How to Make Friends with the Dark

Kathleen Glasgow is a young adult fiction writer whose work consistently tackles difficult topics like mental health struggles, addiction, and self-harm. While her stories are decidedly fiction, she is inspired by real-life experiences (“FAQ.” Kathleen Glasgow). How to Make Friends With the Dark is no exception in this regard.

Similar to June Tolliver’s experience in the book, Glasgow’s own mother lost a parent at a young age. As she details in the Author’s Note, she was then separated from her younger sister, who was given to relatives, while she and her brother were placed in an orphanage after their mother’s death. Although she was eventually adopted into a happy family, Glasgow’s mother didn’t talk about her time in the orphanage, just like June (413). Small triggers, like the smell of certain foods, would sometimes trigger emotional outbursts even later in her life, and this is reflected in Tiger’s experiences following her mother’s death.

Glasgow’s mother’s experiences inspired Glasgow to write about children who are abruptly left bereft of family; this informs the context of foster care within the book as well. She presents the darker side of both family and foster care through the experiences of characters like Sarah, Leonard, Thaddeus, and even Brownie and Blondie.

However, despite the dark subject matter of vulnerable children who must survive within environments that are often hostile, Glasgow shows that there are also moments of hope and positivity within the system. LaLa’s home is a warm one, and the relationship she shares with Thaddeus is encouraging, if unusual. Similarly, Tiger has a positive experience with Teddy in the group home she is placed in following juvenile detention. Glasgow once again draws from her mother’s life as inspiration for LaLa: Before Glasgow’s birth, her mother fostered children and eventually adopted Glasgow’s brother as well (414).

Besides the context of foster care and children without support, the overarching subject of the book is the ways in which people deal with grief and bereavement. Glasgow draws on her personal experiences of loss and death to present these emotions in her writing: She lost her own mother and sister within the span of three years (416). Thus, the book portrays a host of different characters who are dealing with bereavement in different contexts, besides just Tiger: Mae-Lynn lost a parent to a protracted illness, Taran and Alif lost a parent in a sudden accident, and Lupe lost a sibling to mental health struggles.

Glasgow also draws on isolated incidents from her own life to flesh out aspects of the book. In a grief group session in the novel, the facilitator asks group members what they would like to tell their loved ones, and a woman says she would like to ask her mother for a letter telling her how to live life without her. Glasgow recalls posing this same question to a friend on Facebook and receiving this response from one person (416).

Ultimately, the sense of incompleteness Tiger continues to feel after June’s death is a reflection of Glasgow’s own emotions after losing members of her family. In the Author’s Note, Glasgow reflects on how she “can’t explain the Grand Canyon–sized hole inside [her], so [she] wrote a book about it instead” (416).