I’m so excited to be a part of the book tour for The Fight for Midnight that is hosted by TBR and Beyond Tours. I was really excited to also be able to interview the author for this book!
INTERVIEW
How would you describe The Fight for Midnight in one sentence?
A teenage boy finds himself at the Texas Capitol on the day the state’s abortion law is being debated, and he has to decide which side he’s on as the political becomes personal.
Can you introduce us to the main character(s) of The Fight for Midnight?
Alex Collins is the protagonist and narrator. He shows up at the Capitol because he gets a call from Cassie, his lifelong crush, who’s trying to get people to show up to support the restrictive abortion law. He’s never thought about abortion before that day, but he’s curious and—because of some choices he made over the past year that he regrets—very focused on trying to do the right thing. So he spends the day at the Capitol running into friends, enemies, and people in between, trying to be a decent person as the debate unfolds, and every voice becomes increasingly critical to the outcome.
Do you know from the beginning how your books will end or do you let your characters decide their journey?
I knew how this book would end, but I didn’t know most of the details of how he’d get there.
Do you have a favorite scene, moment, or quote from the book?
I’m really pleased with the way the twelve minutes before midnight unfold from Alex’s perspective.
What is something readers will find in The Fight for Midnight that they may not realize based on the
synopsis?
The book is about abortion rights and the politics around them, which I think is obvious from the synopsis. But it’s also very much about being a teenager and trying to figure out yourself and the person you want to be, in ways that have less to do with any particular issue and more to do with the experience of being young and making the mistakes that come with figuring out the world and your feelings.
What’s something you hope readers will take away from The Fight for Midnight?
I hope that readers who haven’t thought much about abortion will come away from the book with a stronger sense of why the battle over abortion rights affects them and why they should show up for it. I hope that readers who think about abortion a lot will come away from it feeling energized, and maybe with some new ideas about how to engage people who they’d like to see get more involved.
What are three books you would recommend if someone enjoyed The Fight for Midnight?
If they enjoy the young-person-figures-out-the-world part of it—set in Austin, no less—they’d probably like Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi. If they’re interested in the struggle around abortion rights and access, and want a deeper dive on the history of how people have fought for those things, they should read Lauren Rankin’s Bodies on the Line. If they want to read about teens taking on systems, I’d recommend Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother.
ABOUT THE BOOK
TITLE: The Fight for Midnight
AUTHOR: Dan Solomon
GENRE: Young Adult Contemporary
RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2023
Synopsis:
It’s been a rough year for Alex Collins. In the past twelve months, he’s lost his best friend, become the target of the two biggest bullies at school, and been sentenced to community service. But on June 25, 2013, he gets a call for help from Cassie Ramirez, the prettiest girl in school. At last, he feels like his luck might be changing.
Cassie is at the Texas State Capitol to protest Wendy Davis’s historic filibuster of the abortion bill HB2, and she’s rallying everyone she knows to join her. Until today, Alex didn’t know what a filibuster was, and he’d never given a moment’s thought to how he felt about abortion. But at the Capitol, he finds himself in the middle of a tense scene full of pro-life “blueshirts,” pro-choice “orangeshirts,” and blustering politicians playing political games as Wendy Davis tries to run out the clock at midnight.
Alex may have entered the Capitol looking to spend time with Cassie, but the political gets personal when he runs into his ex-friend Shireen in an orange T-shirt and quickly realizes that when it comes to an issue like abortion, neutral isn’t an option. Over the next nineteen hours—as things get increasingly heated both on the Senate floor and between the two sets of protesters—Alex will struggle to figure out what side he’s on, knowing that whatever choice he makes will bring him face-to-face with his past mistakes.
Content Warning: Bullying
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Solomon is a journalist based out of Austin, Texas. He’s a senior writer at Texas Monthly, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Details. He covered the HB2 filibuster for the Austin Chronicle, where his work was part of the alt-weekly’s AAN Award-nominated coverage.
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