A Trick of the Light (13 page)

Authors: Lois Metzger

BOOK: A Trick of the Light

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SOME YEARS AGO, I READ AN ARTICLE CALLED “NOT
for Girls Only” in the New York
Daily News
. It was about a boy with an eating disorder. I never knew boys could get eating disorders, and this idea was so unexpected, it took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. How does a boy get anorexia? Is it different from what happens with girls?

I emailed the reporter and then spoke with the boy in the article, his family, and his doctor, who put me in touch with other families. I met several young men and their parents. I did research on the complex world of eating disorders, visiting hospitals and reading many excellent books, both fiction and nonfiction (please see the list, below).

As Mike learns in this book, of the 10 million people in the United States with eating disorders, 10 percent are male (and some reports put this figure even higher). That’s one million boys and men, an epidemic that is, as one writer puts it, “overlooked, understudied, and underreported” because “it’s a girl’s disease.” Yet the first two documented cases of eating disorders, back in the 1600s, involved a girl and a boy. It wasn’t called anorexia nervosa back then—that term, which originated in the 1800s, translates to “lack of desire to eat” or “nervous loss of appetite.” Which isn’t really accurate. There is tremendous desire to eat and no loss of appetite. But eating disorders have ways of manipulating the truth.

Anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders have the highest death rate of any psychological disorder—though I’m very pleased to say that all the young men I interviewed for this book are doing exceptionally well. One of the moms recently emailed me, triumphantly, her son’s healthy weight.

—Lois Metzger

February 2013

Andersen, Arnold, Leigh Cohn, and Thomas Holbrook.
Making Weight: Healing Men’s Conflicts with Food, Weight, Shape & Appearance.
Carlsbad, CA: Gürze Books, 2000.

Anderson, Laurie Halse.
Wintergirls.
New York: Viking, 2009.

Bryant-Waugh, Rachel, and Bryan Lask.
Eating Disorders: A Parents’ Guide.
Rev. ed. New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2004.

Costin, Carolyn.
The Eating Disorder Sourcebook.
2nd ed. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 1999.

Gottlieb, Lori.
Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self.
New York: Berkley Books, 2001.

Harryhausen, Ray, and Tony Dalton.
An Animated Life.
Foreword by Ray Bradbury. New York: Billboard Books, 2004.

Hautzig, Deborah.
Second Star to the Right.
New York: Puffin Books, 1999.

Hendricks, Jennifer.
Slim to None: A Journey through the Wasteland of Anorexia Treatment.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Hornbacher, Marya.
Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia.
New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

Levenkron, Steven.
The Best Little Girl in the World.
New York: Warner Books, 1979.

Lock, James, and Daniel Le Grange.
Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder.
New York: The Guilford Press, 2005.

———, W. Stewart Agras, and Christopher Dare.
Treatment Manual for Anorexia Nervosa: A Family-Based Approach.
New York: The Guilford Press, 2001.

Medoff, Jillian.
Hunger Point: A Novel.
New York: Regan Books, HarperCollins, 2002.

Menzie, Morgan.
Diary of an Anorexic Girl: Based on a True Story.
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003.

Sacker, Ira M., and Marc A. Zimmer.
Dying to Be Thin: Understanding and Defeating Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia: A Practical, Lifesaving Guide.
New York: Warner Books, 2001.

Sparks, Beatrice, ed.
Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager.
New York: HarperTeen, 2002.

Vizzini, Ned.
It’s Kind of a Funny Story.
New York: Miramax Books, Hyperion Paperbacks, 2007.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MANY THANKS TO:

My agent, Susan Cohen at Writers House, for her enthusiasm, kindness, and belief in this book, which is dedicated to her.

Her assistant, Brianne Johnson, who helped enormously with her insights and suggestions.

Kevin Webb, who was an intern at Writers House and who read an early draft and helped bring the book into focus and worked with me even after he left Writers House. He has an amazing eye and ear for story and language.

At Balzer + Bray, I am very grateful to Alessandra Balzer and Donna Bray, and to Renée Cafiero, Alison Donalty, Ray Shappell, and Viana Siniscalchi.

The following people also helped along the way:

Jacob Hiss; Tony Hiss; Katharine L. Loeb, PhD, at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Rachel Lisberg; Dr. James Lock, an expert on eating disorders at Stanford University; Gail Monaco; Julie Patel, former San Jose
Mercury News
reporter and current
Sun-Sentinel
reporter; Justin Roberts; Susan Roberts; and Niobe Way, professor of applied psychology at New York University.

I thank my lucky stars for my editor at Balzer + Bray, Jordan Brown. He is a spectacularly nice person, and funny and smart and warm, as well as a tremendously gifted editor. He helped give this book a mind and a soul.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LOIS METZGER
was born in Queens and has always written for young adults. She is the author of three previous novels and two nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared in
The New Yorker
,
The Nation
, and
Harper’s Bazaar
. She lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and son.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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BOOKS BY LOIS METZGER

NOVELS

Missing Girls

Ellen’s Case

Barry’s Sister

NONFICTION

The Hidden Girl: A True Story of the Holocaust, with Lola Rein Kaufman

Yours, Anne: The Life of Anne Frank

EDITOR

Bones: Terrifying Tales to Haunt Your Dreams

Bites: Scary Stories to Sink Your Teeth Into

Be Careful What You Wish For: Ten Stories about Wishes

Can You Keep a Secret?: Ten Stories about Secrets

The Year We Missed My Birthday: Eleven Birthday Stories

CREDITS

Cover design by Ray Shappell and Erin Schell

A Trick of the Light

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Metzger, Lois.

A trick of the light / Lois Metzger. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Fifteen-year-old Mike desperately attempts to take control as his parents separate and his life falls apart.

ISBN 978-0-06-213308-3 (hardcover bdg. : alk. paper)

Epub Edition © APRIL 2013 ISBN 9780062133106

[1. Family problems—Fiction. 2. Anorexia nervosa—Fiction. 3. Eating disorders—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M5677Tri 2013

[Fic]—dc23

2012019039