You Don't Know Me

You think you know John? Well, let’s see . . .

What bathroom fixture did his father have in mind at his birth? What amphibian plagues John in band? Does algebra have a use, besides torture? Who or what is Lashasa Palulu? Who is Glory Hallelujah? Who is Violent Hayes? What do they want from John? If friends are people who like you, does John have any? Why do fools fall in love? If school is a place for learning, where does John go every day? How can anyone who’s fighting a secret battle for his life know anyone, really? And how can they know him?

David Klass is the author of many young adult novels, including Dark Angel and You Don’t Know Me. He is also a Hollywood screenwriter, having written more than twenty-five action screenplays, including Kiss the Girls, starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd, Walking Tall, starring The Rock, and Desperate Measures, starring Michael Keaton and Andy Garcia. Klass grew up in a family that loved literature and theater—his parents were both college professors and writers—but he was a reluctant reader, preferring sports to books. But he started loving the adventure stories his parents would bring home from the library—particularly Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexandre Dumas. After his sister twice won a story contest in Seventeen magazine, Klass decided he would win it too, and when he was a senior in high school, he did, publishing his first story, “Ringtoss,” in the magazine. He studied at Yale University, where he won the Veech Award for Best Imaginative Writing. He taught English in Japan, and wrote his first novel, The Atami Dragons, about that experience. He now lives in New York with his wife and two small children.