“You’re only as sick as your secrets.” That’s an expression used by novelist Patricia McCormick to convey the message that one should share sufferings in order to heal. McCormick shared this quote on the BC campus Oct. 15 where she spoke at the Fireside Room for one-hour each three times that day.
McCormick, a reporter and freelance writer who has covered crime, uses her experiences as a journalist for the realistic approach in her fiction novels. She interviewed real people and did research about each topic. Although the stories are fiction, the events she writes about really happened. She uses a compilation of the people she has interviewed in order to create the main characters for her stories.
She writes about tough topics, such as self-injury, drug addiction, human trafficking, and genocide. She shared that her son asked her, “Mom, where do you come up with the ideas for these books, do you Google the word ‘sad’?”
McCormick started writing novels in the year 2000. She spoke mainly about her newest book, “Never Fall Down,” that is about an 11-yeer-old Cambodian boy who survived a genocide in his country by playing music and being brave.
She shared a brief video about the man she interviewed for the writing of “Never Fall Down,” named Arn Chorn Pond. The video was about the way he got over the sadness and loneliness, which was by sharing his story.
It started off by Arn saying “ When I was a little boy in Cambodia, I was living in a temple.” He continued by sharing the normal activities he would engage in before the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975.
After the eight-minute video, she read three sections of “Never Fall Down.” From the 11-year-old’s perspective she read, “I see a ditch and a line of people. Maybe fifteen, maybe twenty, all hands tied behind and high ranking Khmer Rouge solider standing behind them. Then this guy, he take the axe, small axe like for chopping. And he hit one kneeling guy on the back of the head, the guy fall down, just like a pile of rag on the ground very fast. Then the Khmer Rouge went down the line, hit each one. Terrible sound, like coconut cracking only it’s a human head. ‘You, he says to me, you put them in the ditch’.. I push the people very heavy, lots of blood. One guy, he’s not even dead. They say, ‘push him in anyway.’”
She also said a passage of when he was in high school in New Hampshire and another when he gave a speech sharing his sad life experiences that healed him the most.
After the passages, McCormick answered questions from the audience. She said that she spent around six to eight months with Arn and still keeps in touch with him via email. And that she’s learned a lot from the experience like, not to complain about her own sufferings because there are people who have suffered so much more.
Her next project is about a girl who was shot in the head by a Taliban man. She is intrigued by the sixteen year old because she is so fearless and says, “I’m not afraid of death.” Til this day, she still gets death threats for speaking out for girls who seek an education.
McCormicks’ other books are “Sold”, “Purple Heart,” “Cut,” and “My Brothers Keeper.”
This is the seventh year the BC Library hosts an author thanks to the donations of a local woman, Dolores Cerro, who left money for BC in her will.