It’s sort of a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation. So for a character who sees a need to be in this space - for whatever misguided and/or genuine reasons, she’s chosen to make this move from Brooklyn to New Orleans to join this convent - it’s holding space for something that’s really not allowed. I believe in a moment of time when there is the freedom to inhabit the life you want to inhabit.

I am no longer a practicing Catholic, but my family’s quite religious. Why was writing about the intersection of queerness and faith important to you?Īs a reparative measure and as an exploration of queer futures. There was just something specific about that union that I wanted to explore.Īs a queer reader who was raised Catholic, I appreciated the novel’s exploration of the way in which religion can be a source of community and resilience, despite the fact that the actual institutions surrounding it have caused - and continue to cause - serious harm to queer and trans people. When you’re reading her, some of those might seem like contradictions but are very natural ways of being in the world for this particular character: an out-and-proud queer woman who takes a very unconventional, counter-cultural choice to enter a convent - a social justice convent nonetheless, but still, like, an actual order of sisters. I really wanted to write a queer character who was very surprising to herself. Queer theory and queer storytelling are super important to me, too. That kind of voice-driven, gritty, “I’m on the streets, pounding the pavement” kind of tone. Obviously, in the canon, there was this cishet normativity, and homophobia, racism, you know? It’s hard to read, but I was still super captivated by that mode of storytelling within the mystery genre, more so than your Sherlock Holmes, or even a procedural. And I have always appreciated the swagger and quite complex armor of the hardboiled style of sleuth: the lone wolf kind of archetype, as much I despised and loathed their aggression. I’m really intrigued by big questions, small questions, the way we nest questions.

Scorched grace