Tracey asked Jack Gantos:

Hole in my Life is one of my favorite memoirs. It is a very honest account of the circumstances that led to your transformation into the writer you are today. In your newest novel, what one person, from your adolescence, impacted the choices that you made that eventually escalated to your stay in the pen? And, now looking back, how would you change their influence on you or would you?

Jack Gantos In THE TROUBLE IN ME I was going into 8th grade. I didn't find much to like about myself and so attempted to become someone else. My neighbor, Gary Pagoda, became the template of who I wanted to become. Had he been a nice, hard working, artistic, mentoring kind of guy then perhaps I would have followed that route. But he was a just a bully of sorts and so I tried to be a bully of sorts. I failed at the transformation. But deeper than that attempt was the schism with my father. The decay between us is the trigger for me wanting to be outside the family and outside of my own skin. No one person influenced me to become a drug smuggler. That was my own doing. There was a romance to the adventure, and naturally I was short sighted and did not anticipate the danger. Thanks, J

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