Kaija Langley explores childhood grief in her new novel 'The Order of Things'

"The Order of Things" is a captivating new novel from Cambridge-based author Kaija Langley. Written in verse, it tells the story of 11-year-old April Jackson and her relationship with her best friend, Zee. The two Black teens in Boston share a passion for music, but that joy is ripped away when Zee suddenly dies from cardiac arrest. We then walk with April as she processes her grief and learns to recover her love for music. GBH's All Things Considered host Arun Rath spoke with Langley about the creative process behind the book. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: This is such a beautiful book. I'm curious how you conceived this. Did you decide to write a novel in verse or did you have the story in mind and think, "Oh, this should be a novel in verse?"

Kaija Langley: I had the story in mind first and foremost, and honestly, I had the character in mind, and it was April who I knew was going to experience this moment of grief that she would have to navigate through. I actually tried to write it in prose, and it didn't work and I didn't know why. So, I stepped away from the story, as I often do, to let it breathe, to give it some space, and for me to get some clarity, which often happens subconsciously with writers. When I was randomly making breakfast one morning, I started to hear April's voice and it was coming in these poems and in verse. That's when I knew the story needed to be written in verse, because that's how the story was coming to me through April's voice.

Rath: One of the joys of being in April's head is experiencing her musical development on the drums, the kind of magic that happens in the practice room.

Langley: Yes, absolutely. This particular story, and the fact that it's written in verse, really lends itself to a novice drummer who is learning beats and learning how to keep time. The actual language itself is very musical and sort of percussive.

Rath: I'm not somebody who's played the drums, but as a musician, you really get into that amazing headspace. Could you read the poem? It's called "School Daze". It gives us a sense of of April's passion.

Langley: Absolutely.

"School days feel extra-long this year when all I think about is playing the drums between classes and during lunch. I hide out in the library watching YouTube video clips of past concerts at the Boston Garden. I watched the drummers on stage study their beats and patterns. Their hands, like hummingbirds, always in motion wherever I go. Asa is never far. She settles at the computer next to mine, looking up scout activities. It's always a thrill when I see a woman on drums, no matter what band she's playing with. As long as I can pretend it's me."

Rath: It's beautiful. Along the lines of thinking about people and pretending that it's her, we see how she plasters her room with photos of female drummers from Sheila E. to Nikki Glasby. There we get a sense of how important these role models are to a young girl like that.

Langley: Absolutely. And Terri Lyne Carrington is also featured as one of the drum mavens who, of course, is part of the Jazz and Gender Institute at Berklee [College of Music] and is a professor there. I set it in Boston for that reason, because there's so much music in Boston between Berklee, the New England Conservatory and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It feels like a natural setting for a young musician to really take hold and to dream of these aspirations of becoming a professional drummer and to have these role models in and around her.

Rath: It's also really powerful because we've had Boston portrayed before, but to have people of color at the heart of the story, as a person of color and somebody who has kids, it really means a lot.

Langley: Yeah. These are aspirational things that all kids can have, but you don't often see, as you said, children of color who aspire to these things.

Rath: April's best friend Zee is this prodigy violinist and at the heart of the book is his sudden demise. I have to say, it's hard because you really make us love him. Could you read the poem? It's called "The First Night". This is when the grief is fresh, and I think anybody who's been through a loss can relate to this.

Langley:

"The first night without Zee feels like a bad dream on repeat. A record scratched and skipping the same refrain. Papa Zee all cried out in his room, me sucking air through my mouth, rapid blinking at Zee's door, waiting to see him again. Not quite believing I won't. My nose so congested from crying I can barely breathe. I don't realize when day arrives until mama kneels beside me. Home from work, her gentle hand on my back, that too sweet perfume in the air and all my senses come back to me again. My head feels like a balloon about to pop. Too full of memories, too heavy with disbelief. How could Zee be gone? The first day of all the days to come without him. My eyes unfocused, hands, trembling, hair standing on end. The drums in the corner, reminding me I'm dreaming solo from now on."

Rath: When a child dies, I think there's the term – an "out of order death" – that's used in grief counseling. It's something that's really hard to get your head around.

Langley: It is, absolutely. Part of the reason why I wrote this story was because I experienced losing my best friend at a younger age ... at age six, in fact. We went to separate schools. He went to public school and I went to the local parochial school, but we were best friends outside of school. We did all our playing together on evenings and weekends and he went to school one day and I went to school one day, and I came back home and he didn't. It was shocking. It was sudden and it was unexpected. I think I might have had maybe one or two days home from school to process the fact that this massive thing had just happened in my life. But beyond that, life carried on and there was not a recognition or conversation had about what it means to have just lost someone so young and so close to you. This book was sort of my homage to him, but also to other kids who are grieving at young ages because life is complex and things happen rapidly. It's an opportunity for them, I hope, to safely experience what it is to navigate grief and maybe to open doors and conversations with their peers and adults around them when they're grieving.

Rath: I don't want to say a lot more about this and give more away, but we're not left there in that moment of grief. There's an amazing progression. Maybe one thing that doesn't give away too much is that the grief leaves April with a new capacity for compassion, it seems.

Langley: It does, absolutely. I think one of the other threads of the story is what it means for a person to be grieving, but also to acknowledge that other people in your your ecosystem, in your sphere, in your classroom and your street, may also be navigating difficult things – maybe different than yours, but difficult, nonetheless. Even in your own grief and your own loss, can you still be compassionate towards others?

Rath: Kaija, it's been such a pleasure talking with you about this book. Thank you so much.

Langley: Thank you very much, Arun. I appreciate it.