Process Talk: Rajani LaRocca on Red, White, and Whole

I’ve been wanting to write this post ever since I first read Red, White, and Whole, Rajani LaRocca’s YA novel in verse about grief, loss, and coming of age as a desi kid in America. I asked Rajani if she’d tell me a little about the process of writing this beautifully crafted book, which has been so deservedly recognized (Newbery Honor, Walter Dean Myers Award Winner, Golden Kite Award Winner).

[Uma] How did this book come to be? Was it in verse from the start or did the form take shape later on? 

 [Rajani] The idea for Red, White, and Whole came to me as a metaphor — the metaphor of blood, and all that it means in terms of biology, family, and community. And so I figured I should write this story in verse. But although I’d written lyrical picture books and poetry before, I’d never written an entire novel in verse. So I read every verse novel for kids that I could get my hands on, and figured out how to approach this story. I had another novel I had to finish first, so this book became my “Friday night date” where I would listen to music and allowed myself to think about this story. Once I turned in the other novel and started writing this one in earnest, it flowed out of me in about six weeks.

[Uma] Six weeks! That is a lightning strike of a draft, Rajani! What changed over the course of revisions? What remained from the beginning? 

[Rajani] I wrote the poems in whatever order they occurred to me. Some of the first poems turned out to be “keystone poems” that brought together the main themes of the story. Once I’d written all the poems, I figured out what order to put them in during revision. I had to do some medical research on leukemia treatment in the 1980s, and as a result I didn’t end up writing a section I’d originally planned on writing, because it wasn’t scientifically accurate. For this story, the first draft was spare, and I added more poems to fill in gaps during revision.

[Uma] Some of this is drawn from memory. How much did your own memories light the fire for this story?

[Rajani] I poured so much of myself into this book! I got into the mood to write by listening to music from 1983-1984, and I referred to and included the titles of many of my favorite songs in the story. I also drew upon my experience of how I felt as an Indian-American growing up in the U.S. — the feeling of being torn between two worlds, of wanting to be like everyone else but needing to be myself, and of experiencing something devastating, but finding a way to get through it. I used some specific memories to fuel some scenes, but Reha’s story is different from my own.

 [Uma] This feels real because there’s so much of your heart in it. It’s as clear as a spoken voice: “I have two lives./ One that is Indian,/ one that is not.” But every book teaches the writer something she didn’t know before—I’m curious, what did writing Red, White, and Whole teach you?

[Rajani] Writing Red, White, and Whole taught me not to be afraid to try telling a story in a new way, to be vulnerable on the page, and to write a book of my heart. When we write fiction for young people, we must write emotional truths, and this story taught me just how important that is.

[Uma] “We must write emotional truths.” Thank you, Rajani LaRocca and thank you for writing this book from your heart.