Snark Demons, Puppy Dog Boys & How to Human: Ypsi author Caroline Huntoon talks about their middle-grade novel "Linus and Etta Could Use a Win"

WRITTEN WORD INTERVIEW

Caroline Huntoon and their book cover for Linus and Etta Could Use a Win

Author photo by Hannah Holland.

It's tough being the new kid in school in eighth grade. But in Linus and Etta Could Use a Win, Linus' situation as new kid is made even more fraught thanks to an ill-advised crush, a new friendship that may not be what it seems, and complicated family dynamics in response to his identity as a transgender boy. What to do? Well, Linus dives into his new life in Ohio head first by running for student council.

We spoke with Ypsilanti author and educator Caroline Huntoon about Linus and Etta Could Use a Win, working heavy topics into light reading, and what's coming up next for the prolific writer. 

Q: You previously spoke with Pulp about your first book, Skating on Mars. Linus and Etta is your second middle-grade novel, and it's been out for a minute now. I'm curious how the leadup to launch has been different for these two books, and how folks have received them. 
A: Well, certainly a lead-up to a second book feels different because some of the beats feel familiar but it's also still the first time you've had a second book. Which I guess will continue to be true for every book—the first time you have a third book, hopefully a fourth book. But I think some of it feels familiar, but then there are new beats or new moments. On this one, I found out I was getting an audiobook for Linus and Etta Could Use a Win. So there was a different process of preparation around that, finding the narrator and giving feedback and all that kind of stuff. And it's always exciting to get another book in the world. I think Linus and Etta Could  Use a Win is a little more … I guess the term would be commercial. Even though it deals with some heavy topics, it's a lighter book in many ways than Skating on Mars, which has grief as a really central theme. Response from young people has been really positive, but for some people, maybe it doesn't feel—and I'm using quotation marks here"—"important."

Q: It did feel very light, very fun. But there are some topics going on that I think that you get into in a really interesting way.
A: Yeah, I think in some ways, Linus and Etta Could Use a Win was a little riskier because Linus was a clearly trans character in a binary way, which was different than exploring a nonbinary identity [like in Skating on Mars]. I had that character experience his period, on the page, which I was surprised I didn't get more like, "What are you doing?" In Skating on Mars, Mars experiences a lot of acceptance around coming out and, not that Linus doesn't experience that, but this book deals with the aftermath of coming out and how that adjustment period looks different for different people. Everyone takes time, and even though it feels like coming out should be this big event, and, like, "I did it!" and there's a paradigm shift. That paradigm shift doesn't always result in everything feeling different for everyone right away.

Q: I'd be curious to hear how you describe these two characters in the title of the book.
A: Linus is my little pun-loving puppy dog boy, who is really kind of shy, but excited about being able to experience the world in a new way because of moving. Even though he's sad about moving away from New York to Ohio, there's this opportunity to kind of be a new person or be a version of yourself, or at the very least, have the people around him greet him where he is right now. I think a lot of young people experience that when they go to college or when you move somewhere new, there's this moment of the world reflecting back to you who you are in that moment, and that can feel very powerful.

Etta is my little snark demon. She has a gooey center but is really spiky on the outside, has been hurt, and I think is very protective of her own self as a result. But that has led her to kind of retreat from the world around her, and the world feels painful whenever she sort of reenters it. So I think both of these characters, in some way feel like parts of me, especially parts of seveth and eighth grade me. I think they come together in a really lovely way.

Q: As you said, Linus is the new kid in town, but you're able to establish a cast for him as well as conflict pretty quickly. Why do Etta and her nemesis Marigold take such an interest in this kid, who describes himself as pretty reserved?
A: The school that I've created is a relatively small community, so a new kid in eighth grade, regardless of the shy factor of that child, is always going to get a little bit of like, who's this? I think for both of them, actually, whether Etta wants to admit it or not, and quite frankly, whether Marigold wants to admit it or not, they are both looking for a new connection and being able to connect with someone, to get a clean slate with someone who doesn't have all the baggage and the history. I think that's part of what drives them to it, even if they don't consciously acknowledge it.

Q: That's great. Some of Linus' other big conflict is with his family's reception of him being trans. It's most pronounced with his grandmother, but also with his parents, who are in some ways supportive, but they don't back him up when he's misgendered. And there are a few passages that really highlight the weight that we tend to put on trans people and telling them to have patience. Why was this so important for you to highlight?
A: Well, on the one hand, I thought it was important to give voice to that experience, which I think is what most trans people that I know have experienced. And that the ownership of being patient, giving grace, all these kinds of things, falls on that person, and it can create this complex friction that we don't always realize we're creating. I think, too, for parents and adults, it's a reminder that we're the adults in the room, and young people in particular are always watching—they're always paying attention, and they're always noticing not just what you say, but how you say it and the way you act. And I don't say that to put pressure on every adult in the world, that you have to be a rock star all the time, always. But I do think it's important to work to recognize a changing world, a changing understanding of the people around you, how you stand up for those people, and what that looks like. 

As a nonbinary person, it's really hard for me to correct people about my own pronouns. I usually am like, whatever. I don't want this to be our whole relationship, me saying, "Oh, I use they/them." So when someone else does that for you, it is really powerful, and it feels really good and you really notice it. I think that's the other thing that I hoped would come across in the book, was when people do get it right, that feels powerful, too. It's not just people getting it wrong that makes you go like, oh, you got it wrong. When Linus notices, and especially in his new school, where everybody uses Linus [instead of his previous name] and he/him, and it's not an issue at all, that is thrilling in its own way.

Q: You mentioned Ella being a bit of a snark demon. She's a kind of prickly exterior, but Linus notes that she has "a good heart." How does this play out in the context of the bet, the student council, and kind of the emerging friendship that they have?
A: I think it's at this prickliness and bravado that leads her to make that bet. But then throughout building that relationship with Linus, there's a realization. Even though this is yielding something good, it doesn't actually feel that good. And I think throughout the book, Etta struggles to notice that, because there's also this element of it feeling potentially good to accomplish something, to say, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to beat my ex-best friend."

The ability to tangibly measure success is such a heady feeling as a young person because so much of what we do in life isn't measurable in that way. So I think even though maybe she subconsciously realizes that this isn't a healthy fixation, it's hard to break that habit and it's hard to move away from the good feeling from being able to clap back at her nemesis.

Q: That makes sense. So whether coaxed into it or not, Linus does run for student council. What does he actually want out of the experience, given everything else that we know about him?
A: Linus starts to realize that actually, even though he's shy, he does have these qualities that could serve in this kind of position, that he has ideas that he wants to look out for everyone. Etta realizes this, too, as she's coming up with this campaign and figuring out what's good about Linus. 

I work in a school, I see this all the time, where students quickly dismiss out of hand something because it seems incompatible with their character or a single past experience. Like, I got on stage and threw up once, so I'm never getting on stage again. But I think trying new things, especially in middle school, can yield some really magical results. And I think for Linus, there was this moment at the "meet the candidates" assembly, where he sort of perks up at the possibility of this. That feels good and exciting to him.

Q: One of the things I love about your books is that the characters feel very natural. They're like real kids. But you get in a ton of plot and you get in a kind of sometimes, as we've talked about above, a how-to manual for being a person.
A: Always a secret roadmap for parents trying to sneak it in there.

Q: Without giving too much away, I'm thinking a lot about how interpersonal conflicts are handled, as well as real-world topics that are brought into an eighth-grader's context. How do you develop a novel like this, especially getting in "advice" that is not always what we've come to expect? 
A: For me, I try to journal at least once a month and I try in a nonlinear way. And I really try to figure out what I continue to circle. So if for three months in a row, I'm writing about like, oh, I went into this bathroom and they didn't have period supplies and that kind of made me sad. OK, that's something that's sticking with me. Maybe that's something I need to integrate into a story, an element of a character. For me, what's sometimes helpful is to not get stuck thinking about one thing and instead try to pull in a couple different things. Because what's interesting for me as an author and a storyteller is the conversations between all these different pieces.

Looking at like, the points of friction or moments of connection. Or, these two things shouldn't coexist in space together, but because we're humans, they do. Being open to welcoming a plot point, a character, something contradictory to what the main idea of your story is, can really serve to amp up the stakes, amp up the conversation. You know, a good foil never hurt anyone. But for me, especially in contemporary realistic fiction, I don't want the foil to just be a bad person because they're a bad person who's mean.

I had a sixth-grader stop me the other day and be like, "You're Caroline Huntoon, right?" I was like, "ye-es." "Ugh, I hate Marigold!" OK. I mean, maybe when you're older, you won't hate her quite so much, or maybe you will. That's fine. But it's important to me with all my characters in this particular genre, to make sure that I'm giving them fully realized motivations, lives. Everybody wants to be a good person. Nobody's going into this like, I really want to be a jerk. And maybe the person who is [a jerk] is Etta. And even then, we understand why. We understand what's happening here, and she isn't a jerk the whole time, which is nice.

Q: You have a third book coming out in May 2025, right?
A: I do. It's called Going Overboard. It is about a nonbinary kid named Piper. And Xe uses neo pronouns. So ze/zir/zem, which I'm working on practicing saying out loud. I've written them a million times. But, you know, getting our mouths around the words is really important. And zir mother is dating another woman, and they're starting to get serious. And Piper finds out that zir mom's girlfriend's child is a classmate and a classmate that Piper does not get along with. And Piper's like, this is bad. We need to stop this. I need to stop this. I love my mom. I love my relationship with my mom, but this is not OK. And they end up going on a big joint family cruise for spring break. And this is where Piper decides, OK, I'm going to make this cruise terrible for everybody. So ze teams up with Colton, the other child, and there's, like, an unlikely alliance that happens to help destroy their moms' happiness. It's kind of like a reverse Parent Trap with gay leads.


Shaun Manning is a founder and former co-owner of Booksweet. He is also a writer of various things, mostly comics.