The Rule of Three by Heather Murphy Capps
Lerner Publishing Group, 2024
I am SO excited to be here to talk with the amazing Heather Murphy Capps about her new book, The Rule of Three! While I love both of Heather’s current MG titles, I particularly fell in love with Wyatt and his story. In The Rule of Three, Heather isn’t afraid to take on what she describes as “chewy” topics with care, joy, and nuance. She provides such an incredible model for breaking a cycle and taking charge to “be the bat, not the ball.” Through characters like Wyatt, Dominic, and even Asher, we as readers are asked to consider what we inherit from family—and even more so, what we’re going to do with that inheritance. While this story deals with heavy topics, Heather makes room for complexity and ultimately lifts up humanness and hope for a better way forward. If you haven’t already got a copy of the book, I really hope you will today!
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Meg Eden Kuyatt: Tell us about what first sparked the idea for this book.
Heather Murphy Capps: The spark for The Rule of Three came partially from science that has revealed how families can pass on a genetic legacy of pain—it’s called epigenetics. What we know is that trauma creates mental and physical health conditions that can actually modify your DNA—and these genetic changes can be passed down from generation to generation. While there are aspects to this science that researchers debate, there is a lot of credible, peer-reviewed research that supports the theory that unique responses to stress and pain can be an inherited trait.
The second theme I wanted to explore involves tragic events in Philadelphia in 1985. City leaders, after a long, armed standoff with the Black MOVE community, ordered police to drop a bomb on the rowhouse where the MOVE family lived. The resulting fire burned down an entire block of homes.
I was actually living in a Philadelphia suburb that summer, and I remember it vividly, but I often run across people who have never heard of it. I feel strongly that it’s an important story to tell and to remember.
MEK: What inspired you to give a magical twist to epigenetics and trauma responses? Relatedly, you had this question in your discussion guide: “Why do you think the author gave Wyatt a fictional symptom of trauma in addition to real-life symptoms like difficulty sleeping, poor appetite, and emotional withdrawal?” I was curious of your answer!
HMC: I am drawn to magical realism as a narrative technique for discussing trauma because it helps provide a buffer between the reader and the painful events/topics/feelings that drive the plot. In magical realism, the magic is part of everyday life—and in that sense it’s not remarkable. This “everyday magic” is that buffer—a way to lend an air of the fantastic to real life situations, a way to consider tough topics in a palatable way.
This is part of why I chose to give Wyatt smoke as part of his stress reaction. The other reason was that I wanted his stress reaction to be visible. Many times, people have the symptoms of stress you mentioned—poor appetite, lack of sleep—but they’re invisible to most people, so we can’t immediately see that someone is coping with pain. The smoke allowed us to see and share Wyatt’s journey of discovering his inherited stress symptoms and then learning to cope with them.
MEK: What brought you to write specifically about MOVE? Why do you think it’s important to portray that “there is no such thing as a ‘perfect victim’”?
HMC: The “perfect victim” is a frustrating cultural tendency to insist that to feel empathy or understanding for victims, they have to have led perfect, sparkling, error-free lives. It’s an impossible and unfair standard to hold people to. When a person or a group of people are victims of violence or racism, it’s not because they led an imperfect life. It’s because someone out there intended hurt—and the focus should be on the perpetrator of the violence, not the target. I wanted to be clear about this distinction because the MOVE community was definitely an example of this nuance. During the aftermath of the bombing, there were early newspaper articles that emphasized their rough behavior and overwhelming anger toward the city—and how those behaviors made them easy to dislike. But what gets lost in translation is that this is a terrible standard to set—that we must feel sympathy for someone in order to acknowledge that a wrong has been done.
MEK: Did you have favorite parts of the writing process? While there is joy in this story, the book deals with a lot of difficult, painful topics. How did you take care of yourself through the writing process? How did you find joy and a path through to keep going?
HMC: I have a writing space on the sunporch in my house. It’s a lovely place to write during spring and fall—and so during those seasons, I spent a lot of time there writing, which gave me a chance to stare out into my backyard and appreciate the serenity of that scene. In the other seasons, I took lots of breaks during hard scenes, lit candles, and grounded myself by spending time with friends and family. I really appreciate having the daily responsibilities of parenting my teenage children because being available to them forces me to change subjects in my head, which helps me maintain perspective.
MEK: One of Wyatt’s friends, Dallas, expresses some concerns when he asks for her help to call out a cruel boy in the paper. What do you think are some ways kids can effectively stand up and be change-makers?
HMC: It’s easy for us to tell kids to be “upstanders not bystanders”—and much harder at this age to actually gather the courage to do that. Kids can be terribly cruel to each other, and calling out a peer’s bad behavior can often cause backlash. That said, I think it’s imperative that we as adults find ways to empower their choices to call out bad behavior because peer voices are far more influential than adult.
MEK: What do we do with the Ashers of the world? How do we break these cycles not just of inherited trauma, but inherited hate and fear?
HMC: I think that the process of breaking these cycles is generational. If every new generation can be conscious of and thoughtful about disrupting the systems that created these toxic legacies of hate and fear, we can slowly move away from them. These perspectives have been entrenched for centuries—I just hope it won’t take centuries to break them.
MEK: What do you want readers to take from this book?
HMC: You mentioned joy in an earlier question; what I truly hope readers will come away with is hope—and maybe even belief that in spite of great challenge and pain, there is always room for joy. Being resilient is partly about getting through tough times and being able protect hope and joy in spite of those tough times.
MEK: How would you like to see folks use this book in classrooms, reading groups, and beyond?
HMC: I have an educator’s guide for this book—it’s packed with book-relevant multidisciplinary activities for teachers or librarians. There are opportunities to research, write about, and present historical figures and events. I also have a terrific interactive school presentation on magical realism, intended to fit into units for reading or writing classes.
MEK: Is there anything you’d like to share about what you’re currently working on, or what’s next for you as an author?
HMC: I’m currently working on another sports-themed book (!). This book is in the very early stages and doesn’t have a publishing home yet, so it’s probably best not to say any more about it. I hope next time we talk I will have good news!
Thank you so much, Meg. I truly appreciate this chance to talk to you about subjects I know mean a lot to both of us—and I am really looking forward to your release of The Girl in the Walls, which is also about generational trauma. We were definitely on the same creative wavelength when we wrote these books!
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Heather Murphy Capps is an award-winning author of upper middle-grade books about history, social justice, science, and magic. She is a mother of two and an education equity activist. A biracial author, Heather is passionate about supporting diversity in publishing. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Indigo and Ida, received a gold medal Moonbeam Book award and a Social Justice Literature award. Her second novel, The Rule of Three, received an SLJ-starred review: “The author’s willingness to tackle difficult topics with thoughtfulness and compassion makes this compelling novel a must-read.”
Meg Eden Kuyatt teaches creative writing at colleges and writing centers. She is the author of the 2021 Towson Prize for Literature-winning poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World, the forthcoming obsolete hill (Fernwood Press) and children’s novels, including the Schneider Family Book Award Honor-winning Good Different and the forthcoming The Girl in the Walls (Scholastic, 2025).