isn't? 

Calling My Husband on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 

Calling him but no answer on his cell.

He should have been at work, but wasn’t.

He had taken a different route,

dropped off my car at the mechanic,

gone in late,

had to take the train into Penn Station

instead of Brooklyn,

had to push into the subway

downtown, the A,

 always too many people

at the World Trade Center stop--

he hated subways,

too many, in too small and hot and

claustrophobic a box lurching

underground— but then,

he didn’t like heights either.

What everyone remembers is

how blue the sky was.

How perfect the day -- 

cloudless, crisp.

But otherwise an ordinary Tuesday,

oh, a day to vote in the primaries,

still an everyday Tuesday,

except that I couldn’t reach him --

not on his cell, nor in his office.

A regular Tuesday,

except that I was in Long Island,

and on the television,

planes were hitting

the World Trade Center Towers.

I wanted to scream out my office window –-. 

Later, that afternoon,

back home, his black suit,

(which he never wore again),

hung stiff with sweat and

grey with dust,
debris and fear.

He had made it to his downtown

Brooklyn law office just in time,

had the view clear to lower Manhattan,

and the Twin Towers.

That Tuesday morning,

amid the acrid smell of fuel

and plastic and -- everyone who could

was hurtling over the Brooklyn Bridge --

jamming into the last LIRR train

to leave the station -- he could barely

breathe –- nobody knew what was going on;

except, men like him were leaping off the Towers

-- into blue sky.

But he had come home, and others didn’t –-

other husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, sisters, brothers,

cousins, friends, lovers, children— didn’t come home on that

everyday Tuesday in September, a primary day, a day of clear blue skies.

Every September 11 since I say a prayer for him at my side, and another prayer – from the pit of my heart, from the place where things don’t make sense, and never will, a prayer for all those ordinary men and women, who didn’t come home.   

 -- Caroline Bock, 2011    

I had to explain to my 11 year old son who Osama bin Laden was this morning and why it mattered that he was dead, killed by the United States, and I thought that this was a good thing.  He was only one when the United States was attacked.  It made me think of all the teens that need to understand the impact of 9/11, how it changed how we think about our country and the world.  But I had to be careful explaining it to my son -- I don't want him to learn to hate people because of a few extremists -- I don't want him to be scared that planes will come crashing out of the sky -- I don't want him to fear that buildings will be bombed (something that was very real in NYC in the immediate aftermath of 9/11).   How do we teach our children about the world, without teaching them to hate?   Very carefully. 

Back from vacation... from going south of the Mason-Dixon line... from visiting my brother in the places Sherman spared.  On the way back, we stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park.  If you haven't been there -- go.  New high tech visitor center plus ghosts of one of the greatest battles of the Civil War still on the fields equal informative, amazing, history comes to life experience.

Came home to this quote in the New York Times:  "Lauryn Hill's seminal 2005 work sprang to mind: "Men who lack conscience will even lie to themselves."   I love the irony of this quote --especially when thinking of LIE!!    The quote was part of a larger editorial by Charles Blow on Donald Trump -- and regarding Trump -- truth is stranger than fiction!!