There has never been a more exciting time for queer literature.
We gathered four of the biggest and brightest names in the new wave for a roundtable discussion.
(And yes, we stayed well over six feet apart.)
Picador; Riverhead Books; Liveright; Ecco
“Can you hear me?
Then there’s Akwaeke, down in New Orleans; Garth admires their gold-painted ceiling.
(Blame the time difference: She’s in Ireland.
)We all chat a little about our new normal, then dive into the work.
What has the experience been like for you?
NAOISE DOLAN:Surprisingly chill.
I’m probably the least freaking-out or feeling any sense of missing out, compared to others.
For the rest of you, how are you occupying yourselves right now?
Are you struggling right now?
I feel like that’s even more calming.
It seemed like the only way I was going to be able to get myself out of the house.
How are your reading habits right now?
DENNIS-BENN:I’ve been reading poetry, memoirs.
I don’t know why.
I’m just drawn to memoirs.
Placing myself in somebody else’s shoes.
DOLAN:I’ve been rereading a lot.
My brain hasn’t been up to getting to grips with new plots and stuff.
So just following blueprints I already know.
I haven’t been able to read new stuff.
Poetry seemed easier, like I have been able to [read] the bits and pieces.
GARTHGREENWELL (Cleanness,out now):He is in my queer aesthetic seminar!
I’m teaching this semester and we talk about you a lot.
So it will be nice to know that you are reading him as he is reading you.
EMEZI:Oh, that’s lovely.
GREENWELL:Yeah, that’s really nice.
And I have been reading for my classes.
But other than that, also a lot of poetry, and also literature from another pandemic.
I mean, obviously the political and scientific differences between AIDS and [COVID-19] are vast.
Like there’s not a very meaningful comparison, but affectively they have felt kind of similar to me.
There has been a feeling of recognition.
What are you gaining, or seeing, from reading these works?
GREENWELL:I mean, one, just rage at an utterly inept governmental response.
Is it in the air?
Should you wear a mask?
How long does it stay on surfaces?”
All of that felt very familiar to me as a kid growing up queer in the AIDS era.
The grief of that also felt quite familiar.
[He was] observing this very particular social world, which was the gay ’70s in New York.
And can art have any purpose?
The more that really isn’t the case for you, the more crushingly different this will seem.
In which case, how do you do anything?
And we’re seeing that now.
We’re seeing the results of that now.
I feel like this virus, this epidemic, is actually showing the world that we’re not equal.
So we had a lot of military curfews.
I was like, “You know what this is like.
You know what it’s like to have a curfew.
You know what it’s like to not be able to go outside.”
[Laughs] Which is a really messed up way of reassurance.
It’s been so much worse in your lifetime.
People are saying a lot that, “Oh, this thing has stopped the world.”
And I’m like, “It hasn’t, because people are still doing things.”
And that’s one of the most heartbreaking things about grief, is that everything just keeps moving on.
The kids who need queer books still need them.
They probably need them actually more than they did before.
I think in any revolution, I suppose everyone has a particular role.
Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like for you?
And also what it has been like for your work inevitably to reach this new readership?
My mom was the first one who told me.
You put us on the map."
And actually encouraged readers, challenge them to actually see outside of their own worlds.
When you crack open a book, we see their lives up close and personal.
You’re all here because you’ve achieved some level of notoriety in the literary space.
Akwaeke, I know you said thatthe success of your debutFreshwatertook you by surprise.
EMEZI: Well withFreshwater, when I was writing it, it was quite frankly terrifying.
So I kind of felt like I had set myself up.
I was like, “Why did I have to make it difficult?
I could have just written a linear narrative.
It would have been a lot easier.”
But when it did come out, I was shocked by the reception, I really was.
And it was very humbling because I feel like I had underestimated readers quite a bit.
Garth, you were nodding there.
But obviously that is not quite proven to be the case.
GREENWELL:My feeling is that as queer writers, I think you have to tell yourself a lie.
And you have to believe the lie because otherwise you’re able to’t survive and make your work.
But also, you have to know it’s a lie.
It’s just death as an artist.
That’s always been a lie.
TheLord Won’t Mindtrilogy sold millions and millions of copies in 1970.
It’s a complete lie.
I hope that it’s a lie that’s harder to tell young queer writers now.
DENNIS-BENN:One point Garth reminded me of: My books also [reach] a Jamaican audience.
And I remember being terrified of writing [all these] queer characters for them.
My heart fell through my chest.
I was like, what am I doing?
But I still wrote through it.
Naoise, you were just namedIreland’s hottest young author.
And then they can have more interesting conversations.
Is this a conversation you think about?
What are your thoughts on it?
GREENWELL:I don’t think anybody gets to tell artists what they make.
I want ever more queer stories.
I’m like, “Well, there should be queer stories that have happy endings.
There are queer stories that have happy endings.
In my weird world,Cleannessactually has quite a happy ending.
I’m not sure anyone else would think it has a happy ending.
But to me, like there’s a real emotional uplift.
That’s just wrong about art.
Looking back, is there art that taught you this, in some way?
The way art is useful to us is really mysterious.
I would love to pop fire up floor on this one.
Is the idea of queer pain something you consider in your work?
How much to depict it, and if so, with a certain sensitivity?
GREENWELL: I hear that.
I would find it so frustratingly inaccurate.
DENNIS-BENN:I always find with this, I’m not a fairytale writer.
It’s one thing to say you’re going to write a children’s novel.
I love children’s books.
I love reading to my nephews and seeing their faces light up.
It’s not going to ring true to me.
I think I’d lose a lot, especially my sense of pride.
I always wanted to stay true to the characters and their process.
And where is the happily ever after?
I’m like, “Well, what if that’s not me?”
I think that’s definitely some pressure with my book coming out in August.
It’s literally calledThe Death of Vivek Oji.
Am I going to get dragged for this?”
I tried to wonder if there was a way around that.
And they reminded me thatmy YA novelPetexists.
I was going to ask you aboutPetbecause I think it’s such an extraordinary book.
Did you feel pressure in that regard, because it is a YA novel?
EMEZI:Not really.
[In]Pet, the trans character, she’s loved, she’s cherished.
She lives in a community where transphobia is not a thing.
And these are how parents should be.
There’s a whole thing of having to reorganize your world into what you want it to be.
And so I was like, “Okay, let me create these books.
And I was born before 2015!
DENNIS-BENN:Zamiby Audre Lorde.
That definitely did for me because it was a time when I was just coming to America.
This was the new millennium, I was coming into myself and I never saw myself on the page.
[So] in terms of seeing a lesbian author, Audre Lorde was that for me.
And so she gave me the possibilities.
I always say she gave me the license to write all my identities on the page.
And so that to me, [I] always treasure her books for that.
The book has scientific formulas in it.
[Laughs] It’s such an odd experimental book.
And not even now, but what, 40 years ago?
And that ties into why I was so nervous aboutFreshwater.
DENNIS-BENN: I need to read that.
EMEZI:You should.
DENNIS-BENN:Okay, I’m ordering it now.
You made a great case for it, I will say.
EMEZI:Thank you.
[Laughs]
What about you, Naoise?
DOLAN:I really likedLife Maskby Emma Donoghue when I was in my teens.
Like my debut, it’s about a bisexual love triangle, but it’s set in 18th-century London.
I just loved that she took real historical figures and made it gay.
It’s a general permit to do that in any area where there’s potential to see yourself.
Do you feel excited about this moment?
Where would you like to see it go from here?
I remember when I first came to America, it was just Bluestockings in [Manhattan].
It was a secret thing.
Now a 17-year-old girl won’t have to go through all that to get to a queer book.
She could walk into Barnes and Noble and it’d be right there.
It’s no longer at the back of the store.
The more representation there is, the more we can invite but not command other queers to identify.
Absolutely unthinkable at a marketing level, and at an artistic level.
Akwaeke, the last word to you.
EMEZI:I’m incredibly excited.
Back home, it’s still illegal to be queer in the first place.
So I feel like I am part of a cohort that’s making really powerful work.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
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