Inside Out Girl

Rachel’s life is anything but calm. She’s a single mother of two and publisher of a sinking parenting magazine left to her by her father. Although she tries to be easygoing, she’s all too aware of the statistical dangers lurking around every corner: Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in children between the ages of one and 21. So it is out of character (to say the least) when she pulls over on the side of a busy highway to help a man and his quirky daughter change a tire.
    The daughter, Olivia, has an NLD (non-verbal learning disorder) and is known to Rachel’s children as the most made-fun-of student at school. Her nickname is the “inside out girl” since she often shows up to class with her clothes on wrong. It is to the great dismay of Rachel’s children that their mother begins dating the inside out girl’s widowed father, Len. When Rachel finds herself falling in love with him, she realizes she has to reassess her notions of the ideal family. But it’s not until Len learns of a sudden illness that will alter his future that Rachel begins to change as well. She finds herself revisiting a mystery from her past and learning to love and respect every aspect of her children’s lives—including her daughter’s crush on the girl next door.
    As she did in her hit debut novel, Town House, Tish Cohen perfectly captures the idiosyncrasies and charms that make up our lives, bringing us flawed characters that are nevertheless memorable, lovable and endearing.

HarperCollins Canada's Cathi Bond spoke with Inside Out Girl author Tish Cohen via Prosecast. Here we present a partial transcription of the interview.

Cathi Bond: Can you tell us about the main character, Rachel?
Tish Cohen: Well, Rachel is loosely based on my own parenting style. I'm an over-protective mother of two skateboarding boys who have been sent to the hospital more than a few times with concussions, broken bones and that sort of thing. And, in spite of all of my efforts to keep them safe, I warn them every time they go off to bike ride or anything that they're not allowed to get hurt. Usually it's something I could never have anticipated. So, Rachel's nature definitely came from my own parenting with my kids.

Cathi Bond: What attracted you to this character? Was it just your own experience? Or was there something more universal that you saw?
Tish Cohen: I have a girlfriend who's a family therapist and I'd heard from her about the trouble some families have in blending. Two single parents meet and they both have kids and sometimes it's difficult for parents to really understand the other one's children. [I wondered] what would it be like to have a child come into your family, and to your life, who is almost completely unmanageable [and], at times, hard to love because she causes so much stress and there's such a huge communication gap no matter how hard you try. Yet this child needs love more than anything. I just thought that was sort of an interesting situation to set up.

Cathi Bond: The child you're talking about is Olivia. She has something that I'd never head of before, non-verbal learning disorder. Can you tell us about that?
Tish Cohen: Non-verbal learning disorder (NLB) is a condition that is so similar to Asperger's disorder that it's often misdiagnosed and a huge percentage of children with Asperger's also have NLB. It's usually a complete inability to understand any communication cues that are not verbal. The child can understand your words but they can't understand any hidden meaning behind them. These kids tend to be sort of uncoordinated as well and they tend to not do well with direction, they have special problems. They may get lost in their own school, they may have attended the school for five years and they still can get lost trying to find the office. They are kids who tend to walk around school with their sweat pants pulled too high. They may be running around in the liner of their winter boots because that's what's most comfy and they can't manipulate laces and that sort of thing. So, they tend to be branded by the other kids as nerds or dummies and that's really not the case.

What made this condition so poignant for me was the similarity with Asperger's. Asperger kids tend to be, you know, sort of in the same trap but with Asperger's, because it's on the autistic spectrum, the kids tend to be in their own little social bubble, they tend to self-isolate and they're not looking for contact with other kids. Kids with NLB, they desperately want to be liked and accepted by the other kids, so to me, I found that unbelievably poignant that these kids want that more than anything and generally don't achieve it. Heartbreaking for a parent as well, and that's what I wanted to examine with Len. What would it be like to be the parent of such a child? I mean, how heartbreaking every day to have that child come home and talk about how they were bullied.

Cathi Bond: I remember reading somewhere that you really felt that autism, which is an extraordinarily challenging disorder but that people really needed to know more about NLD and that's one of the reasons you wrote about it.
Tish Cohen: Yes, I mean Asperger's and autism get a lot of press and it's deserved, but this condition, it's funny, this conditions has sort of been overlooked and it's every bit as socially crippling as Asperger's. And I think for the parents of the kids with NLD and for the kids themselves, life would be a lot easier if society understood, these kids aren't stupid, they can be gifted in areas. Olivia's gifted in her knowledge about rodents. They can be brilliant kids in other ways. You wouldn't bully a kid with autism -- the kids know better than to do that. They've been taught at school what autism is, yet they haven't been taught about this condition.

Cathi Bond: Back to Rachel for a second, she's on the way to a meeting. She's a single mom with two kids. She sees this guy at the side of the road and then suddenly these two are thrust into her life. It seems that she has an awful lot to balance.
Tish Cohen: But I think that every single parent does. I mean, my sister is a single parent, and I watch what she's going through and there's no one there to help with, even to take out the trash. And just the little things that when there's two of you it really helps to simplify life -- I think she's typical of so many people in today's world.