As a fiction-writer with one foot in the world of journalism, I am especially interested in this guest post by Christina Hoag. But hers is a type of hardline reportage much different from my own experience. For Skin of Tattoos, she found inspiration in an element of society that most of us hope to avoid. But we're thrilled to read about it! Welcome, Christina.
* * *
What inspired me to write Skin of Tattoos
by Christina Hoag
Skin of Tattoos
is set in the gritty underbelly of Los Angeles’ gangland, the darker side of
the palm-studded, movie-star lifestyle that L.A. is known for the world over.
Why, readers have asked me on more than one occasion, did you write about
gangs?
In 2000, I was sent on a magazine assignment to El
Salvador for story about gang members deported from Los Angeles to their birth
country, which they identified with, but really didn’t know because they had
left, fleeing the 1980s civil war, when they were infants and small children.
Some of them barely spoke Spanish.
Growing up in L.A., they had joined gangs to protect
themselves against long-entrenched Mexican-American gangs who didn’t welcome
outsiders. But because the Salvadorans weren’t U.S. citizens, they later were
vulnerable to deportation when the government started cracking down on
immigrants with criminal records. The
stories of the young men I interviewed, who were basically stuck between
worlds, struck me as an unusual outcome of both a civil war and an immigrant
experience. I tucked it away in my mind as a great premise for a story, and a
couple years later, I wrote an outline for a novel and stuck it in a drawer.
In
2008, I became a reporter for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and ended up
covering gang issues. I dusted off that old outline and started writing,
although I stopped and started many times, not confident that I could pull it
off. I got a lot of encouragement in writing classes I took, however, and
eventually finished it.
I
then ended up collaborating on a nonfiction book with a former Black Panther
who had formed a programme to turn former gang members into community
peacekeepers with the aim of stopping the cycle of retribution that drives gang
violence. That book, “Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the
Violence,” is now being used in several universities as a textbook for courses
that involve urban communities and policy.
 |
| Author Christina Hoag |
After
many rewrites and even more rejections, Skin
of Tattoos landed a publisher and was published in 2016—sixteen years after
I did those initial interviews in El Salvador. It was a long journey, indeed,
but I learned valuable lessons: Write about something you’re passionate about
so you don’t lose interest along the way and success is a lot about
perseverance.
SKIN OF TATTOOS
Los Angeles homeboy Magdaleno is paroled from prison
after serving time on a gun possession frameup by a rival, Rico, who takes over
as gang shotcaller in Mags’s absence. Mags promises himself and his Salvadoran
immigrant family a fresh start, but he can’t find either the decent job or the respect
he craves from his parents and his firefighter brother, who look at him as a
disappointment. Moreover, Rico, under pressure to earn money to free the Cyco
Lokos’ jailed top leader and eager to exert his authority over his
rival-turned-underling, isn’t about to let Mags get out of his reach. Ultimately,
Mags’s desire for revenge and respect pushes him to make a decision that
ensnares him in a world seeded with deceit and betrayal, where the only escape
from rules that carry a heavy price for transgression is sacrifice of
everything – and everyone - he loves.
* * *
Skin of Tattoos
is available in ebook and paperback from Amazon.
Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog, Anne!
ReplyDeleteIt's a pleasure to have you here!
Delete