It’s not often Tacomans can pick up a book by a major publisher and read about places they know intimately.
Mark Lindquist’s “King of Methlehem” was one, and now “Never Eighteen,” by Tacoma writer Megan Bostic, is another. Newly published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the book is Bostic’s first young adult novel.
While it explores universal issues – illness, relationships, facing death – it does so in the crucible of the city of Tacoma, from Mason Middle School to Frisko Freeze.
A launch party Tuesday at the Wheelock library in Bostic’s own home neighborhood puts the icing on the cake.
“Tacoma is a great city,” Bostic said. “I love the scenery. I wanted to describe it in a way that people could see it in their minds, to do it justice.”
“Never Eighteen” follows 17-year-old Austin Parker as he goes on a kind of road trip in miniature around Tacoma and surrounding areas.
Ill with leukemia, and knowing that without his next round of chemo he hasn’t long to live, Austin visits people from his past to try to heal old wounds, chauffeured by his longtime (but secret) love Kaylee.
It’s a book that Bostic’s editor Julia Richardson admires for its depth of character and ability to “deal with this topic in a way that’s heartbreaking and true but not overwrought.”
With her black ponytail streaked royal blue, the 42-year-old Bostic sips her coffee at the Proctor Starbucks like a regular, which she is.
A native Tacoman who moved back to the North End after college in Portland, she’s raised two teen daughters here and works a day job doing marketing for a law firm.
Bostic began writing in 2002 as a stay-at-home mom with more time on her hands as her daughters grew older. She started with a superhero novel (written for her daughters), but soon launched into a real-life situation that writing helped her work through: Her mother-in-law, diagnosed with cancer, came to live – and die – at home with them.
“I was working through my grief,” Bostic said. “I needed something to do, so I just sat down and started to write.”
In 2009, inspired by the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, Bostic wrote “Never Eighteen,” pouring her experience with cancer, suffering and death into the character of Austin.
Austin’s mission – to help his friends sort out their problems while he still can – as well as his love for Kaylee and his final pain make the book feel very real, while still speaking in a down-to-earth teen voice.
Bostic gives a good plug for Tacoma. Owen Beach (Bostic’s own teenage haunt), the Puyallup Fair, Frisko Freeze, the Tacoma Dome and local schools all get cameo roles.
So it’s highly appropriate that “Never Eighteen” is being officially launched at Bostic’s own neighborhood library, the Wheelock branch at Proctor.
The launch party will include refreshments, Bostic signing books for sale courtesy of Kings Books, and two local teen actors reading a scene from the book.
“It’s a book teens will find fascinating,” said David Domkowski, the library’s communications manager. “It leaves you in tears but in a good way. And the dialogue is so good. ... Having two young adults read it will be a lot of fun.”
For Bostic, though, it’s just the start of her writing career. Doing a lot of her own marketing, she’s promoting the book through social media and a Pass It On blog, which follows 50 writer friends around the country and overseas as they leave “Never Eighteen” for others to find in coffee shops and doctors’ offices.
She’s revising another book signed with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, this time about a teenage girl “who deals with her abandonment issues by cutting herself.”
“I want to write about contemporary issues that teens can really grapple with,” Bostic said. “I think they appreciate that. I think teens are moving away from the supernatural (in books) to realism.”
Did her own daughters like “Never Eighteen?”
“They loved it at first, but they haven’t read it since my last revision,” Bostic said. “I’m hoping they will.”
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568, rosemary.ponnekanti@ thenewstribune.com, blog.thenewstribune.com/arts
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