Laura Preble turns a germaphobe into a heroine you'll want to hug

"Anna Incognito," by Laura Preble (Mascot Books)
"Anna Incognito," by Laura Preble (Mascot Books)

SAN DIEGO - It's the usual love story. Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl drives a borrowed Cadillac Eldorado from Southern California to Colorado to break up boy's wedding. And by the way, the boy is the girl's therapist, which is perfectly fine because she loves him and she is sure that he loves her. Pretty sure, anyway.

OK, so Laura Preble's new novel, "Anna Incognito," is not your usual love story. Which is perfectly fine, because Anna is not your usual heroine.

Anna is a germaphobe who rarely leaves the house for fear of what horrors she might touch, inhale or inadvertently ingest. She also suffers from trichotillomania, a condition that causes people to compulsively pull out their hair. Then there is the traumatic event that sent her down the mental-health rabbit hole. Good luck getting her talk about that.

But perhaps the most unusual thing about Anna is that she is not a lost cause, and her journey is not the disaster you might expect.

Despite the many obstacles that make a road trip Anna's idea of nonstop hell - gas-station bathrooms, diner food, every inch of every motel room ever - she puts the pedal to her borrowed metal and goes. And in Anna's world, Preble says, every inch of progress counts.

"One of the things we don't always see is that people with mental illness are striving and surviving. We don't see people conquering these things and dealing with them," Preble said during a recent interview in her Rancho San Diego home. "One of the best things (about 'Anna Incognito') that I've heard came from a reader who said that it was really healing to see someone in a book who reflected her experience."

The character of Anna was inspired by a friend of Preble's who has trichotillomania and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but who is also funny and insightful, despite the many barriers standing between her and the outside world. The novel itself also reflects the Preble's experiences as a parent, a high-school teacher and a longtime author of young-adult novels.

As the mother of two kids - 26-year-old Austin and 17-year-old Noel - and as a teacher at Mar Vista and West Hills high schools and now as a librarian at Monte Vista High School, Preble has tremendous affection for teenagers, as well as a healthy respect for their curious brains and their bluntly effective insights. The admiration goes both ways, and the payoff has been sweet.

Early in her writing career, Preble's knack for capturing both the drama and the hilarity of teen life produced her "Queen Geek" series, three young-adult novels about a band of outsider girls taking on the treacherous high-school social hierarchy. Preble is also the author of "Out," a young-adult novel set in a world where same-sex couples are the majority, and opposite-sex relationships are illegal.

With "Anna Incognito," the 58-year-old Preble has written her first novel for a general audience, but that does not mean she has left the teen world behind. When Anna makes the trek to Fort Collins, Colo., she is not without company. At some point, she crosses paths with Mellow, a homeless teenager who is a huge pain in Anna's neck and also the swift kick that Anna desperately needs.

And Preble needed her, too. It turns out that you can take the author out of young-adult world, but robbing this author of her teen spirit wasn't going to work.

"I didn't want to write a young-adult novel again because I feel like the genre has become very homogenized. I keep seeing the same ideas and the same book covers over and over. But I wanted to still have a teenage character in this one, because I feel like I know how they talk and I know their mindset," said Preble, an actress and an accomplished vocalist who has performed in many bands with her husband, jazz musician Chris Klich.

"Everything is so new to them, and they have all of these deep feelings and perspectives. I think if you see kids as people first, you can learn a lot from them. I have so much love and empathy for these kids."

The same might not be said for Dr. Edward Denture, the therapist whose wedding Anna is so determined to crash. Is he the psychological savior Anna thinks he is? Could he be the fairy-tale prince she wants him to be? Does this unconventional doctor-patient relationship deserve to be saved? These and other pressing questions might be answered in "Anna Incognito." Then again, they might remain open to interpretation. Just like Anna and Edward and the rest of us.

"When faced with a challenge like Anna, Edward sees her as a puzzle to solve. He wanted so badly to figure it out, he gave her what he thought she wanted. I think that's very human," Preble said. "I wanted to make him somewhat sympathetic, but I also wanted to show that he had a lot of power over her. People are so full of gray areas, but I think we live in a very-black-and-white world right now, and I have a hard time with that."

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