Q&A with Katya Cengal, author of "Straightjackets and Lunch Money"
I first met Katya Cengel several years ago at the Central Coast Writers’ Conference, where we were paired on a panel about travel writing. It was a humbling experience for me because, you see, Katya is an actual working travel writer and journalist, while I’ve merely lucked into some travel writing gigs over the years. Her thoughtful advice that day and the way she talked about her work in other countries, especially her work writing about children’s issues, prompted me to keep paying attention. Katya’s latest book, Straitjackets and Lunch Money, is the first book I ever preordered, and I read it as soon as it arrived—tenderly, and with a new dimension of respect for its author.
Straitjackets and Lunch Money is a memoir written in two voices: the voice of Katya as a ten-year-old girl hospitalized at the Roth Psychosomatic Unit at Children’s Hospital at Stanford as treatment for self-starvation; and the voice of Katya thirty years later, as a journalist researching her own story from that time to better understand what she went through, and to bring the reader’s attention to other children at risk of going unseen and unheard.
Katya sat down with me after one of her author events in San Luis Obispo, California, in October 2023. Our conversation only skimmed the surface of what her treatment of memoir in Straitjackets and Lunch Money has to offer other memoirists and life story writers. Find it here or here, or request it from your local library or independent bookseller.
Katya’s other books include Bluegrass Baseball; Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back; and From Chernobyl with Love: Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union.
QUESTION: Your book was tough to read but important. I didn’t know your book about Ukraine was also a memoir. Has writing about yourself and making yourself vulnerable in memoir affected how you interview people in your more journalistic work and how you tell other people’s stories?
KATYA CENGAL: I don’t know that it has. What does impact a little is doing interviews about this book, because they’re hard emotionally. It makes me reflect on what I’m asking people to do—how difficult it might be for them to answer hard questions. So, I think it has affected how I interact with people in that way, but I still do the difficult interviews and ask the difficult questions in my journalistic work.
Can you talk about the different stages of writing this book?
I like to say it’s my first and my last (for now) book because it was the first thing I ever wrote about. I was in a personal narrative class in college, and this was the only topic that came to mind because it was the pivotal part of my life so far. I remember the professor telling me, “You really have a voice. You have something you want to say,” so that was cool. I did try to publish it—he was a great professor and even hooked me up with his agent. She took a look at it, but it was that usual, “It’s nice, but no.” I tried a few more agents, and then a couple years later I changed it a little and tried again. People wanted me to extend the story to the time before and after the hospital, but I wanted it to stay mostly in the hospital, so then it got shelved.
It was a couple years ago now—publishing takes a while—when I decided to pick it up again. I had three books by then, and I still really believed in this one. I pulled out what I’d written years earlier and saw what needed getting rid of. What I wanted to keep was that core child voice, but it wasn’t enough on its own to make a book, so I had to figure out what to add. I’d always wondered what happened to the other kids on the psychosomatic unit, and I tried to find them, but because I only had first names, and because medical records are protected, I couldn’t find any. So, then I asked myself, “How else can I do this?” That’s when I thought about the doctors, and about extending the story to other kids—not just kids with mental illness, but other kids who are cast aside.
I started piecing it together. There was a version where I tried to write it as fiction, but that didn’t work, and there was a version where I separated the kid voice and the adult voice into two books, completely separated. Of all my books, this one got the most—not editing per se, but the most dramatic changes.
Can you say something more specific about the kinds of things you took out of the first version you wrote in college?
There was a lot of in-depth writing about the buildup to the hospital stay, and the time after the hospital, which was all just about me. Same with everything I wrote about my early childhood. It felt too self-absorbed. It felt like, okay, she had a difficult childhood, so what. It felt like something a twenty-two-year-old would write. I wanted it to be a bigger picture story.
This book and From Chernobyl with Love, they’re called memoirs, but they’re not about me as much as I use myself as an excuse to tell a bigger story.
Thank you for putting that into words. You had to have a lot of stamina to explore all those different ways of telling your story.
I was really disappointed when the fiction didn’t work because I thought it was going well. I wrote somewhere between seventy and one hundred pages and had someone look at it, who said, “No.” Then I let some other people look at it, and they said, “No.” I was pretty frustrated by that and put it aside for a bit. But I still really wanted it to work, so I listened to people who told me I needed to make it nonfiction, and I started again. I never gave up on it, but I definitely took breaks between the different stages to rethink and figure out how I could come at it again. I think you need to allow yourself that; you need to pause and let your brain think about it. Don’t wait too long, though, because then you might give up altogether.
What kept me with this book is I knew that childhood voice was strong. I’d heard that from so many people. I just needed to figure out how to put it with other material. With all my books I write what I feel like I have to write, and with this one I still felt like I had to get it out there. That’s what kept me going.
The author, Katya Cengal
Who are the people you look to for advice?
Different people for different books. My mom was an early reader of this one. Even though it’s very close to her, which is hard, she’s a really good reader, and she’s truthful. She’s one of the people who told me the fiction didn’t work. I also sent it to some writer friends who I knew could understand what I was trying to do. I’m very careful about sending my work to other writers because other writers sometimes want to leave their own mark on your work.
I belong to a couple of different writing groups. A friend in one of them, he doesn’t write anything like this book, but he does write nonfiction, and I trust that he knows my voice and wants to maintain it rather than to leave his own mark. He recommended two other people who were also in our writing group to read it. One of them called it “young adult,” and thought that was good because while I wrote it as book for adults, I also wanted to reach younger people.
It sounds like you find value in belonging to writing groups.
Yes. The ones I belong to right now are both online, and they’re more like support groups. They’re less structured than a lot of writing groups. We don’t meet, but if anyone has a question about promoting a book or about an event, they reach out. And then we also read each other’s work sometimes.
If you’re working on a project over a long period of time, or a project that has a lot of different parts and you aren’t sure how they’ll all fit together eventually, it can be hard to figure out how to engage with the material. How did you do that with this book? Did you print everything out, or are you all digital?
All digital, yes. I also always keep a notebook by my bed for when I think of something in the middle of the night. I have a digital folder where I keep everything. I also have a paper folder for medical records, because I got hard copies of those. I remember how those paper documents were so unorganized, and I’d lose track of them while writing. I guess I’m not so good with the organizational part.
In the digital folder, I keep separate chapters. Sometimes I write chapters separately, sometimes I put them together like a book. And I keep different versions of drafts in the digital folder too. Kind of cluttered in some ways. I pull from different places, but it somehow comes together when I start writing. I remember that first chapter just started flowing, and then I went, okay, I want the kid’s voice now. I kind of write intuitively and then go back and smooth it out.
You mention in the book that the process of writing hit you in some tender spots and brought up emotions. Was any part of writing this book therapeutic or cathartic? Either back when you were in college or in the final writing?
I think back when I was in college it was. It probably was more recently too, but I went of Zoloft while completing the last part, and that was a disaster. I closed in and got depressed, and then I was finally ready to get back out into the world just as Covid hit in 2020, so that slump lasted a long time. Toward the end of the book, I introduce a woman named Camille who was the head of a facility they were going to send me to after the psychosomatic unit. She was just the kindest person. She had this empathy in her, and she could tell I wasn’t doing well psychologically when I was interviewing her for the book. Something about her presence, just her, I found really helpful. I don’t know if therapeutic is the right word, but she was definitely inspiring. I found spending time with her enjoyable. It helped me process things I was writing about a little bit.
Seeing some of the doctors who treated me when I was young allowed me to have some control over my story. It felt like this is my story now, not yours, and that was empowering. To see them look at me not as a sick kid but as a professional journalist, that helped. As a patient of any kind, that’s your identity: a patient. You’re so powerless. So, I do think meeting the doctors was therapeutic in a way. But it was hard too; it may have cancelled out the therapeutic benefits. I’m still so glad I did it. I just think it’s a situation that will never have closure; I’ll just deal with it in different ways over time.
Do you feel like you’re done with this topic now?
Once I have a book out, I always want to move on. So, I’m done with the topic now but not the issue. All the stories I do, the mentoring I do with youth, I just feel for young people. That will always be part of me, but not in a way that’s directly about me like this book, or specifically about psychosomatic wards. But, for example, incarcerated youth, or other youth who struggle—that will always be a topic I address through journalism. The underlying idea of kids who are voiceless or struggling will always be something I feel strongly about.
Aside from not going off your Zoloft, do you have any tips for people who find themselves at a point in their writing where their emotions are overwhelming because of the memories they’re digging up or the way they’re interrogating their own history?
It’s going to be so individual, depending on what they’re digging up and how long ago it was. It’s easier the further I get from my childhood—which is why I kept that child voice I wrote from in college. I was closer to it then. I think having a support network is key, and also having people who are so close that they check in on you. When I was writing this I told my closest friends what I was doing, and I told them, “If I look like I’m going down, pull me out,” because I can’t always recognize it. I said that to my mom in particular. I don’t blame her, but because some of this comes from childhood, I’m okay with her having to deal with it.
The more alone I am, the worse it can get, so I make sure to set up check-ins with people or my mom. Having a schedule separate from the book also helped. So, for example, if you have a job or regular responsibilities, don’t stop those while you’re writing. Keep the other life things going so you’re not just in the world of your book. You’ll want to immerse yourself in your book, but you need to have some reality of today that keeps you from disappearing in it. It’s hard because the disappearing in it makes the writing stronger. But let’s say you do a writing retreat for two weeks; then make sure you have your ballet lesson or something scheduled, and don’t skip those things.
That’s really good advice. I tell memoirists to have a therapist, but I’m a latecomer to therapy, so I’m like a born-again. It sounds like that might not be in your mental health toolbox.
I’ve gone back and forth on therapy. I think it’s helpful, but it’s not my go-to. For me, the friends and activities are more important. I’m also very physical in that I can feel my body clench up and tense up, so having a community thing like a soccer group or tap dancing classes is helpful. It’s so individual, but I do think it’s helpful for anyone to have an activity that’s not talking or thinking about or living in their trauma—you’re just you playing basketball, or you sewing, or you cooking. Something present now, and preferably with other people who know you and can tell you if you’re not seeming like yourself.
Basically, keep all the things going.
Yes, don’t drop out of your life.
With this book and your other books, how have you dealt with writing about people whose permission you don’t have to share their stories? Do you use pseudonyms?
With journalism it’s easier in some ways. With my first book, Bluegrass Baseball, I just said, “I’m a journalist and I’m doing a book,” and I was free from then on to use real names. With From Chernobyl with Love, conversations happened in the past with people who might have known me as a journalist but didn’t know I would be writing a memoir—I used a lot of people’s real first names, and I didn’t think to ask for permission. I did think about my ex, who’s the main love interest in that book, and whether I’d change his name or not. I didn’t, and you actually do see his last name because I credit him for the photos he took that appear in the book. He never mentioned it, and I feel good about it because I never speak for him. It’s my story.
In another instance, I held back on publishing a line from my friend Daniel because he wasn’t out as gay at the time, and publishing it would have outed him. Daniel was out when he finally read the book, and he was kind of surprised I’d held back. It would have been fine in the end, but I’d rather be safe than sorry about something that sensitive.
For Straitjackets and Lunch Money, I changed the names of the kids who were on the psychosomatic ward with me, and I changed my sister’s name. I did that because they were kids at the time of the story. But the doctors, I left in most of their real names. I approached them as a journalist and told them I was writing a book, and they agreed to my using their names. I changed just one doctor’s name—the doctor who wouldn’t speak to me. I wanted to leave their name in, but my mom said I should change it since they really didn’t want any part of the book.
My publisher did freak out once I’d finished the book and wanted me to get signed releases from all the doctors and anyone else I interviewed in the present day. I had some lawyers at the Author’s Guild look at the release, which I changed a little bit, and then sent it to the doctors. I was so nervous waiting for their responses. I think it helped that I was a journalist and had written other books. One of them wanted to run it by the lawyers at Stanford, where she worked, and the lawyers wanted to read my notes from our interview and parts of the book. I said no but let them have the audio recordings, which thankfully was enough. There was some stressful back-and-forth. If the doctors hadn’t signed the releases I probably would have pulled out of my deal with the publisher [and found another way of publishing the book that didn’t require signed releases]. It was really important to me to write the story from the conversations we’d had on the record. Having the support of an agent, and also of the Author’s Guild, was helpful at that time.
How did you get your medical records from so long ago?
I filled out a form, and I heard back that the records had been destroyed because I was in the hospital so long ago. But then I filled out the form again, and that time I got partial records. It was weird. Then I told Dr. Steiner, the main psychiatrist who treated me, that I’d been having trouble getting all my records, and he gave me what he could access, but they were the same incomplete records I’d already received. I think they’re allowed to destroy records after ten years. All I got was the intake form, the discharge paperwork, and some notes from community meetings. That I got anything is probably lucky.
Your parking is expiring in a few minutes. I have just a few more quick questions. Did you have anything to do with your book cover?
Yes. The publishers asked what I’d like, and I gave them an actual photo of me as a kid. I told them I used to scratch out the faces of photos of me and suggested they do that with the photo for the cover—which they did. It was my idea, but a designer pulled it off. I was thinking we should have a subhead and say “memoir” somewhere, but they said memoirs don’t sell well so we shouldn’t have that word on the cover. Which I found interesting.
I like how that scribble that covers your face on the cover is repeated as a partition between sections in the text of the book.
That was their idea. I like that too.
Did you write your own title?
My agent came up with it. I wasn’t sure about it. It sounded a little sensational. I was in a straitjacket once, and it was a pivotal moment, but I wondered whether it was too much. My agent said, “Oh, don’t worry, the publisher will probably change it,” but the publisher never did. I tried to change it at one point, but no one liked my alternative title. In the end I think it works.
To learn more about Katya and her work, visit her website, or find her by her full name on Facebook and Instagram.