SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Alice Franklin's new novel is a story told by an often-lonely little girl in the south of England who doesn't seem to see the world or hear its sounds or speak and think in the way other children do. So when she hears on late-night TV about a mysterious manuscript, an ancient document written in an unknown and alien language, she thinks, at last, these could be my people. "Life Hacks For A Little Alien" is the widely-praised debut novel from Alice Franklin, who joins us now from the studios of the BBC in London. Thank you so much for being with us.
DUMMY REF ALICE FRANKLIN: Thank you.
SIMON: What should we know about this unnamed little narrator?
DUMMY REF: Well, she's referred to as Little Alien by the narrator. I wrote her as a neurodivergent character - autistic, to be specific.
SIMON: The novel is told in the second person, and let me ask you to read a section in which she speaks for herself to the reader, if I could.
DUMMY REF: Sure. (Reading) It goes like this - you won't be normal. Aliens can't be normal. You'll be normal enough, though. And by this, I mean you'll have just enough normal to seem normal without actually being normal. Let me explain. Like normal human children, you'll disregard every grammatical irregularity that comes your way. You'll say things like I goed to school with my mom. I eated the orange, and coloring in is funner than skipping. If I were a prescriptivist, I would lambast you for these flagrant over-regularizations. But as it happens, I am not a prescriptivist. I am a descriptvist, and as a descriptvist, I applaud you.
SIMON: Tell us about your use of the word normal here.
DUMMY REF: The protagonist, Little Alien, is always trying to fit in with what is expected of her. But because she's undiagnosed neurodivergent, she doesn't know what's expected of her. It's all just guesswork.
SIMON: Yeah. And so the word normal becomes what?
DUMMY REF: Neurotypical, I guess.
SIMON: Why write this novel - what's your thought of writing in the second person?
DUMMY REF: Well, the whole novel is told - there's an unnamed narrator talking to an unnamed protagonist. So it's really like an I addressing a you. Also, I just quite like second-person present tense. I find it quite easy to work from this perspective.
SIMON: Easy. You bring yourself into a certain frame of mind.
DUMMY REF: I don't know. I also kind of wanted the readers of the story to feel as much empathy as possible with this small creature.
SIMON: What do you think she senses in the Voynich Manuscript when she hears about it? I made a note. She says, since learning about the manuscript, you are on, alive, kicking and awake.
DUMMY REF: The Voynich Manuscript is a medieval codex written in an unknown language and an unknown script. The thing about it is that no one's been able to decipher it, even though it's been around for hundreds of years. And I think this really piques Little Alien's interest. I think she can see some parallels between the Voynich Manuscript and her own experiences. People don't really understand her either.
SIMON: And her profound good friend Bobby, how do they support one another?
DUMMY REF: Bobby is exactly what Little Alien needs. He's a bit more intrepid. He's a bit braver than her. And so he is sort of courageous for her and is accepting of her differences in a way other people aren't. So that when they go on their little adventure together to see the Voynich Manuscript, he is sort of what enables that adventure and sort of gives her the courage to continue on her journey.
SIMON: Ms. Franklin, how much new language did you create to tell this story?
DUMMY REF: What do you mean by new language, please?
SIMON: Well, I think you just read a section where you talked about the words she uses.
DUMMY REF: Ah, like go to school, eated the orange. That kind of thing?
SIMON: Yeah.
DUMMY REF: These are things that even neurotypical children do when they're acquiring language when they're very young. They make everything more regular than it is because English is a quirky language.
SIMON: Is it kind of like a jazz-style riff on the language we use?
DUMMY REF: I don't know.
SIMON: When did this character first begin to take up residence in you?
DUMMY REF: Well, I first - I started writing this book five years ago. It took me about three years to write. I kind of got the voice of the narrator first - overly confident, playful, word-loving. And then Little Alien came second a bit. It's 95% fiction, I'd say. I wanted to write Little Alien as a character I could relate to. A large part of her sort of bewilderment comes from the fact that she is undiagnosed autistic, and I myself was not diagnosed as a child. I had to wait till adulthood to be diagnosed.
SIMON: How is it for you now, may I ask?
DUMMY REF: I feel pretty - I'm a lot more confident now.
SIMON: What do you want people who read this novel to take away from it?
DUMMY REF: If readers are neurodivergent, it'd be nice if they read this story and felt like it resonated a bit. If they're neurotypical, perhaps it might shed some more light on what autism can be like for some people. It's hard to encapsulate it, even just within one novel. But also, I just wanted to tell an entertaining, enjoyable story as well. So even if people learn nothing but enjoy the narrative, I think that's still valid. I'd still be pleased with that.
SIMON: Alice Franklin. Her debut novel, "Life Hacks For A Little Alien." Thank you so much for speaking with us.
DUMMY REF: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF EL TEN ELEVEN'S "MY ONLY SWERVING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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