romance
I’ve rarely claimed the romances in my books.
I don’t think of the stories I write as unromantic, per se, but I’d never frame their trauma-steeped, push-and-pull relationships as their main selling point. For a long time, if pressed, I called This is Not a Test my most romantic novel because there was something very sweet, I thought, about Sloane and Rhys clinging desperately to one another during the zombie apocalypse.
But when I’m the Girl releases in September, my most romantic novel will be I’m the Girl.
The romance in my most romantic novel is between two girls.
The romances in my books have never required personal context.
This is a privilege. It was also a relief. I wrote through I’m the Girl sensing this might not remain the case and hoping otherwise. That hope carried me through the stolen glances and almost-then-kisses of its draft, enabling me to hold space for them and them alone. I needed that. There are a few moments when the work is a quiet conversation you’re having only with yourself, before the intrusion of outside voices, and when I think of I’m the Girl, this is one of them: Georgia, admiring one of her crushes—
I take an apologetic, almost shamed step back, hovering at the room’s entrance, and it reminds me of a long time ago, when I thought the sight of a beautiful woman should never be for me . . . before I realized the sight of a beautiful woman could be more for me than anyone.
—and I think of these conversations as almost sacred, one part of the process you don’t necessarily have to give away, even after you’ve given your books to readers.
Sadie was a conversation I had with myself.
I did not publicly claim it as a queer book.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there to claim.
Sadie’s queerness wasn’t a function of the plot, but it’s an inextricable part of her character and once you read it you—should—understand you’re reading a book about a queer girl.
There was something about seeing her story discovered, recognized, and disseminated as queer by queer readers. It was gratifying. And it was right. It was also difficult. I grappled with what its exclusion from certain spaces seemed to suggest, wondered what queer threshold wasn’t being met.
It was complicated—how that made me feel, what those feelings meant, if they were worth anything, and if, in a professional capacity, I could allow them to be worth anything without potentially losing something of myself in the exchange. Eventually, I’d gain the courage to note its repeated absence in pride round-ups. To expand the conversation with myself to people I loved and trusted.
To start writing something new.
Queer and romantic.
If the question is: I’m the Girl, a queer thriller by Courtney Summers, then how do you answer it?
With Sadie, I suggest. Now is the time to include it in pride round-ups to remind readers I’ve written queer characters before. And then, let I’m the Girl speak for itself.
Except the question then becomes: Sadie, a queer thriller by Courtney Summers and how do you answer that?
If Sadie is who she says she is, how does it become a question?
Because we’ve left it out for so long, they tell me.
But if Sadie is who she says she is, why—
Because there was no queer romance in its pages.
I take an apologetic, almost shamed step back.
This is what I’m told: I have a book with a queer main character and its proposed inclusion in pride stacks was balked at, it was kept from them, because of its lack of romance, and that to include it now invites scrutiny, a question.
This is what I’m told: I have a book with a queer main character that is undeniably romantic, but there’s a question that could preclude it from belonging in queer spaces.
It’s the same question.
A question born of an environment that sometimes puts, or feels it has to put, authors in this position, or similarly vulnerable positions, to protect itself.
What is the answer.
It reminds me of a long time ago.
There was nothing anyone asked or forced me to do, but I kept returning to the fact that I didn’t put myself in front of Sadie—because I couldn’t have, because I wasn’t ready—and there was a cost.
I looked ahead and tried to anticipate future costs, to weigh what felt less tenable to me: the potential absence of my books from queer spaces or what I would have to disclose to see them there. If we released I’m the Girl without putting me in front of it, would it have a material impact on opportunities for the book? It might, though in this business, any and all opportunities are never guaranteed.
There was nothing anyone was going to ask or force me to do, but after what it took from me to write, I wanted those opportunities. I wanted I’m the Girl to be known as queer and when I talked about it, I wanted to claim one of the most integral parts of its queerness: the romance.
So what is my answer.
Before I realized.
A quiet conversation I have with myself.
I think of Sadie, a character who surrenders to her queer desire after a lifetime of denying herself, and I want you to know how much it meant to me for that moment to be recognized, whenever it was recognized. I want you to know how personal it felt, when I was given those reasons it sometimes wasn’t.
I scroll through I’m the Girl and I want you to know I imagine what it would feel like if the conversation shifted from what’s on the page to the question of what isn’t. I imagine how it would feel if the two girls at its center circling one another until—if, when—their hearts aligned didn’t matter anymore.
When they’re the only thing that matters.
Because while I want you to know that I’m the Girl is a brutal account of a dark world that victimizes and abuses girls, I also want you to know it’s about about two girls holding each other in that darkness.
And how important and powerful that is in a story like this.
Vital.
And I want you to know that if the question is still: I’m the Girl, a queer thriller by Courtney Summers—
This is my answer.
Lately:
In the lead-up to its September 13th publication, I’ll be sharing chapters from I’m the Girl in my newsletter every month. Read part one here and be sure to subscribe if you don’t want to miss the next installment.
I always got the feeling that Regina and Liz's friendship could have been more had things not been what they were.