Street Food and Love by H.A. Enri
Published by: Martin Sisters Publishing
Publication date: Summer 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Sole Eaby, seventeen, has a few complaints he’d like to lodge against life, the main one being that his dad, Cedro, has recently quit his job and withdrawn his entire life savings, which included Sole’s college fund. Why? To launch a food truck business he knows nothing about.
To cope, Sole uses his knifelike wit to moonlight as a stand-up comedian, and so far, it’s paying off. He’s not only replenishing his college treasury, he’s making people laugh; but it’s one person in particular he performs for. Her name is Ava. When the fated bond of humor joins the two, and they begin a sort of quasi-romance, things begin to seem somewhat bearable. Of course, that’s when an ill-timed event decides to put another spin on things. Just when Sole is ready to move on with his own life and disconnect himself from his father and the family business, he suddenly finds himself in charge of the food truck he desperately loathes. Here is where Sole must realize that the answers to love and life are not to be found apart but, rather, are more like a savory recipe: only by combining the ingredients will the wonderful flavors reveal themselves. When comedy isn’t enough, the future seems ever bleak, and a fledgling love has barely had a chance to bloom, where will Sole turn?
Q and A with Author H.A. Enri
Would you actually want to own a food
truck, and if so, what would you serve and what would you call it?
Owning
and operating? Hmm. Perhaps, with a capital P. In conducting the research for this
book, I came to understand a) it’s no easy task to keep a successful food truck
running; b) success does not always have to do with the ability to deliver big
on taste; c) concept and branding i.e. marketing are huge aspects to the
business and, like many artists, that whole part of it is not always where the
passion of it all lie; d) a little luck never hurts. Does this sound like
someone trying to be a writer? Surely does. I love to cook and do at least four
days out of the week, but to make my livelihood out it...I’d have to be pretty
hungry to commit anytime soon. Lot’s of love to food truck owner operators.
Have
you always wanted to be a writer?
I've actually known I've wanted to
be a writer since I was twelve. The brief excerpt of that mini epiphany is on
my website’s FAQ's. As for YA, I didn’t know I actually wanted to write for
young adults until about eight years ago. This book made it through the
publication portal, but there are other predecessors on my hard drive, many
young adults megabyte format wondering why they never got to graduate from being
mere Word docs to full blown, bound, edited and printed books.
If you were a dish on a food truck, what
would you be called?
I would be a patty of thick, ground,
kobe beef, topped with cheese, caramelized onion, tomato, guacamole and a
special sauce, all between buttered and toasted, thick sourdough. I’m simple,
like a burger, but I am also not just your regular driver through or diner
burger either (does this sound like some dating site profile? Ha!). In any
case, it would be called the Soul Melt because more than deeply satisfying the
palate, it would penetrate the soul of anyone who ate it. P.S. I really am into
the world “soul” and all it connotates.
Novelists who inspired you?
The
list is long. In YA we have Sarah Dessen, Gary Schmidt, Caroline Cooney, Ned
Vizzini, I will add that not many people mention Vizzini—God rest his talented
soul, and it’s shocking. He’s been considered a pioneer of the modern YA lit genre,
and I agree. Hopefully, I see him on the other side and we can collaborate.
Talk about YA Lit.
It
is summarily different than it used to be even twelve years ago. And pre
2000’s—forget it. That was like reading Homer. Seriously, I mean you have to
practice writing effective scenes during commercials (do don’t delete them, you
aspiring YA writers, from your DVR. They may prove to be useful yet) in order
to match the pace of the current ideal YA. Secondly, don’t forget the lingo the
characters used in your favorite sitcom right before the commercial. It should
be transposed to your novel. Remember they used to teach, “Don’t write how you
speak”? Not so anymore. Those teachers, apparently, were wrong. And no, I
haven’t perfectly mastered the art of copy-matching-and-pacing at commercial
speed in my writing style. you remember reading with a dictionary handy? Hey,
with apps now, it should be easier, except that rarely do YA books require readers
to have to use one anymore. Remember when you read something and went WTF? Even
after three reads! And it wasn’t because you checked out. Sometimes it was like
the writer just wrote and invited you to his house but said, “There’s the
fridge and stove. If you’re hungry, do your best.” I’m not saying I don’t
appreciate what is happening now and don’t get it, I do and am not against it.
But something in my writing approach still doesn’t mind if readers are expected
to sort of work through certain language tones and aspects.
Love and romance aren’t depicted the way
the YA genre seems to be going in your novel. Why?
Have
you been around a high school aged lately? Till death do us part, mad love
isn’t en vogue. Most young adults aren’t really sure where love fits into their
lives, and to begin to truly to answer that is scary enough for many people,
let alone young people. I wanted Sole to reflect a kid who didn’t just zero in
on one girl and know she was the one. That’s usually not how it works anyway,
at least not when your age still has “teen” as a suffix. As for Ava, many young
girls with allure have older guys after them, and that’s why I wanted to show
that in the first chapters. That’s reality for many young adult girls of her
capacity. Sometimes, too, they chose those guys. I don’t think this makes my
book not YA. Upper YA? Sure. But still YA definitely.
I sense an intentional avenue in your
book carved out, specifically referring to your focus of a father and son
conflict. Explain that.
Well,
it’s got nothing to do with my own relationship with my father. We have an
outstanding and close one. But you’re correct about the father and son aspect.
Many fathers take a backseat in literature or are two dimensional caricatures who
are hands off and don’t really permeate the minds of the young adult
protagonist. Really? That is most dads? Huh... Anyway, I wanted to write not for guys, but so that guys could related
to the literature as easily as girls could and do. Let’s face it: girl readers
vastly outnumber young males, and I sort of wanted both to equally relate here.
I can say I’ll probably continue to develop that in other novels.
You have a lot of comedy in your
book. What’s the best joke (keep u
clean) that you’ve ever heard?
I
heard Dennis Miller onstage and, though I’m not saying this is my favorite,
I’ll mention it because it just came to mind: he was speaking of the past and
with subtlety, in his verbal memoir, he said, “It was hot back then...” and he
paused. It was all about the way he said it. The audience slowly got it. Then
he said, “The sun was still hot then, right?” He was comparing it to the way
people think the past happened in black and white. The genius was, he didn’t
even have to say that part to get audience in on it. Brilliant.
Are any of the characters in the book
based off of someone you know?
Most
characters are concoctions of many people in various forms—those we know, those
we’ve heard about, those we’d like to know and those we knew. Once you put all that together, my
answer, like a writer, would technically be kind of but not really. Not very
technical, is it...
Why did you write this book?
I wrote this book because this idea had never been pursued in YA lit, let alone
fiction.th When the idea came to me, I thought it was worth telling for others
out there. Of course, now there’s a film about a food truck owner operator, but
not when I wrote the novel. I wanted to explore the concept of the food truck
operator as a person with issues, so that’s when it turned YA because my
teenage protagonist Sole became the focus. You can watch The Great Food Truck Race or Eat
St. if you just care about someone and their food truck, but life as an
owner operator is not the star idea of this narrative.
How’d you pick the title of the book?
It’s
the material clashing with the existential. The truck is a symbol for all
things wrong with the world for Sole, the novel’s main dude. Street food is
what the truck is all about, so I used that terms versus “food truck.” Since
the food truck or “street food” are always at odds with Sole and his heart
(yes, it’s okay to sigh and say “aw.”), I chose to capture that with “love.”
Until these two opposing forces learn to coexist, neither of them has a chance
to make it. The title, in a simple way, somewhat epitomizes those novel’s major
motifs.
Why did you pick LA as the setting?
My
character, as an aspiring comedian,
inspired all that is L.A.—someone who wants to get into showbiz and has the
chops to do so. Sole thinks, like many, that achieving his celebrity plan is
his exit card from all things painful. From
there, I wanted to unveil of a story of someone whose greatest obstacle
is not external—abuse, violence, etc.—but rather is the soft issues of the
heart that are sometimes more detrimental than the obvious ones. There is this
individual surrounded by the giant of possibility that is L.A., and his world
is just this tiny, fading echo. I liked the contradiction.
How often do you write?
As
often as I can but not as often as I’d like. This is where you probably want to
hear my writing process and such. Really, some days it feels like I’m hacking
away like a lumberjack at a petrified tree other days it feels like I’m driving
up the 101 outside of L.A, ocean to my left, top down, music son, and the sun
holding back some of its heat just because I’m on the highway. Do I go at it
daily? At least four days out of the week, but I aim for seven. Writing doesn’t
currently foot the bills fully, so I have another gig. I know, I know: when I
say that I leave myself open for comments like, “Good thing, then I don’t have
to worry about reading too much of your work,” or, “I can see why you keep your day job.” Sure, I get that I’m
vulnerable to those criticisms, but it’s just the reality of most writers’
lives. Want to buy a thousand copies and change that? Ha, ha. Kidding.
What kind of books do you read?
I’m
a social science junkie. I’m talking an obsession beyond obsessions. As for
other genres, I do read lots of YA, of course, lots of it. And, I take in about
four literary adult novels a year, one per quarter. I read that in parts
between my others.
How important are names to you in your
books?
Sometimes
too much, so I try to back off. Many of my first drafts start off with names
looking like this: ________. Yes, really. Then, when I finally give them a
name, it’s nothing as potent and floral and full of atmosphere and meaning like
I thought it would be. Someday, I’ll name my characters Jim, John, Jen and
things like that.
What writing advice do you have for
other aspiring authors?
I’m
sort of just lifting off the launch pad. That’s a flattering question, but I’m not quite in a position to answer that
yet. One might say, “I’ll take his advice and do the opposite.” Ha. I’m kidding
about the mini joke. But really, I feel like I’m still aspiring. I’ll answer
better when I’m past the aspiring level.
What secret talents do you have?
You
mean writing isn’t one of them?
Your main character’s defense mechanism against pangs of the soul is comedy.
It seems like you can relate.
That
is maybe one trait the novel’s main dude and I share.
If you had a superpower, what would it
be?
Time
travel with knowledge retention. I would continually perfect my life,
constantly updating it with the new life lessons I am learning.
What is the
biggest lie you've ever told?
If
I answered that, then that would be it. The biggest one hopefully was my best
and hopefully I got away with it (last time I checked, that was still the
case). So, yeah...
Is there a
certain type of scene that's harder for you to write than others? Love? Action?
Racy?
That’s
up to the reader to decide. If it doesn’t work, they’ll probably say that scene
is my trouble spot. As for love and romance: I like to trace the scene and use
allusion. Most writers, if honest, probably like scenes that the editor said,
“Eh.” So, I just go where the character needs to and try not to worry about the
words, like real people do in real life in difficult situations.
H.A.'s love for all things caffeinated is what keeps him awake and alert so he can pursue that glorious tyrant called Nostalgia. And after all, isn't that what provokes most adult authors to write stories about the teenage years they long ago left behind (referring to Nostalgia, not the caffeine...he hopes)? When he isn't writing, H.A. can be found quaffing coffee (Yes, he might be addicted--don't judge) reading, riding his bike, snapping photos, making music, working on his theory of everything, and, on rare occasions, attempting to discover the elusive, and maybe impossible, secret to time travel. H.A. lives in So Cal. Street Food and Love is H.A.'s first novel.
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