Come with Me, Let’s Pick the Lock, an interview with Award Winning Author A. S. King

Regular readers of TLT know that the Jensen household is an A. S. King household. King is hands down our favorite Middle Grade and Young Adult author. When news that a new A. S. King book, PICK THE LOCK, was coming out, Riley and I argued over who got to read it first. I won and I am here to tell you that PICK THE LOCK does not in any way disappoint and is, in fact, one of her best works to date. Compelling, fascinating, timely, and thought provoking in all of the best ways, as King does.
Today, I am honored to present to you and interview with A. S. King.
Let’s start with a brief overview of the book PICK THE LOCK, which comes out on April 24th.
Jane Vandermaker-Cook would like her mother back. As Jane’s mother tours the world to support the family, Jane lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their mendacious father who confines Jane’s mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she’s at home. And then there’s weirdly ever-present Aunt Finch, Milorad the gardener, and his rat, Brutus. For Jane, this all seems normal until she suddenly gains access to the files for a lifetime of security-camera videos—her lifetime. A.S. King’s latest surrealist masterpiece follows Jane’s bizarre and brilliant journey to reconnect with her mother by breaking out of her shell and composing a punk opera.
In your new book, Pick the Lock, the main character, Jane, believes she has to rescue her mother from an abusive situation. It made me think of how online I often see adults say some form of, “The young people will save us.” I was wondering what you think about this type of statement and how it relates to your novel and your advocacy work with teens and mental health.
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What a great question, here at the starting line. Hello again, Karen. Happy to talk to you about the next book, Pick the Lock, and thank you for having me to TLT.
I am in two minds about what you ask here. I think the “young people will save us” puts a lot of pressure on young people. I also think it’s shortsighted in that young people are the ones with the fewest resources and reach. Their voices are often still silenced, and adults in charge are not listening to the youth, for the most part. So, maybe when adults say “the youth will save us,” it’s more of a hope. I mean, I hope they save us. But we have to help them because no one demographic can reverse a mess like we’re in all by itself.
But this book—and Jane’s role in it in relation to her mother—is not about “the youth will save us.” It’s about something else entirely, and Jane’s idea to rescue her mother is not her mother’s, it’s hers, because she believes her mother can’t do it herself. Without spoilers, I can say that Jane’s mother, Mina, is a powerful woman who can do many things well, but at home, she is in a very confusing and erratic space due to her husband’s abuse, and unaware of all the things that are happening to her children in her absence (and therefore how widely-wielded that abuse is). This is the reality of covert counter-parenting, psychological abuse, and triangulation. As Jane figures out more and more truth from viewing old home security footage, she realizes her entire idea of her mother, told to her by her father and his accomplice, is a lie. This is a far larger metaphor for how our culture treats women and mothers—especially ones who are successful at work. The narrative about us is often very misogynistic, inaccurate, and disrespectful.
To connect to your last point about my advocacy for teens and mental health, the consistent message that working, accomplished moms are somehow “bad” and “less-than” hurts women and their children. When an idea is embedded into a culture, whether it’s a national culture or even a local or church culture, etc., it is absorbed by the young people in that culture. This means nearly every working mother feels some level of guilt or shame, which leads them to thinking that they are “bad” mothers just for working…even though here in late stage capitalism, some parents have to have two jobs apiece to just afford a house. Add to that, in counter parenting or parental alienation in an intact marriage, which is the clinical name for what’s happening in Jane’s house, the kids suffer. They are manipulated, told lies, often forced to join into the abuse of the mother, which causes the adolescent brain a lot of trauma. Because in the end, as those children grow, they are weighed down with conflict about who they are. Having vilified one of their parents for so long to stay safe around the abusing parent, they discover they hate half of themselves, or maybe all of themselves. Then, if they are boys, they run the risk of becoming adult abusers because the abuse mindset is the norm, and if they are girls, as they grow, they will have that same guilt, shame, and doubt when they become mothers. This doubt and shame makes them easier to fall into an abusive relationship. The cycle repeats. Add to this cycle, the reality that children growing up in homes where there is covert counter-parenting or any abuse are at a higher risk for depression, anxiety, and larger mental illness. This is why I talk openly about how abuse really happens because most people have oversimplified it. Young people need to talk about this. Did you know more than 33 percent of teen girls experience dating violence? Young people need to talk about this more than ever and adults need to stop sweeping it under the rug.

A thing that stuck out in my mind as I read Pick the Lock is how many people, how many adults, were complicit in this family’s abuse. It made me think of a Taylor Swift song called “Seven” in which she is singing to a childhood friend, “I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why.” There’s this idea that many people think something isn’t right in what is happening, but they don’t know what to call it or what, if anything, to do about it as an outsider. What would you tell a young person who thinks they are witnessing an abusive situation to say or do?
I’m going to be blunt with this first part—the most complicit adult in this novel is the abuser. Mostly we make excuses for violent men in this culture and rarely are we told the truth, which is: abuse is a mindset and a choice made by someone who demands control and power in a relationship or household. Also, there is another abuser at play in this book, and the fact that that two abusers are teaming up is notable, no doubt. But to say that the adults who are being manipulated and controlled by the abuser in power (by legal means and beyond) are “complicit” is to overlook the fact that the abusers could stop any time, but they choose not to. Each outsider adult character has a role, and that role is to protect the kids best they can while the abuser continues to abuse their mother. Their “loyalty” to the abuser has to be proven or else they would be removed from the role of protecting those kids. In a way, this part of your question speaks to what this book calls “the wrong question.” Why didn’t [not the abuser] do x? That’s the wrong question and it falls into the age-old response—blaming others when the person causing the problem is not called into question.
As for the actual question, that’s a tough one, especially when you involve young people. We don’t educate young people on what abusers really do and what being a victim of abuse really looks like. So I think we need to start doing that. I think the best anyone can do if they suspect abuse is happening is to support the victim or bystanders (technically also victims) of the abuse in whatever way they can. Victims often don’t have an idea what’s really been going on because abusers are fantastic liars. They’re very charming and full of exciting stories about the people they control, and many outsiders think they’re as great as they describe themselves. So it’s already complicated and this question—it’s such a wide question and somewhat impossible to answer. Abuse looks like 1000 different things depending on the day. It’s a hard thing to give advice about because it could be 1000 different things. The oversimplification of abuse is at play here; the worst abusers I’ve known never punched their victim in the face and yet this is the most common litmus of abuse in the mainstream. Abuse is as simple as lying, manipulation, or normalized gaslighting. So if a young person sees it and can recognize it, say something. Not to the abuser, but to the victim. Once an abuser knows they’ve been figured out, they only get worse. But really, there are 1000 answers to this question and I’m not sure I’d advocate for young people becoming involved in adult abuse situations because those can be very dangerous. I think part of the oversimplification of abuse is the minimizing of the real danger that abusers pose. Make no mistake, women and children die every day because we are led to believe the danger is not there. That’s the abuser’s trick.
I recently watched a keynote you gave with Andrew Karre for SLJ and you talked about the tube system that appears in this novel. In the interview, you said it was a metaphor for people not having control of their lives. Your books are profoundly deep and full of symbolism and metaphors, and I was wondering how this particular one came to you.
The tubes are a metaphor for women who do not have control over the narrative of their lives—that’s an important distinction because Mina absolutely has control over her life when it comes to her career, but just not in her house because she’s been exhausted by decades of abuse. The metaphor came to me when I was told what was said about me when I wasn’t in the room, and how my children had come to believe things about me that were false. The discovery felt like I’d been contained in a Plexiglas tube, where people could see and talk about me in a distorted way, but I couldn’t hear what was being said. That was how the tube system in the Victorian home started, as well as Mina’s willing escape.
In that same interview, you said the only picture you have on your desk is a picture of Hawkeye Pierce, and if you don’t mind sharing, I was curious to know why that one picture.
Hawkeye Pierce has been my hero since I was 8 years old. M*A*S*H is my favorite show of all time and I could relate to him as a human being. Seeing all that trauma and still able to joke and be goofy. I guess I related to him for that reason. For years, I said I wanted to be a heart surgeon—and I believe I did become one; just a different kind of heart surgeon. He’s on my desk for two reasons. He was a gift from my dear friend Stephnie Squicciarini, epic librarian and founder of the Rochester Teen Book Festival. And if I’m having a hard day at the desk, I can ask Hawkeye for advice. He always has answers.
How has your life as a writer changed for you since becoming a multiple award winning author?
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My writing life has never changed—like how I write, when I write, etc. in relation to any of the awards I’ve won. I think this is because I wrote for 15 years without being published, so I don’t really think about that part of writing (publishing, awards, etc.) when I’m writing. I just channel the story. So my writing process or inspiration hasn’t changed. I still have to work other jobs to afford to write, so that also hasn’t changed. However, my writing life has changed for the better in the last four years, which is when a lot of those awards arrived, because I picked my own lock and freed myself from the metaphorical tube system I was in. I can’t tell you what a relief it is after so long believing there was no way out. Now, I can just write the books, raise my epic kid, make art, and do my job. It’s so much simpler and calmer.
Thank you so very much to A. S. King for another fantastic novel and this thoughtful interview.
PICK THE LOCK by A.S. King
Dutton Books for Young Readers
On Sale September 24th, 2024
ISBN: 9780593353974 / Ages 14 and up / $19.99
ABOUT THE BOOK: Jane Vandermaker-Cook would like her mother back. As Jane’s mother tours the world to support the family, Jane lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their mendacious father who confines Jane’s mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she’s at home. And then there’s weirdly ever-present Aunt Finch, Milorad the gardener, and his rat, Brutus. For Jane, this all seems normal until she suddenly gains access to the files for a lifetime of security-camera videos—her lifetime. A.S. King’s latest surrealist masterpiece follows Jane’s bizarre and brilliant journey to reconnect with her mother by breaking out of her shell and composing a punk opera.
A.S. King is the bestselling and award-winning author of many acclaimed books for young readers. Her novel Dig and the anthology The Collectors both won the Michael L. Printz Award, and her novel Ask The Passengers won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The New York Times called her “one of the best YA writers working today.” In 2022, she was awarded the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award for her significant contribution to YA literature. King spends many months of the year traveling the country talking to teenagers about writing, mental health, and succotash. She lives in Pennsylvania.
Praise for Pick the Lock by A.S. King:
★ “Printz Award–winning King has written another remarkable, character-driven book that dazzles with its originality. With that and its employment of magic realism, it is sui generis, and at 400-plus pages, it is one of King’s most ambitious, and most successful, books. And that, God knows, is no lie.”—Booklist, starred review
“Helmed by Jane’s penetrating commentary, this unconventional narrative melds punk anthems and bewildering interludes from a shape-shifting rat with King’s quirky blend of present-day issues and mind-bending twists to unlock complex, thought-provoking insight.” —Publishers Weekly
Filed under: Teen Fiction, Young Adult, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Literature
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