Speaker 1: Coming to you from the dining room table at East
Speaker 1: Barbary Lane. Welcome to another special episode of Full Circle
Speaker 1: the Podcast. I am your host, Charles Tyson Jr. Martha
Speaker 1: is off doing fabulous Martha things at the moment and
Speaker 1: can't join us, but she sends our love. But that
Speaker 1: is okay because I am sitting here with a wonderful guest.
Speaker 2: He is an.
Speaker 1: Author of a fabulous and thrilling new book called The
Speaker 1: Dead of Summer, and I am very excited to talk
Speaker 1: to him about it and its themes and all the
Speaker 1: wonderful things contained within the brightly colored covers. Ryan Lesala
Speaker 1: is in the house. Hi, Ryan, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm so good good. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being had by me. So this is
Speaker 1: a great book. I inhaled it pretty quickly, and so
Speaker 1: it was pitched to me as a queer young adult
Speaker 1: horror novel. For one thing, please explain to me, like
Speaker 1: what what do you think defines a young adult novel?
Speaker 2: So you could take this from a few different angles,
Speaker 2: from like the industrial angle. It's a marketing category. So
Speaker 2: it's books that publishers publish for teenagers, right, basically for
Speaker 2: high schoolers and market to high schoolers. But like in reality,
Speaker 2: which is where I read and write from, everybody reads
Speaker 2: YA stories. Like the whole world is obsessed with books
Speaker 2: about teenagers doing heroic and difficult things, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: YA is sort of like it tells itself that it's
Speaker 2: going to be sold to like teenagers. But the fact
Speaker 2: of the matter is is that why stories just center
Speaker 2: teen experiences and teen characters. But many, many people older
Speaker 2: and younger read those stories.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, that makes sense because I'm reading it because
Speaker 1: you know, I think of why novels I think of
Speaker 1: like that you know, boy Wizard series that I'm not
Speaker 1: going name drop, which feels pretty like childish, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as I may or may not have enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: And this definitely is not that. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun actually, So tell us a little bit about what
Speaker 1: The Dead of Summer is about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So. If anyone's familiar with my work, I
Speaker 2: focus on horror stories, but within the genre of horror
Speaker 2: you can do a lot of different things, so none
Speaker 2: of my stories are too too similar. This is definitely
Speaker 2: sort of my most ambitious and biggest story. It's the
Speaker 2: first of two books. The second one's coming out next year.
Speaker 2: I just turned it in. So this one ends on
Speaker 2: a very big clipphanger. I've been getting a lot of
Speaker 2: messages about but rest assured that the rest of the
Speaker 2: story is is on its way. But in this story,
Speaker 2: you're gonna encounter the Island of Anchors Mercy, which is
Speaker 2: it's a fictional place, but it's this beautiful island off
Speaker 2: the coast of Maine, famous for its shellfish and its beaches,
Speaker 2: and it's like a summer destination for a lot of
Speaker 2: queer people. There's like a vibrant drag community there, but
Speaker 2: it's hiding a very insidious secret. And Ali, the main character,
Speaker 2: is a teenager determined to figure out what that secret
Speaker 2: is because all of his life as a resident on
Speaker 2: this island, he has been noticing patterns of secrecy and
Speaker 2: shame and sickness, and now his mom is sick and
Speaker 2: he wants to figure out what exactly is sort of
Speaker 2: causing this, like what aren't they the adults telling everybody.
Speaker 2: But before he can really get too far in his investigation,
Speaker 2: there's this storm on the busiest weekend of the summer,
Speaker 2: and up from the ocean washes basically answers, but they
Speaker 2: take the form of this kind of radiant, supernatural organism
Speaker 2: that begins to spread itself through the community. And now
Speaker 2: it's up to Ali to figure out how all of
Speaker 2: these things are connected while trying to kind of stop
Speaker 2: it from escaping onto the mainland. And so that's one
Speaker 2: side of the story. The other is a scientific researcher
Speaker 2: who is three weeks in the future writing about their
Speaker 2: investigation into Ali's story because they think somewhere in Ali's
Speaker 2: fight to survive is the solution to potentially saving the
Speaker 2: rest of the world from a similar fate. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of unclear what happens to Ali. That's kind of
Speaker 2: the big point of the book. But yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: the gist of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is in a nuts nutshell the storm comes
Speaker 1: and then wackiness.
Speaker 2: Ensues, very wacky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I love I love the themes of you know,
Speaker 1: how a secret can basically devour you know, an individual,
Speaker 1: a community, a location, even which when you tie it
Speaker 1: into the queerness of the story, you know has layers.
Speaker 1: I appreciated that. I also appreciated because the location of
Speaker 1: the story is like this, this gay hub, this like
Speaker 1: that's detached from from everyone else because it's an island.
Speaker 1: The queerness can exist on its own without having to
Speaker 1: you know, be held up in like look queer people.
Speaker 1: It can just exist as part of the story. I
Speaker 1: definitely appreciated that, you know, because so many times you
Speaker 1: read a story and it's like, hey, folks, look at me,
Speaker 1: I'm writing a queer book.
Speaker 2: Truly, and like, I mean, it's interesting because as like
Speaker 2: a queer creator, I feel like I'm consistently caught in
Speaker 2: the tension of wanting to like uphold and put the
Speaker 2: neon sign on like the queerness of something, while there's
Speaker 2: this like just as important tension also asking it to
Speaker 2: be commonplace and totally banal, right and like almost expected.
Speaker 2: And so I kind of was hoping to achieve both
Speaker 2: with a story like this, where like from Ali's point
Speaker 2: of view, he was born and raised on this island
Speaker 2: where it's really normative to have queer people, right, Like
Speaker 2: his piano tutor is this drag queen who also is
Speaker 2: a mayor, who also is the person who does like
Speaker 2: the story time at the local library, like, which is
Speaker 2: to me a kind of fairly queer ecology where everyone
Speaker 2: has like nine different jobs and we're kind of all
Speaker 2: helping each other put on a big show for one another,
Speaker 2: and that's based in reality, right Like, there are places
Speaker 2: that are like this, and queer communities tend to kind
Speaker 2: of create these sanctuaries, even amongst larger, larger ecologies, like
Speaker 2: this particular island is based on Provincetown, Massachusetts, where you'll
Speaker 2: find almost like an exact replica of this particular story
Speaker 2: or this particular setting. I should say at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't been yet.
Speaker 2: They don't worry. Yeah you should go. It's it's still there.
Speaker 2: Don't worry. But Province Sound has great history. It's been
Speaker 2: there for like hundreds of years. He's always been kind
Speaker 2: of this like artistic commune and sanctuary. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, places like this, even though from like the
Speaker 2: inside they are sanctuaries where it's very normative, they can't
Speaker 2: escape being embedded in a world that requires queer people
Speaker 2: to create sanctuaries. So they're always in dialogue with the
Speaker 2: tension that sort of asks us to kind of enclose
Speaker 2: ourselves into these these communities. And so that's also what
Speaker 2: the story is about, right Like, the second things start
Speaker 2: to go awry on this island of Banker's Mercy. In
Speaker 2: the book, there's a quarantine imposed upon the island to
Speaker 2: kind of keep things locked down. But like even the
Speaker 2: act of kind of locking all these people into their suffering,
Speaker 2: so they kind of have to deal with themselves mimics
Speaker 2: in many ways, how like institutions often leave in abandoned,
Speaker 2: marginalized communities to kind of deal with their problems themselves
Speaker 2: when they don't sort of spread into the rest of
Speaker 2: the world because it's seen as like a kind of
Speaker 2: societal contamination. And so the story kind of has both,
Speaker 2: where the actual setting is really very normative, but many
Speaker 2: of the strains that play out in this particular book
Speaker 2: absolutely arise from kind of the reality of communities and
Speaker 2: the sanctuaries that they create.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love how, like you mentioned, one of
Speaker 1: the main characters is, besides being a very well respected
Speaker 1: member of the community, is also a drag reformer, And
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that, you know, because they're
Speaker 1: so respected, they can he can just so you know,
Speaker 1: we need to do X, Y and Z, and everyone
Speaker 1: goes yes, sir, you know, and just steps into action.
Speaker 1: I love that. I also love the idea of, you know,
Speaker 1: when shit goes down yes, these are drag queens, but
Speaker 1: they are also people who have like varying skill sets,
Speaker 1: and so those skill sets get to be put into
Speaker 1: practical use. That made me seem like, yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: you would be able to do that, wouldn't you.
Speaker 2: Well, it's true. I oftentimes people are like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: how come you by queer horror? Right, That's a question
Speaker 2: that I get all the time. And I'm lucky enough
Speaker 2: to kind of have a career where I've gotten to
Speaker 2: center characters like me and the people that I know.
Speaker 2: But it does like the question of like what am
Speaker 2: I doing sort of putting all of the my my
Speaker 2: beloved people in versions of myself through like horrific scenarios.
Speaker 2: And the answer is really simple. I just don't think
Speaker 2: straight people could cut it in certain scenarios because they
Speaker 2: don't have it takes. You would need certain skill sets
Speaker 2: to survive my books. And that's why, like, of course
Speaker 2: there are straight people in these scenarios, right, But the
Speaker 2: main characters they are often the people that have resilience
Speaker 2: and adaptability and diversity and elasticity, and they also care
Speaker 2: about their community and they sort of understand that like
Speaker 2: surviving alone renders you very vulnerable in a crisis, but
Speaker 2: figuring out how to survive together, which is a huge
Speaker 2: theme of this book. Very very very queer philosophy, very
Speaker 2: sort of marginalized philosophy, And that's the result of my
Speaker 2: own lived experiences. But I kind of I apologetically tell
Speaker 2: people that, yeah, you know, I just don't think a
Speaker 2: straight person has like the skill set or the or
Speaker 2: the bandwidth or the endurance to kind of make it
Speaker 2: through some of the stories, because they are horror at
Speaker 2: the end of it, right.
Speaker 1: I've said that many times. It's like, take your average
Speaker 1: run of the mill sis head and if they had
Speaker 1: to be any one of us for twenty minutes, they'd
Speaker 1: be rocking back and forth in the corner.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my gosh. Yeah. The way that I sometimes
Speaker 2: put this too, is that, like, you know, if people
Speaker 2: ask me, like what draws me to horror sometimes, and
Speaker 2: the answer is similar to this, where I'll sort of
Speaker 2: tell them that, like, well, yeah, I had a really
Speaker 2: beautiful childhood, right, Like, I had a really supportive family,
Speaker 2: and I was lucky in many many ways, and you know,
Speaker 2: I come from like a privileged background in many ways
Speaker 2: and underprivileged in others. But if I had to write
Speaker 2: the story of my childhood, my adolescence, and my like
Speaker 2: teenage years down, I would have to shelve it in horror,
Speaker 2: because despite the humor and the love and the compassion
Speaker 2: that I had the benefit of, the narrative of my
Speaker 2: life was dominated by knowing that I was vulnerable and
Speaker 2: that any moment something could hurt me, something could come
Speaker 2: out of the blue, someone could turn on me. Society
Speaker 2: could suddenly perceive me as a monster, and I would
Speaker 2: have no way of knowing, and I would have to
Speaker 2: just kind of deal with it and sort of figure
Speaker 2: out a way out in the moment. And those are
Speaker 2: those are that's like the major tenet of horror, right,
Speaker 2: Like the person sort of consents that there's an oncoming
Speaker 2: monstrosity but can't necessarily identify where until it's chasing them,
Speaker 2: like directly behind their back, trying to stab them. And
Speaker 2: so many queer people, I feel like, resonate with that
Speaker 2: where they kind of have to hold those two things
Speaker 2: hand in hand, right, like the joy and the fear
Speaker 2: of a lived experience. And I think that's that's why
Speaker 2: I'm drawn to scary stories that also have like a
Speaker 2: lot of humor and heart in them because it just
Speaker 2: feels much more real to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about that. It's like, that's very true.
Speaker 1: Not only are the their threats out there at any
Speaker 1: given time, but they're looking for you.
Speaker 2: They're looking for you, like it's you know, in my
Speaker 2: books that leads the characters have a chance to kind
Speaker 2: of face off with the monsters. Right, And I feel
Speaker 2: like so many so many people today like consense like
Speaker 2: this encroaching, you know, retraction of society. Right. That doesn't
Speaker 2: necessarily have a form, it doesn't have like a body, right,
Speaker 2: it's just something that we can sort of feel happening,
Speaker 2: which is I think why we turn to horror stories
Speaker 2: where the monster actually has a form that we can
Speaker 2: face and that we can sort of either escape from,
Speaker 2: or defend ourselves against, or fight or even kill. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of why we like scary stories.
Speaker 2: But it's not surprising to me that, like, you know,
Speaker 2: now as the world has become much scarier, there's a
Speaker 2: there's this huge influx of readers looking for a way
Speaker 2: to kind of deal with their feelings and read about them. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you you can name the monster, it makes
Speaker 1: it a little less scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I am a huge horror fan, so I definitely definitely
Speaker 1: can understand what you're saying. And Martha is actively a
Speaker 1: non horror fan, Like, yeah, she will straight up be likeugh,
Speaker 1: not my genre, get away from me.
Speaker 2: People always say that, and then a lot of the
Speaker 2: people that I talked to at like signings will be like,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't like horror. I'm not a horror person.
Speaker 2: Like they've decided this about themselves yet, like they're in there,
Speaker 2: like in front of me holding my book being like,
Speaker 2: but I loved this, and I kind of let it
Speaker 2: go because I think people find their way through what
Speaker 2: they want as they need to. But it does always
Speaker 2: amuse me that people sort of decide that they don't
Speaker 2: like horror until they sort of find the one spooky
Speaker 2: thing that they really like, and then that's the exception.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I always like when someone says they don't
Speaker 1: like horror, I try to respect that and not like
Speaker 1: force them to try. Except there's been a couple of
Speaker 1: times when I accidentally had Martha look at horror things,
Speaker 1: like things that I didn't think were horror, Like I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is fine, and then it got to the part
Speaker 1: and then she was mad at me for like two weeks.
Speaker 2: Can't be helped.
Speaker 1: Well ten Cloverfield Lane was was a good example of that.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely clearly horror.
Speaker 1: But see the first like eighty nine percent of it
Speaker 1: is like this character study of these people in the situation.
Speaker 2: In a bunker. Yeah, that's what you're talking.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. The performances are like dynamic and layered, and
Speaker 1: it's just like, but the last ten minutes is what
Speaker 1: did it?
Speaker 2: I You know, I can really stoop down to see
Speaker 2: how you've seen seen it through with like your logic
Speaker 2: is cravy, But I get what you're saying because I
Speaker 2: agree that, like the reason that I love that movie
Speaker 2: is exactly what you're saying. But that is firmly in
Speaker 2: the in the I mean, especially because it's related to
Speaker 2: like Cloverfield, which is right like a great, great one
Speaker 2: of my favorite like ours, so same.
Speaker 1: Well And Okay, so that ties us into into your
Speaker 1: book because I noticed there were several themes hord themes
Speaker 1: in the book that I'm not going to say you
Speaker 1: outright reference, but you definitely nodded towards and I appreciated that,
Speaker 1: Like the literary version of the found footage film. You know,
Speaker 1: there's sections of the book that are told through journals
Speaker 1: and letters, and that also gave me a little bit
Speaker 1: of like World War Z, you know, I appreciated that.
Speaker 1: One thing I definitely appreciated was that there were no
Speaker 1: none of the main characters like everyone was smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh gosh, I hope so I I I wanted
Speaker 2: the three main characters. There's three kids sort of at
Speaker 2: the heart of the story. There's Ali who I mentioned,
Speaker 2: and like fashion A Lisa, But I wanted them to
Speaker 2: have like you know, they're best friends, so they've sort
Speaker 2: of grown up on this island together. But I did
Speaker 2: want them to each have something really specific that they
Speaker 2: get to go tribute. But they also have different points
Speaker 2: of view into like kind of how to solve problems,
Speaker 2: which causes a lot of tension. But I didn't want
Speaker 2: like oftentimes Ya, especially with like teen casts, gets knocked
Speaker 2: for being like mostly angst and mostly miscommunications and like
Speaker 2: problems that adults like to claim that they no longer
Speaker 2: that they've grown out of, which is debatable but right.
Speaker 2: But in my stories, I often like to find a
Speaker 2: way to test characters who are whip smart, who are
Speaker 2: really logical and who are like highly emotionally intelligent, and
Speaker 2: they're still like fighting for their lives. Like that to
Speaker 2: me makes something feel a lot tenser, because you know,
Speaker 2: if you're reading this, you're not thinking, oh, I would
Speaker 2: never do this. You're thinking, well, it's probably exactly what
Speaker 2: I would do and it's still going wrong. Like that's
Speaker 2: kind of a better story to me.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and the ones that aren't that smart or
Speaker 1: aren't that swift, those are the ones that get got so.
Speaker 2: Right, and people do get got kind of consistently the books.
Speaker 2: So don't fall in love with anyone for too long.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that was the other thing. You weren't afraid
Speaker 1: to like set us up to enjoy a character and
Speaker 1: then take them from no.
Speaker 2: I got, well, thank you, thank you, But I got
Speaker 2: like someone posted like a review recently, and this won't
Speaker 2: have any spoilers in it. Don't worry if you're a
Speaker 2: thinking about reading the book out there, but.
Speaker 1: I'm not spoil.
Speaker 2: They mentioned, like, you know a character that doesn't make
Speaker 2: it to the end, and how like it felt pointless
Speaker 2: that this person sort of was there one second and
Speaker 2: then gone another one of the main characters, but I
Speaker 2: was like thinking to myself, I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: but that was kind of the point for me because
Speaker 2: in a crisis or in a disaster, like not every
Speaker 2: demise has like symbolic integrity, right, Like sometimes people die
Speaker 2: well before you know, they sort of get to pressed
Speaker 2: in their use for like a narrative, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of that's it's kind of the horror too, write like
Speaker 2: sometimes deaf is really swift and we don't see it
Speaker 2: coming and it's not supposed to happen, but that's part
Speaker 2: of what makes something horrific. So it's interesting sometimes people
Speaker 2: have kind of a negative reaction to that, whereas I
Speaker 2: feel like that's kind of the point at least sometimes.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I won't I won't say more, right.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. It's like, it's so much that I
Speaker 1: want to ask you, but it's like I don't want
Speaker 1: to spoil anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's all right. I know a
Speaker 2: lot of times my books are kind of hard to
Speaker 2: describe some people. The recommendation is always like I can't
Speaker 2: tell you anything about this, just like sit down and
Speaker 2: read it, which makes it very hard to like recommend
Speaker 2: to the people because I'm like, yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of suspense. I can't give you any detail, but I
Speaker 2: can't tell you, like, the cover's really pretty and a
Speaker 2: lot of people have sent me dms of them crying,
Speaker 2: So if that's something you would love to do, like,
Speaker 2: go for it. But but yeah, that's kind of the
Speaker 2: it's like the catch shorty too of trying to promote
Speaker 2: like a horror novel.
Speaker 1: The cover is really pretty and it kind of like
Speaker 1: gives you a clue of what's to come, but you know,
Speaker 1: you don't realize it until you're in it, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, then you find yourself going back to
Speaker 1: the cover and looking at it as a reference for
Speaker 1: what you're imagining. Is that okay to say?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, Well, you know books have covers for a reason,
Speaker 2: so judge the book by its.
Speaker 1: Cover this way, right, Yeah. Well, sometimes it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you sent this to a graphic designer and this is
Speaker 1: what you get. Okay, great, but no, I love this.
Speaker 1: So how much of yourself would you say is in
Speaker 1: these characters?
Speaker 2: I mean a lot. I feel like, even as an adult,
Speaker 2: I feel pretty undefined and like something I know about
Speaker 2: myself right, Like I know who I am at like
Speaker 2: my core but I also feel like the mutability of
Speaker 2: like changing over a lifetime is something that has been
Speaker 2: pretty inspiring. So a lot of my characters like definitely
Speaker 2: come from pieces of me. There's a ton of meat
Speaker 2: in this book, but it's probably not where people think
Speaker 2: to look like. For instance, like Ali as a main character,
Speaker 2: we don't really have a similar life at all, aside
Speaker 2: from being gay, right. But the whole setting for the
Speaker 2: book Anchors Mercy is inspired by going to Provincetown in
Speaker 2: this case Problemsuth, Massachusetts with my family every summer for
Speaker 2: like a week, and understanding as a result of that that, oh,
Speaker 2: there are communities full of queer people. And also at
Speaker 2: a certain point, all these people that I'm seeing in
Speaker 2: the street, like they go home, they're out there in
Speaker 2: the world, like they go back to you know, whatever
Speaker 2: flyover state they decided to leave in order to come here,
Speaker 2: which was amazing. Rite this idea that like we can
Speaker 2: all come together and sort of go back to our lives,
Speaker 2: and that there's queer people sort of everywhere as a
Speaker 2: result of this exchange. And so a lot of those
Speaker 2: feelings about like community and the respect that I have
Speaker 2: for the sanctuaries that like people who had it way
Speaker 2: worse than me still found the strength to create is
Speaker 2: like a huge part of like this particular story. But
Speaker 2: I don't know that like I can point to any
Speaker 2: singular character and tell you, like, oh, this is a
Speaker 2: foxy for me. A lot of people have asked because
Speaker 2: the main character in this book is his mom. Gracie
Speaker 2: is like such an important figure in the book. They've
Speaker 2: they've sort of insinuated that, like, oh, is that based
Speaker 2: on your mom? And Luckily no, because Gracie, while she's
Speaker 2: like a great lovely character, and you know, at the
Speaker 2: very beginning of the book, there's there's a there's a
Speaker 2: difficulty sort of between her and Ali that like is
Speaker 2: sort of the central conflict between the two of them.
Speaker 2: But but her cancer diagnosis, which is like a huge
Speaker 2: part of like Ali's motivation to solve the problems on
Speaker 2: his island. That's not something that I've taken from my
Speaker 2: real life, but it is it kind of does wrap
Speaker 2: around my actual fear around like the mortality of my parents,
Speaker 2: which is a which is a pretty big theme in
Speaker 2: the book. It's sort of understanding that your parents are people,
Speaker 2: they're not just like you know, parents are not going
Speaker 2: to be there forever. They had to make hard decisions
Speaker 2: in order to defend you or protect you, right, Like,
Speaker 2: those feelings are very much wrapped up in in like
Speaker 2: this Gracie character. But but I'm lucky enough to kind
Speaker 2: of like I still have my mom and I love her,
Speaker 2: And much of the love in this book is definitely,
Speaker 2: you know, from that relationship. But the fight that they're
Speaker 2: having at the beginning of the book that sort of
Speaker 2: spans the entire thing is not is not a personal
Speaker 2: fight that I have with my mom. So I always
Speaker 2: try to make sure that I that I defend my
Speaker 2: mom because people think that I'm writing about her. But
Speaker 2: the fact of the matter is that she's a She's
Speaker 2: a lovely, lovely lady, and and I wouldn't want I
Speaker 2: wouldn't want people to mistake that.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because in real life, if Gracie was an
Speaker 1: actual person, I feel like she would be kind of insufferable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she definitely is. I mean, Like again, like another
Speaker 2: person who had like an early reaction of the book
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know why everyone's like loving this book,
Speaker 2: Like I found the mom to be insufferable, which is
Speaker 2: the point. Like the Ali starts the book by being
Speaker 2: like I love my mom, like especially when I hate
Speaker 2: her right like she is totally a mess, and I
Speaker 2: don't know what to do about it. Like that's the
Speaker 2: major conflict between the two of them, is that she
Speaker 2: is recovering from the sickness and as a result, has
Speaker 2: sort of changed her attitude, her outlook towards life, like fundamentally,
Speaker 2: like she's unrecognizable as a result of this crisis that
Speaker 2: she's just survived, and Ali is sort of her caretaker
Speaker 2: and it's fundamentally changed the nature of how they sort
Speaker 2: of interact, and he no longer has the right to
Speaker 2: feel sad about anything because everything should be good, should
Speaker 2: be positive, right, Like we've made it to the other
Speaker 2: side of this trauma. But Ali is like seventeen and
Speaker 2: still sort of left with the inertia of almost watching
Speaker 2: a parent die and can't sort of shake this gloom
Speaker 2: that it's given him. And it's totally popped the bubble
Speaker 2: on his childhood right like now he is almost like
Speaker 2: having to grow up against his will because of what
Speaker 2: he's witnessed and what he's survived and now what he
Speaker 2: kind of knows about his island. So it's it's a
Speaker 2: pretty pivotal conflict between the two of them, and it's
Speaker 2: like the main driving force of his motivation in the book.
Speaker 2: So I'm not surprised when people are like, yeah, Gracy's
Speaker 2: kind of crazy, but I love her because I also,
Speaker 2: as an adult, can understand, you know, the decision that
Speaker 2: a parent might make to protect their child and to
Speaker 2: kind of shield them from a darker truth about like
Speaker 2: the existence of their home or something like that. So
Speaker 2: I feel like I understand Gracie, but I can't necessarily
Speaker 2: defend her because she does make some kind of bombastic
Speaker 2: decisions in the book exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like you're doing too, Marsis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally like I would. I would. She would annoy that,
Speaker 2: she would drive me up a wall, right, So I
Speaker 2: understand that why people are reacting that way.
Speaker 1: It is the point she would be one of those
Speaker 1: people you would you would call every now and again
Speaker 1: because you want to you want to get that woo
Speaker 1: woo woo from from someone. But then after like about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, say, well gotta go, I gotta the oh,
Speaker 1: the dog's on fire, gotta go.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, you you it's the person that you call
Speaker 2: when you know that like something's going to interrupt the
Speaker 2: call in like ten to twelve minutes, right, Like, you
Speaker 2: can't get too far into it with them.
Speaker 1: Because you call your friend and be like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to call Gracie. So in ten to twelve minutes,
Speaker 1: you need to call me something to be on fire.
Speaker 2: There's there's certain people that I call when I'm on
Speaker 2: a walk between two points, right, Like I'm on my
Speaker 2: way to like the grocery stores. So then I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm outside the I gotta go in, but
Speaker 2: you know it's good, they'll catch up and uh, and
Speaker 2: then you call someone else on.
Speaker 1: The walk back, right exactly. It's gonna sound like I'm
Speaker 1: hanging up on you, but.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So I gotta say that the horror themes in this book,
Speaker 1: like the actual threat is not something that I've ever
Speaker 1: really seen before.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's because I was thinking about I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's been I've read a lot and seen
Speaker 1: a lot of like quote unquote zombie stories, I guess,
Speaker 1: and monster stories, but this one has a specific twist
Speaker 1: on it, like I guess I can like a nautical twist.
Speaker 1: I guess, we'll say and that's not something I mean,
Speaker 1: and that just could be a testament to the things
Speaker 1: that I've consumed. But yeah, it's something that I've I've
Speaker 1: not really encountered before. Like is this something, Is this
Speaker 1: a theme an element that that you are already familiar
Speaker 1: with or they just like pop it out of your head.
Speaker 2: So the if I mean again, if anyone is looking
Speaker 2: at the cover, it's kind of clear kind of what
Speaker 2: we're we're chatting, but we're talking about sort of the
Speaker 2: the organism that washes ashore from the deep ocean and
Speaker 2: starts to kind of not manifest but like spread itself metastasized,
Speaker 2: say through Like this community is definitely like marine in nature,
Speaker 2: and it it's because I wanted to write about I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a few different reasons for this. There's the the
Speaker 2: just physical revulsion that I have to the idea of
Speaker 2: like coral or barnacles being able to like grow on
Speaker 2: human skin, which it can't. So please anyone out there
Speaker 2: who's like shivering, don't worry, like this is not possible.
Speaker 2: But I do love the idea of like a marine
Speaker 2: ecosystem kind of being an act like a threat, right,
Speaker 2: and coral is colonial in nature. So it has to
Speaker 2: exist in these large colonies, because each little polyp of
Speaker 2: coral is an individual organism, but they live in sort
Speaker 2: of these large reefs, right. And I wanted to sort
Speaker 2: of write a monster that was beautiful that you'd never
Speaker 2: suspect of horror. But the second that something like that
Speaker 2: can grow on you can spread between like people and flesh, like,
Speaker 2: that's much scarier. And I love reveling and sort of
Speaker 2: taking something light and beautiful and ornamental and sort of
Speaker 2: turning it into a force of fear. A lot of
Speaker 2: my books sort of aim at that particular like inversion,
Speaker 2: but also the sort of the metaphor behind it for
Speaker 2: me was that Ali is this like completely isolated kid
Speaker 2: at the start of the book, and he's turned his
Speaker 2: back on his island, his best friends to some degree,
Speaker 2: like his own mom, like, because that's where the fight
Speaker 2: sort of is located for him at the start of
Speaker 2: the book, and then the force that he's up against
Speaker 2: for the rest of the book and then the book
Speaker 2: after is this organism that, against your will, will sort
Speaker 2: of merge you into a much larger system. It'll sort
Speaker 2: of lock you into a colonial community, right, Like it'll
Speaker 2: bring you into itself, and now you're part of something,
Speaker 2: but you're part of it forever, right, you've sort of
Speaker 2: given up your adit well, your humanity, and you're brought
Speaker 2: into kind of this like smothering enforced community because it's
Speaker 2: a reef and it's an organism kind of trying to
Speaker 2: build itself out and emerge people together. And there's a
Speaker 2: moment in the book where Ali is about to get
Speaker 2: sort of like fused into this monstrosity, and he even thinks,
Speaker 2: is this really as bad as I think it is?
Speaker 2: Like is the fear that I have around this, you know, genuine?
Speaker 2: Or would it be so bad to sort of be
Speaker 2: brought into a community an embrace that I can never escape,
Speaker 2: Like is it okay to kind of give up right
Speaker 2: in this moment? There are fates worse than death, but
Speaker 2: maybe this is slightly better than death. And I wanted
Speaker 2: I wanted something to kind of test them, in part
Speaker 2: because when we see when we see zombies, and we
Speaker 2: when we see sort of like the way that they're
Speaker 2: like typically depicted in media, right, Like there's sort of
Speaker 2: these like mindless, avid animalistic things falling after you, or
Speaker 2: they're like a shambling corpse like there's nothing sort of
Speaker 2: within them any more. They're just kind of like an
Speaker 2: automated threat. But I wanted to kind of create a
Speaker 2: version of them that that still retain their humanity, that
Speaker 2: still sort of like look like people, but kind of
Speaker 2: have this like enhancement to them, and instead of them
Speaker 2: being rabid and scary, they're they're tearful and they're laughing
Speaker 2: and they're smiling and they're singing, and there's a sort
Speaker 2: of undeniable joy to the way that they're sort of infected,
Speaker 2: which just makes me so uncomfortable, right, this idea that
Speaker 2: like there could be a pleasure in giving up that's
Speaker 2: a really seductive thing that I think a lot of people,
Speaker 2: you know, are uncomfortable with. And so that that's kind
Speaker 2: of where that's kind of those are the few pieces
Speaker 2: that kind of fuse together to form like the they're
Speaker 2: called weepers in the book, if anyone's wondering, Yes, but
Speaker 2: that's where that's where they come from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that's the thing Like usually with zombies, once
Speaker 1: you become one, you're not you anymore.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: It becomes easier to I guess, like you get over
Speaker 1: the initial loss, like oh no, they got x y
Speaker 1: Z and then you got to like fight them just
Speaker 1: double tap to the head and is over. But when
Speaker 1: they're still in there after that head, Yeah, where there's
Speaker 1: still in there, that's what's scary.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I think that's a much Well Okay, So
Speaker 2: if we're really getting to kind of like the queer
Speaker 2: discussion here, A big part of like, you know, the
Speaker 2: onus that I sort of put on myself is like
Speaker 2: a creator who announces to the world that, like I
Speaker 2: write queer horror, right, is that, like the queerness, my
Speaker 2: queer perspective doesn't just sort of shed itself when it's convenient.
Speaker 2: So when I'm picking up the theme of zombies, I'm
Speaker 2: also looking at like how queer communities have historically dealt
Speaker 2: with contagion, how we tried to protect each other right
Speaker 2: from something spreading amongst ourselves. And we have a history
Speaker 2: of this. We know from historical records and the survivors
Speaker 2: of like the AIDS epidemic, what it was like to
Speaker 2: sort of be within these communities and to sort of
Speaker 2: sense something spreading and to try to raise the alarm
Speaker 2: on it, and to be completely ignored and to be abandoned,
Speaker 2: and to basically have to solve these things ourselves, to
Speaker 2: create structures ourselves. And so while this book is not
Speaker 2: necessarily about the AIDS epidemic, it is, it does take
Speaker 2: place in a world that has endured that, and the
Speaker 2: sanctuary in the book is a result of that. And
Speaker 2: it's clear that these people, the elders in this community
Speaker 2: have systems and measures to take it sort of against
Speaker 2: something similar happening. So they try to shut the town down.
Speaker 2: They go to the drag queens and they sort of
Speaker 2: spread through the drag network that like something has been
Speaker 2: happening to people. They try to keep people home, but
Speaker 2: in the end it fails because of a bunch of
Speaker 2: straight people, a bunch of bachelorettes who I love, that
Speaker 2: decide that right like they they have to have their
Speaker 2: night out, they have to have their karaoke, it's my
Speaker 2: bachelorette party, and so they defy the stay at home order.
Speaker 2: And it's because of this entitlement of these cultural tourists
Speaker 2: that can come in are not part of the community
Speaker 2: but absolutely feel entitled to like the entertainment of it,
Speaker 2: that this island is absolutely devastated by you know, this
Speaker 2: this infection, and that's a that's not just that's commentary.
Speaker 2: It's not a metaphor whatsoever. It's it's outright critique. And
Speaker 2: then on the other side of it, the other thing
Speaker 2: that I wanted to say about this is that like
Speaker 2: in also dealing with an infection that sort of spreads rapidly,
Speaker 2: that is that that monstrofies humans. I wanted the main
Speaker 2: character Ali to figure out that the people who are
Speaker 2: infected are not necessarily a foregone conclusion. They don't just
Speaker 2: turn into this force of evil. They're still humans, They're
Speaker 2: still in there. Because I wanted to talk about the
Speaker 2: fact that, like our gut reaction to seeing infections spreading
Speaker 2: our community like might be stigma and disdain, right, but
Speaker 2: you know, perhaps if we listened to these people, the
Speaker 2: ones the actual victims of what's happening, not that people
Speaker 2: trying to sort of save themselves, with the actual people
Speaker 2: who are sort of undergoing this transformation or the degradation
Speaker 2: of their health, like we could learn something and that
Speaker 2: actually could lead to the salvation of everybody. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, not once does AIDS come up in this book,
Speaker 2: not once, but but it's absolutely sort of built into
Speaker 2: the marrow of how these characters fighte against this like
Speaker 2: the decision that they get to make and also like
Speaker 2: the type of hope that ends up saving them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hell yeah, I made that parallel pretty quickly. And
Speaker 1: I can hear Martha like when we were talking, when
Speaker 1: we talk about COVID should be the first one to say,
Speaker 1: this is not our first pandemic. Yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you can tell like who learned something, who didn't you.
Speaker 2: Know exactly, And I mean I remember specifically one of
Speaker 2: the main things that inspired this book is when the
Speaker 2: Delta variant was coming out right during like the sort
Speaker 2: of the summer after the lockdown, and like the Delta
Speaker 2: variant was sort of the first big variant that was
Speaker 2: hitting the headlines, and it was sort of this like,
Speaker 2: oh my god. We thought we were sort of through this,
Speaker 2: but now here we are there's variants like oh my god,
Speaker 2: I remember this right exactly right, like oh no, And
Speaker 2: it was sort of the moment that we realized that, like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, like this is maybe never ending. And
Speaker 2: in that variant, the Delta variant was it was named
Speaker 2: and caught because in Provincetown enough gay people exhibited health
Speaker 2: seeking behaviors to get themselves tested that we were able
Speaker 2: to sort of figure out that this thing is mutiating.
Speaker 2: But as a result of it, the delta variant was
Speaker 2: blamed on the people of Provincetown and the people that
Speaker 2: were getting tested. But it's just because of a health
Speaker 2: seeking behavior, right, And we as queer people often are
Speaker 2: told that we have a risky lifestyle, but the fact
Speaker 2: of the matter is is that we often are like
Speaker 2: very cautious and very protective and we seek out solutions.
Speaker 2: And the irony is that we then get saddled with
Speaker 2: the blame for sort of raising the flag on something
Speaker 2: that affects everybody. That variant was in every little beechy
Speaker 2: community that was shirking their COVID guidelines that summer, and
Speaker 2: it was everywhere, but we just happened to catch it,
Speaker 2: but then we got blamed for it. And I wanted
Speaker 2: to sort of discuss what it's like to sort of
Speaker 2: be the people like raising your flag about something and
Speaker 2: then having to sort of own it as a result
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a common unfortunately, a common theme. If you
Speaker 1: point out the thing that makes you the thing like exactly,
Speaker 1: for instance, if I'm going that's racist, well that's racism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pointing out racism, right, Yeah, suddenly race matters only
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: How do that work?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, it's insane, And I think that it's something that
Speaker 2: like anybody in our community, especially people with like intersectional identities,
Speaker 2: like we know this, we've sort of had to endure this,
Speaker 2: and then oftentimes the behavior as a result of it
Speaker 2: is like I'm going to step out, I'm going to
Speaker 2: step back, right, I'm going to sort of abandon my
Speaker 2: position in this particular fight, which I understand. I totally
Speaker 2: understand the weirdness around that, but I want to sort
Speaker 2: of offer some alternatives, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, you can't hold back but so much
Speaker 1: because if everyone pulls back, then it's coming for you,
Speaker 1: you know exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to the main the main like motto
Speaker 2: that the kids in this book have, or the three
Speaker 2: main characters, because they were born and race together, and
Speaker 2: everyone in their community calls them the SuDS because they
Speaker 2: like they stick together, right, Like they're like these like
Speaker 2: they're always together, right, I love their and there's thank you,
Speaker 2: and they're slippery, right, like they they're always causing mischief,
Speaker 2: but they're always getting away with it, right, which then
Speaker 2: becomes really important when suddenly, like the navy puts the
Speaker 2: island on quarantine, tells everyone to sort of like lock up,
Speaker 2: and like these kids have to kind of slip through
Speaker 2: these gas to figure out how to kind of travel
Speaker 2: and figure out what's going on. And so, but their
Speaker 2: motto is SuDS stick together. And even when it's like
Speaker 2: these kids are fighting the entire book, they're at each
Speaker 2: other's throats, right, Like they're not holding back about the
Speaker 2: big feelings they have about each other about what's going on,
Speaker 2: Like they're having real discussions about this, in part because
Speaker 2: it just annoys me when characters like don't speak over themselves.
Speaker 2: And so I have now three kids that are constantly
Speaker 2: yapping and fighting with one another, but they still stick together.
Speaker 2: They find a way to sort of prioritize the togetherness,
Speaker 2: the surviving together part of it, which I think is
Speaker 2: ultimately why they're compelling, at least for me as a writer, right,
Speaker 2: Like they understand that surviving individually is ultimately not worth it.
Speaker 2: Like if you are the last lone survivor of something,
Speaker 2: like you really haven't lived, you really are not surviving anything,
Speaker 2: Like you're just the only victim left of something. But
Speaker 2: if you can find a way to kind of bring
Speaker 2: everyone with you to survive altogether. Like that's that's worth it,
Speaker 2: that's worthy of hope.
Speaker 1: Right, that's growth fighting back basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I totally think so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the dynamic of the SuDS. It's like they're
Speaker 1: best friends and then there's like a well not a
Speaker 1: love triangle but not not.
Speaker 2: Explations. Yes, yeah, and it used to be, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it used to be more pronounced. I ended up taking
Speaker 2: it out, but there there was there used to be
Speaker 2: a little bit more I don't want to say romance.
Speaker 2: You know. Again, these are like teens, but there was
Speaker 2: there was a little bit more of like a heavy hand.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like triangle between three of them. That
Speaker 2: ended up being cut for time. But you know, in
Speaker 2: the in the HBO adaptation.
Speaker 1: I'll make sure we put it back in, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's there. I felt it because like some things
Speaker 1: are are are actually said, and then other things are
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't feel that, you wouldn't get that angry
Speaker 1: if you didn't certain feelings. Totally, yeah, I see you.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 1: I definitely loved the element of the bachelorette party being
Speaker 1: the moment that fucked it up for everyone because that
Speaker 1: much is in life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not fiction. I mean, that's truly not I
Speaker 2: mean the thing is, though I don't know, Like, I'm
Speaker 2: friends with a lot of drag queens, and they can't
Speaker 2: necessarily speak ill about the bachelorettes because have money, right,
Speaker 2: They bring in like an infuge of tourism that like
Speaker 2: we kind of need in order to provide what we
Speaker 2: need for like the rest of our community in those spaces.
Speaker 2: And so I like the idea of like a necessary
Speaker 2: evil being part of part of this particular world. That's
Speaker 2: how I think about them. But even when you go
Speaker 2: to these places, right, like Rovin Soon, or like if
Speaker 2: you go to like gay bars and stuff, like even
Speaker 2: the physical invasion of a bachelorette party, like all of
Speaker 2: these people dressed identical. And I'm talking about like the
Speaker 2: straight bachelorette parties, because you've seen plenty of lesbian bachelor
Speaker 2: parties roll up and they look fantastic, right, and I'm
Speaker 2: glad that they're there. But I'm talking about the like
Speaker 2: you know, like the Savannah girls, and like they they'll
Speaker 2: probably be a little bit more at home in like Nashville, right,
Speaker 2: but they've decided to come to like this gay.
Speaker 1: Bar and the Woo girls, so the Wu.
Speaker 2: Girls, right, and like there is this out like there
Speaker 2: is this sense of like invasion about them and the
Speaker 2: way that they look and there it kind of feels fungal,
Speaker 2: right to see all these people like they're like pink
Speaker 2: buzzy shirts, but they're as like im. And I'm gonna, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm scared that I'm gonna like leave the
Speaker 2: bar and find like a feather boa like snaking around
Speaker 2: my neck right like it it feels contagious.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden. The only thing you that will
Speaker 1: sustain you is rose, right.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, And I need to cry off
Speaker 2: my Nescara twice in one night, but then reapply it
Speaker 2: in the bathroom and be like built back up by
Speaker 2: my girls, right, Like I do feel a tender thing
Speaker 2: for these these bachelor parties, but you know, I wanted
Speaker 2: to write about that particular like entitlement and and how
Speaker 2: it can sometimes spell disaster for a place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm getting a little PTSD from moments and certain
Speaker 1: gay bars. And here they come.
Speaker 2: I know, I know they I they're And the thing is, like,
Speaker 2: I it's very funny watching the reaction of the book,
Speaker 2: because all the queer people the second these girls show
Speaker 2: up are like, oh God, like I know, I know
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen. Everybody else is like I thought that
Speaker 2: that was really creative, and I'm like, yea, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take the points from either party in this. I'll say, yes,
Speaker 2: thank you. It was so creative of me. But it's
Speaker 2: like it's also I feel like it's kind of a
Speaker 2: common Yeah, it's a common threat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like I'm thinking about so one of our
Speaker 1: favorite bars in it's all configuration. There's like the piano
Speaker 1: was here, and then there's like little princess bar here,
Speaker 1: and one girl she's leaning over the princess bar, which
Speaker 1: is unmanned at this particular night, and she's like reaching
Speaker 1: and grabbing bottles and pouring herself a drink and then
Speaker 1: being surprised when she got kicked out.
Speaker 2: Shocked. Shocked. Yeah, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, you don't do this kind
Speaker 1: of shit on your home turf. What makes you think
Speaker 1: this is gonna fly here?
Speaker 2: Well, because because gay people are fabulous, and I thought
Speaker 2: gay people were fun and like I thought that you know,
Speaker 2: they loved women, right, Like these are the the psycho.
Speaker 2: This is the psychosis that that leads people to kind
Speaker 2: of helping themselves.
Speaker 1: It's all about me, and everyone will just flapped chong.
Speaker 2: It's my special day, I know. And there's something very
Speaker 2: like insidious about especially with like gay rights and like
Speaker 2: marriage being sort of back in a contested territory about
Speaker 2: like sayn ewing up for their like heterosexual wedding and
Speaker 2: coming into like our spaces some sort of like flaw
Speaker 2: law right with zoo. And then the second there's like
Speaker 2: the most minor of repercussion, like the second someone not
Speaker 2: smiling and wooing at them. It's like World War three, right,
Speaker 2: Like the devastation occur is there's such an irony to
Speaker 2: that that I think goes sort of unnoticed by by
Speaker 2: these people when they feel like, you know, why wouldn't
Speaker 2: you want me here? You know? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe maybe the people have been fighting for
Speaker 2: like the right to marry one another for like years
Speaker 2: and years and years and years and years feel a
Speaker 2: little bit disregarded when the saying short that they've built
Speaker 2: for themselves and the people like them is invaded by
Speaker 2: someone who is here like as a mascot, of like
Speaker 2: heterosexual union. I don't know, maybe think about it for
Speaker 2: like two seconds.
Speaker 1: You're the reason why this place exists in the first place,
Speaker 1: han Nick.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, Like, and yet here you are and you
Speaker 2: want to see karaoke and you want to sing the
Speaker 2: twelve minute version of It's All Coming Back to Me
Speaker 2: Now by Celine Dion, and you want us to listen
Speaker 2: and give you dollars Like that's crazy, but okay, sure,
Speaker 2: get on up there, girl.
Speaker 1: I saw this guy proposed to his girlfriend in the
Speaker 1: middle of a drag show. Yeah. I if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for the fact that I was enjoying my drink, i'd
Speaker 1: have thrown it.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I you know, mazzle to them.
Speaker 2: I guess right, you know, couldn't find a better time
Speaker 2: they have to do with that, right.
Speaker 1: I'm glad she said yes, because y'all deserve each other show,
Speaker 1: right right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh my congratulations.
Speaker 1: Can you tell I have feelings?
Speaker 2: I will, you know. I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: have feelings about this, but I feel like a lot
Speaker 2: of them can't necessarily be expressed, because these are feelings
Speaker 2: that make the most sense in person, like in these
Speaker 2: spaces and like exhibited by people who have been in
Speaker 2: these spaces for like a long time, but so much
Speaker 2: of queer culture now is just bickering on the internet.
Speaker 2: And like, for me, being queer has always been a verb, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's how I go through the world. It's
Speaker 2: the nightlife that I get to enjoy, but it's also
Speaker 2: like everything else about my day to day because I'm
Speaker 2: like I'm like a visibly queer. I mean, I'm in
Speaker 2: like a tank top of a hat right now, but
Speaker 2: like typically in the world, like I'm very flamboyant, right
Speaker 2: so I can't really even escape it or step out
Speaker 2: of it. But that's really different than like the the
Speaker 2: putting on of like rhetoric to like debate and pick
Speaker 2: one another on the internet. So like I know in
Speaker 2: past times, when like the bachelotte party has come up,
Speaker 2: like people will swoop in and be like, well, how
Speaker 2: do you know the sexuality to freak girl on that
Speaker 2: bachelorette party, or how do you know like that, Maybe
Speaker 2: they're there because they feel like they wouldn't be safe
Speaker 2: in like a straight place, and so they're going to
Speaker 2: like a gay place because they're they're they're protected from misogyny,
Speaker 2: right And I'm like, Okay, so now we have like
Speaker 2: a fictional bachelorette party that is like full of full
Speaker 2: of diversity, secret hidden diversity that I now need to
Speaker 2: consider in my discomfort in like that equation of like
Speaker 2: my actual life. Right, Like I suddenly no longer have
Speaker 2: a right to just having a reaction, right like you
Speaker 2: with your drink looking at at a proposal, because I
Speaker 2: now have to now to calculate into my mental calculus
Speaker 2: every single just qualification that could come up on like
Speaker 2: a Twitter thread, right, Like is that useful? Well, I
Speaker 2: don't know, because it seems like maybe it's not that
Speaker 2: useful to do to do math that way, right, That's
Speaker 2: kind of what happens sometimes.
Speaker 1: Martha and I have had this discussion a lot. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get back to the book, but we're sidebarring right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, guys, No, that's okay.
Speaker 1: Our listeners are used to it. So like the fact
Speaker 1: that in really just one generation, we have this group
Speaker 1: of queer kids who have always had rights, have always
Speaker 1: had that sense of self, that ability to be themselves,
Speaker 1: and so since they hadn't had to go through nothing,
Speaker 1: all they have is naval gazing on the internet. So
Speaker 1: as annoying. It's like we should be proud of that.
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh my god, I'm so glad that that's how
Speaker 2: you earned this, because that's how I feel too. I'm
Speaker 2: like almost it like the naivety. I think it's like
Speaker 2: something that I kind of cherish because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: the only reason that you're acting so annoying about this
Speaker 2: is because you can, right, because you haven't had to
Speaker 2: kind of go through all of these things. And so
Speaker 2: I'm like, this is actually so there's a getting Oh,
Speaker 2: here's our connection back to the book. So in the book.
Speaker 2: In the book, Olli is a character who's sort of
Speaker 2: always had Yeah, like I'm like back to me, Alli
Speaker 2: is sort of always at the benefit of the supportive community,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't necessarily know what it would be like
Speaker 2: to turn his back on it, right, like, because it's
Speaker 2: something it's a decision that he doesn't even really mean
Speaker 2: to make. And it's only because of like the darkness
Speaker 2: of like his mom's sickness and that experience that he
Speaker 2: kind of feels uncomfortable in this. But his mom understands
Speaker 2: like no, no, no, like you're gonna need these people, You're
Speaker 2: gonna need all of this like once once I'm gone.
Speaker 2: But the fact that like you know, you can sort
Speaker 2: of come and go as you please, that you don't
Speaker 2: feel desperate urgency to maintain contact with like this Queer
Speaker 2: Island like in a way is a byproduct of a
Speaker 2: of a world sort of slowly accepting people, and those
Speaker 2: barriers of sanctuary becoming orus as a result of it, right,
Speaker 2: that no longer needs to sort of be strict, And
Speaker 2: so that's more of a discussion that it ends up
Speaker 2: in the second book, the one that I just turned in,
Speaker 2: so the sequel to the Dead of Summer, there's a
Speaker 2: clear sort of moment where in a Dragmen actually tries
Speaker 2: to sort of have a conversation with the character and
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, I know my decisions in the
Speaker 2: things that I had to do in order to save
Speaker 2: myself back in like the eighties and the nineties, Like
Speaker 2: they're not going to make sense too, but I almost
Speaker 2: love that they don't, because it means that you as
Speaker 2: a person are so far removed from the hard decisions
Speaker 2: that like basically your ancestors had to make to give
Speaker 2: you this moment in time right now. And in the
Speaker 2: context of their conversation, it then turns into but like,
Speaker 2: but now you have to understand that you, as someone
Speaker 2: who is in a crisis, you are the ancestor of
Speaker 2: whoever is going to you know, come generations after, and
Speaker 2: you need to now make decisions, you know, for the
Speaker 2: welfare of a community that's going to outlive you, right,
Speaker 2: because that's what that's what That's what it means to
Speaker 2: be an elder in a community. And we don't often
Speaker 2: have a vocabulary in the Queer community of a lineage
Speaker 2: or inheritance or elders or ancestors because of you know,
Speaker 2: the divorce that like the AIDS epidemic has sort of caused.
Speaker 2: And I think, now I love that I get to
Speaker 2: be an elder in the Queer community, right, like, and
Speaker 2: I'm like thirty and thirty four, so not actually like that, yeah,
Speaker 2: but like you know what I do, I look.
Speaker 1: Forward to being I'm still both though with your elder
Speaker 1: that's fine.
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm trying to say is that, like
Speaker 2: I look forward to sort of being, you know, able
Speaker 2: to kind of make decisions that are for you know,
Speaker 2: some kid in the far distant future will never know
Speaker 2: who I am, but gets to sort of sit in
Speaker 2: comfort that I've afforded them in sort of the actions
Speaker 2: that I get in the choices that I get to
Speaker 2: make like right now with like whatever platform I have.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I have a lot of feelings
Speaker 2: about a lot of feelings about like queer communities and
Speaker 2: sort of how they how they build each other over time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and the thing that's interesting, it's like, like
Speaker 1: I said, they hadn't had to go through anything, and
Speaker 1: cut to now It's like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well now we are all going through something, right.
Speaker 1: Right, And so like these kids that have had nothing
Speaker 1: to do but naval gaze have are also the ones
Speaker 1: that are some of the fiercest activists. It's like they
Speaker 1: scare me. I'm like, yes, go point them in that direction,
Speaker 1: get them. And I love that too. You know, It's true.
Speaker 1: We can create both of those things at the same
Speaker 1: time in the same generation.
Speaker 2: I know. My greatest hope is that, like the infighting
Speaker 2: that we subject to one another to like we find
Speaker 2: a way to kind of unify and focus on something,
Speaker 2: and I unfortunately threats to the unity attempt kind to
Speaker 2: be the unifying force, right, like a common enemy, right
Speaker 2: is often what what you need to kind of get
Speaker 2: get out of each other's faces when but you know,
Speaker 2: having these little squabbles sometimes are useful, sometimes they're not.
Speaker 2: But I agree. I'm like a lot of the a
Speaker 2: lot of the ways that we sort of treat each
Speaker 2: other on the internet seem to be more about like
Speaker 2: policing one another than they do about like preserving sort
Speaker 2: of a larger entity. And so I kind of wonder
Speaker 2: when that shift will happen, especially now that like real
Speaker 2: threats have started to become like way more common.
Speaker 1: Exactly. It's like, now that you've got your claws sharp
Speaker 1: and Mary, how about you use them over there?
Speaker 2: You know, right right right? And I always wonder. I'm
Speaker 2: also just like people got to get offline, they really do.
Speaker 2: They need to, Like I don't like leave the grass
Speaker 2: out of it. I don't even care about the grass.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm like, you need to get offline, and
Speaker 2: you need to like find your local Y m c
Speaker 2: A and see if you can volunteer there, right, you
Speaker 2: need to. I'll go at your school board meetings and
Speaker 2: sit tight. And the moment that they put a queer
Speaker 2: book on the stand for being banned, like you got
Speaker 2: to stand up for that, right, Like there are real
Speaker 2: world moments that are way more impactful than sort of
Speaker 2: like sitting and like nitpicking each other on the internet.
Speaker 2: And at this point, like the way the algorithms work,
Speaker 2: like those conversations are self enclosed and they're they're kind
Speaker 2: of bubbled up, and they're not necessarily bleeding out to
Speaker 2: sort of make or exert any pressure on people who
Speaker 2: are like, you know, against LGBTQI rights. And those people,
Speaker 2: the ones that are trying to take away rights, like
Speaker 2: they're not doing it on Twitter, you know, they're doing
Speaker 2: it in the courts. I think they're doing it in
Speaker 2: real world scenarios, which is unfortunately kind of where we
Speaker 2: need to show up to. So if the only way
Speaker 2: you know how to fight is through a keyboard and
Speaker 2: online and with each other, you're very much in the
Speaker 2: way when it comes to having to actually take the
Speaker 2: fight like into like a like a real world setting. Right.
Speaker 2: But I hope that people sort of forge their way
Speaker 2: back towards their local communities as a result of this,
Speaker 2: Like that can only really lead to good getting to
Speaker 2: know like the problems in your area, right, the problems
Speaker 2: that are going to affect you. Like that's that's a
Speaker 2: good vocabulary to have. As an activist.
Speaker 1: Right, it's like you have the intelligence, you have the vocabulary,
Speaker 1: Lord knows, you have the energy. Take that and put it.
Speaker 1: Take it from the theoretical, which is what the internet is,
Speaker 1: and put it into practical application, because without practical application,
Speaker 1: like theory means nothing.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and it's it's it's dire, right, like it's
Speaker 2: now or never truly literally, book bands come up a lot,
Speaker 2: especially with me, because I've had books that have been
Speaker 2: challenged only because of the like my queerness as a creator,
Speaker 2: or like the inherent queerness of like the characters, but
Speaker 2: not ever because of anything content wise in the books.
Speaker 2: Like often they'll be challenged because of like sexual content, right,
Speaker 2: and and there's my books are hard. The characters don't
Speaker 2: have time a lot of making out right, they're running
Speaker 2: for their lives half the time. And so my books
Speaker 2: also end up being put back on shelves quite often,
Speaker 2: but only after they've gone through like an arduous review
Speaker 2: that has of course caused some poor librarian or bookseller
Speaker 2: like a ton of pain. And so people ask those
Speaker 2: as a result, like well, you know, what can we do?
Speaker 2: And showing up in your actual like the fabric of
Speaker 2: your actual community to like at your bookstores, in you know,
Speaker 2: the school meetings. It ends up being really meaningful because
Speaker 2: it only takes one voice to sort of like cause
Speaker 2: a book to receive a lot of backlash, right, Like
Speaker 2: one loan shut in is like I think that this
Speaker 2: book is teaching children, you know, wrong lessons, right, and
Speaker 2: suddenly that book has to be pulled into a review
Speaker 2: and pulled off shelves, and it's creating all this paperwork,
Speaker 2: right Like, who knows that it'll make it back on
Speaker 2: to the shelf, right if it's causing all this trouble,
Speaker 2: But if there are voices that are already in the
Speaker 2: room that are like, actually, like I disagree or I'm
Speaker 2: going to advocate on behalf of this thing before it
Speaker 2: gets challenged, right, Like, that ends up being really meaningful,
Speaker 2: and it gives support to the people in the community
Speaker 2: that end up having to have this fight. Like the
Speaker 2: fight is not from me, the author. I get to
Speaker 2: kind of sit back and keep writing. The fight for
Speaker 2: book bands, for instance, is often left with like the
Speaker 2: librarians and the teachers that they can't be if they're
Speaker 2: embedded in the community. They have to have that conversation
Speaker 2: with that patron or that parent, so lending them your support,
Speaker 2: you know, way more meaningful, and of course, like you know,
Speaker 2: I love your support too if you're linked to this,
Speaker 2: like I too appreciate the kudos. But just like you said,
Speaker 2: like the the like I'm the theory of all this,
Speaker 2: but the physical, the actual like practical application like that
Speaker 2: happens sort of outside of my books, right, and it
Speaker 2: happens like on the shelves where they're put.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that's the thing. It's always it's usually just
Speaker 1: one or two loud mouths that cause the kerf offfle
Speaker 1: And you know, Martha and I have both said this
Speaker 1: many times, like before you open your mine, have to
Speaker 1: say this book needs to be banned. You need to
Speaker 1: submit at least a ten page book report on that
Speaker 1: book to prove that you read it, like yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because so many times it's like you barely made it
Speaker 1: through the dust jacket boo, I can tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And if you made it through, like oh
Speaker 2: my god, someone in someone challenged one of my books,
Speaker 2: The Honeyes, which came out two years ago or three
Speaker 2: years ago at this point, and they were like this,
Speaker 2: this book promotes killing your family members. Like that was
Speaker 2: the big that was the big crime that I had submitted,
Speaker 2: or that I had committed, as like the author of
Speaker 2: this book, and like, I think about that because that's
Speaker 2: such a crazy interpretation of what happened to the book,
Speaker 2: which is on page six, the main character is attacked
Speaker 2: by their sister who's like in a crazy fugue state,
Speaker 2: and in the ensuing fight, the sister ends up perishing.
Speaker 2: And it's not a plot twist, it's general. It's like
Speaker 2: the app salute, like a lot of the book. It's
Speaker 2: the thing that sort of launched the rest of the book,
Speaker 2: And the whole rest of the book is the guilt
Speaker 2: around like what's happened with this character and investigating their
Speaker 2: life and sort of trying to understand, like why they
Speaker 2: went crazy? Right, Like, And clearly, if an entire book
Speaker 2: is sort of written around the regret of something, the
Speaker 2: book itself is not trying to tell people do this right, right, Like,
Speaker 2: if that happens on page six and the ensuing three
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety four pages of a four hundred page
Speaker 2: book are dealing with the alcohol of that, it simply
Speaker 2: cannot be a promotional tool for homicide.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But people read like ten words and then they're like,
Speaker 2: I got it. And if you're reading a horror novel
Speaker 2: word horrific things happen like and you have no media
Speaker 2: literacy or no willingness to interrogate the text because you're
Speaker 2: just trying to you know, hurt an author or a community,
Speaker 2: then it's really really easy. So that's why I try
Speaker 2: to tell people like, you know, especially with like queer stories,
Speaker 2: diverse stories, standing up for these things and sort of
Speaker 2: being in the room to counter these particular debates, it's
Speaker 2: very valuable. Nice.
Speaker 1: So what is the last horror book or movie that
Speaker 1: scared you?
Speaker 2: Ooh, I watched the movie Bring Her Back a few
Speaker 2: months ago, and there are still scenes that I sometimes
Speaker 2: flash back to and like physically WinCE. That was a
Speaker 2: really hard watch. I also loved weapons I have seen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was fun. It was fun, but I think part
Speaker 2: of the fun was seeing it like a theater full
Speaker 2: of people like screaming. So I don't know, like I
Speaker 2: would say you should see it, but I think part
Speaker 2: of why I loved it was was that particular experience
Speaker 2: I love, like, I love that experience. Yeah. As for books,
Speaker 2: I'm reading The Deep right now by I think Nick
Speaker 2: Cutter I want to say, I've only just begun it.
Speaker 2: But if people really like my book The Dead of
Speaker 2: Summer we've talked about like a little bit, then I
Speaker 2: would say, check out Our Wives under the Sea or
Speaker 2: they Bloom at Night, are both sort of in the
Speaker 2: world of like marine, transformative, like horror, like science thrillers. Nice.
Speaker 2: That's our recommendation.
Speaker 1: So if we wanted to get our own copy of
Speaker 1: the Dead of Summer, where is your favorite place to
Speaker 1: point people to purchase it.
Speaker 2: I try to tell people to, you know, because reading
Speaker 2: is decline so long as we're getting books like thumbs
Speaker 2: up for me. But if you want, and if I
Speaker 2: can sort of invade your shopping habits, buying from your
Speaker 2: local independent bookstore is always something that's gonna be worth
Speaker 2: while because you're gonna ma connections with booksellers who are
Speaker 2: gonna learn what you like, and they're gonna tell you
Speaker 2: what's something that you're gonna love. So finding that in
Speaker 2: your own community a great thing to do. My local
Speaker 2: indie that I adore is Books of Wonder in New
Speaker 2: York City. I signed stock there all the time, so
Speaker 2: anytime I'm in there, they have a big stack of
Speaker 2: books for me. To sign. So if you want to sign,
Speaker 2: be in one of my books. They tend to have them,
Speaker 2: but yeah, books of wonder they ship all over the place.
Speaker 2: So I got a website. You can check them out.
Speaker 1: Okay, wonderful and I'll make sure to be definitely push
Speaker 1: push push, because this is a fabulous book. If we
Speaker 1: wanted to find out more about you, Ryan, where would
Speaker 1: we go?
Speaker 2: My email? Oh my god, my email, don't email me.
Speaker 2: My website which does have a contact for you. Contact
Speaker 2: for is Ryanlsala dot com. So very simple. But I'm
Speaker 2: on TikTok and Instagram and threads right now as the
Speaker 2: Ryan Losala.
Speaker 1: Okay, and we will put that information in the notes
Speaker 1: to this episode. The book is The Dead of Summer
Speaker 1: and the fabulous author is Ryan Lesalah. Ryan, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for spending time with us at the Full
Speaker 1: Circle Table. The book is great, It really is. I
Speaker 1: can't say enough good things about it. I read it
Speaker 1: so quick and like, whenever I had to stop, I
Speaker 1: was mad.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that, and thank
Speaker 2: you for this was such a lovely conversation. I'm really
Speaker 2: glad that I uh that I got to meet you
Speaker 2: and you know if I ever come back, would be
Speaker 2: great to meet Martha.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I have a feeling this will
Speaker 1: not be the last time we sit in chat, and uh,
Speaker 1: I'll have to give her the Cliffs Notes versions because,
Speaker 1: like I said, not a horror.
Speaker 2: Fan, right, But that's all right, you know, she she
Speaker 2: missed a good conversation. But but maybe maybe we'll find
Speaker 2: a way to to convert her. Yeah, definitely, thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Thank you, bye everyone. Bye.
Speaker 1: Full Circle is a Never Scured Productions podcast posted by
Speaker 1: Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal, Produced and edited by
Speaker 1: Never Scured Executive Produced by Charles Tyson Junior and Martha Madrigal.
Speaker 1: Our theme in music is by the jingle Mary's. All names, pictures, music, audio,
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