"Interviews" with No Sensible People...

The following is a fictitious interview conducted by a fictious journalist Trisha DuTell. Trisha aims to interview as many of the characters in No Sensible People as she can get to talk. Maybe I can talk her into reading the book. :)

Trisha: Hi Denny, it's good to meet you. I hear you're a pretty signifigant character in No Sensible People. I can't wait to read it!

Denny: Well, thanks. It was a little hard for me sometimes, but I pulled through, I guess. It was a learning experience. That's for sure.

Trisha: I hear you have a pretty interesting background. Can you tell me what it was like for you as a kid in Leifton, MN?

Denny: Well, Leifton's a pretty small little burg out in Southern Minnesota. A couple thousand people tops. I was pretty shy as a kid, I guess. I kept a pretty tight circle. I met my best friend, Nate Halifax, in Sunday School when we were four. Nate's mom was a little "distracted," so he tagged along with my family a lot of the time.

Trisha: Did you have a big family?

Denny: Not especially. Just me, my parents and my older sister Susie.

Trisha: Tell me a little about Susie

Denny: Susie's four years older than me, but it seemed like a lot more because she was always so serious. She was always ready for something bigger, something "better" than Leifton. Have you ever heard people say they were born at the wrong time? Susie was born in the wrong place. Leifton was way too small for her. She Beelined to Minneapolis up to the University right after high school.

Trisha: Were you close?

Denny: In a way. She was always very responsible, a curse of sorts for her. She always got stuck babysitting all of us.

Trisha: "All of you?" I thought it was just the two of you.

Denny: Well. like I said, Nate was usually with us. My dad used to play poker with Sean McMillen one of the farmers that used to bring his wheat to the Leifton Mill where my dad worked at the time. We'd go back and forth between the McMillen farm and our place in town. It was Susie's job to keep us coralled and out of everyone's hair. The McMillen's had two daughters, Molly, who was in Nate and my class, and Lucy was two years younger. Lucy could be a handful sometimes.

Trisha: How did you all manage once Susie left for college?

Denny: Well, we weren't exactly little kids at that point. Molly, Nate and I were fourteen. Lucy was twelve. Molly had appointed herslef Lucy's protector, but Nate was getting to be a bit of a distraction around then, if you know what I mean. I ended up spending more time with Lucy by defaut, did my best to look out for her when Molly couldn't. It didn't always work, though.

Trisha: What happened when it didn't work?

Denny: Mr. McMillen was kinda hard on Lucy. She was free spirited, busy. She loved to dance and hardly ever held still. But she would never hurt a soul, at least not on purpose.

Trisha: You seem to have a soft spot for Lucy.

Denny: I guess so. She was my girl for a while, back in high school. Before she left town.

Trisha: What made her leave?

Denny: That's Lucy's story to tell, if she wants to tell it. You'll have to talk to her.

Trisha: I'll make a note of it. So, what did you do after Lucy left?

Denny: I took it pretty hard. I was eighteen. I didn't understand. Nate and Molly had gotten married, and before long they took over the McMillen farm. They had Jennie -- she's the real star of No Sensible People, along with Lucy. I worked at the Mill like my dad, helped Nate and Molly when I could. I used to bring Jennie saltwater taffy whenever I visited. It was our thing, I guess. It feels kinda good to have a kid look up to you like that, you know?

Trisha: She called you "Taffy" didn't she?

Denny: Yeah, I guess you could say the name stuck. Jennie was a nickname too. Her full name was Mary Jeanette. Mary after "the" Mary -- Molly was pretty religious, and Jeanette after Nate's mom, Jean. It was easier keeping track of the kid than Nate's mom, and she took off herself when Nate was eighteen. Made it longer than his dad, though. Nate came up with the nickname Jennie. Molly's the only one who called her Mary Jeanette.

Trisha: It seems like Leifton's the kind of place that really breeds restlessness.

Denny: You know, I never really thought of it like that, but I guess it does. You need a pretty big reason to stay, but not much reason to go. At least that's how it was for a lot of people I knew. There's a lot of secrets, a lot of ghosts, a lot of gossip. At some point you gotta ask yourself if it's worth it.

Trisha: Is it? Is it worth it?

Denny: That's a big question. I don't know if I've figured that out completely. Maybe you'll find some more answers in the book.