“we are here, “After many years and conscience!”
The greeting author Casey McQuiston gives me on a breezy summer afternoon over martinis is a cheeky welcome and a perfect description of his long-awaited third romance novel. ConjugationThe book, out August 6, follows Kate and Theo, both twenty-somethings, who, four years after their devastating breakup, find themselves booked on the same food and wine tour. Kate, a food connoisseur, has spent their time apart becoming a thriving pastry chef, while Theo, a successful business owner, has come out as non-binary and changed their lives. To pass their awkward time together, they embark on a competition to see who can connect with the most people. It shouldn’t mean anything if they’re both getting over each other, and over each other—right? But for McQuiston (who uses the first-person pronoun), the book is not only the third addition to their ever-growing oeuvre, it’s also their most personal study of their sexual journey yet.
“Conjugation “I think about the first few years of gender awareness and the moment in between where you’ve let the pronouns out lightly and haven’t figured out what degree of coming out is comfortable,” they say, pausing every now and then to take light sips of a salty martini. Sitting at a Spanish oyster bar in Greenpoint, wearing a red linen-like button-down shirt and a simple cotton T-shirt, McQuiston could be mistaken for someone on vacation—that is, until they start talking. Then the hands, slowly wrapped around their forearms, tattooed with Botticelli’s Venus, move quickly and decisively. They’re not quiet, they’re completely excited. “What was really exciting for me was creating a Trojan horse of transgender romance, where the packaging and the idea is so pretty and beach-ready, and then you dive into it and you say, ‘I think I understand this character’s gender now,’ in a way that earns the character.” [development] “And trick people into reading.”
McQuiston is a true expert at surprising readers with a beautiful package that hides an inner world rich in desires and hopes. Their first novel, Red, white and royal blue, It tells the fictional love story of the son of the first president of the United States who falls in love with the Prince of England—a bizarre love story that exploits the desire for political fulfillment in a post-2016 election world. When I first interviewed McQuiston in 2020, she was a newbie author (she uses the first-person pronoun) shocked by the sudden success of her first book. With the help of the TikTok writing community BookTok, R.W.R.B McQuiston’s novel has gone from a quiet romance to a publishing darling, spawning a massive online fan base, an Amazon Prime movie adaptation and sequel, and an addition to the Library of Congress. Now, nearly four years later, McQuiston is an established voice in a romance world that has been propelled by social media into a dominant force in the industry. And with the exception of the top authors who double down on straight—and white—binaries, McQuiston is determined to push the boundaries of what traditional romance can look like.
“People seem to question whether transgender and gay romance can exist in its own hedonistic space of romance and just exist to exist. They don’t teach you a lesson, they don’t open your mind. They just exist the way everyone else is out there,” she says. “In the eyes of publishing, the ability to relate is key. They see everyone who picks up a romance book as a straight, 35-year-old white woman with two kids, a husband, who listens to Taylor Swift. They think that person is incapable of imagining or relating to experiences outside of their own. And I don’t find that to be true.”
McQuiston knows what the typical romance reader thinks, mostly because she was one herself. McQuiston grew up in Louisiana, attended private Christian schools, and would steal paperback romance novels from her sister’s bookshelves. “I became fascinated with the paperback romance novels at the supermarket,” they say. “I was fascinated with everything I saw, everything I read, and the romances.” After college, McQuiston began a career in journalism, but she soon reconnected with contemporary romance books. They came out as gay to nearly all their friends, but never to their family. After the books sold, McQuiston began writing romance novels. red white royal blueThey weren't sure the project would work. “I quit my day job and moved to Colorado with some friends in a rental house, and I was like, 'We'll see if this works,'” they say. “I was applying for a job at a company [jobs to] General information about the host.
But as the book approached publication, McQuiston realized that their upcoming press tour would inevitably bring questions about why they decided to write a gay love story. They knew they would have to come out to their family before the world accidentally did. “I didn’t want my mother to find out by reading an interview,” McQuiston says. “So when the idea of writing a gay love story came up, I decided to make it a love story.” Conjugation It came to them at the end of 2021, and they found themselves in a similar situation, where they wanted to write about a non-binary main character, but had to come out as non-binary to family and friends before fully conceiving and writing the book.
“Being someone who identifies as non-binary, as something that people don’t think exists or can’t imagine, makes you feel frustrated because you’re never going to exist as you are inside your head and inside your heart,” they say. “When I was hesitating about whether or not to have a non-binary main character, my biggest limitation was that I wasn’t sure I was ready to be open about my gender. And I knew that if I did, I would have to sit here in a bar one day and talk to you about it and I was like, ‘Am I ready to do this?’ But there’s something about being able to take those feelings and make them three-dimensional. I realized, ‘This is the book I need to write.’”
That character practically flows off the pages. Conjugation As Kate and Theo explore their feelings and relationships in their tempestuous European summer, the sex is plentiful (McQuiston wouldn’t have it any other way) but the fertile, often all-consuming lust is only deepened by the rich milieu that McQuiston layers. There are vineyards, ripe tomatoes, and a pastry tasting that seems as spoiled as a stolen kiss, making the subtle, visceral realizations surrounding sex and second chances all the more poignant. McQuiston’s voice and story lurk beneath the surface of each exchange. But it’s also no surprise that as their popularity continues to rise, McQuiston becomes increasingly ambivalent about what their public persona means for their real lives.
Casey with their dog Pepper
Maria Juliana Rojas for Rolling Stone
“I am in a completely different place in my life now than I was two years ago when I started writing this book. First, I no longer have breasts. [top surgery] In November, as they say. “Theo [story] “What I’m saying here is a direct result of my experience of maturing as an artist in front of the public. I’m in a good place now and doing work I’m proud of. But my dream is to be someone who moves in silence in a few years. I really like to live a private personal life that no one knows about unless I decide to later. And I would like to do that. Unfortunately, I can’t stop gossiping. But someday.”
Perhaps that day will have to be postponed a little, because the success of McQuiston's business is no longer limited to publishing alone. red white royal blue After the film spent nearly a month at No. 1 on Amazon Prime, the company quickly announced a sequel, which McQuiston will co-write with Matthew Lopez, who wrote and directed the original film.
“We're working on the script now, which is completely new to me,” they say. rolling stone“Honestly, I don’t have the time or interest to write a sequel. But I wanted to give something back to the fans who made [the movie] “It was a huge movie. We released it in the middle of the actors’ strike. I couldn’t publish anything about it, the actors couldn’t publish anything about it, there was no premiere, and yet people came to see the movie. I think that’s all I’m allowed to say. I’m very afraid of Amazon and I don’t want to be taken away from it.”
McQuiston's books often appear on “best of” lists that revolve around gay stories, characters, and authors, collections that are also likely to include Conjugation When it is released in August. But don't make the mistake of thinking that McQuiston is satisfied with the state of gay publishing as it currently exists. The author is quick to point out the difficulty they have had in getting red white royal blue Published under an anonymous name, they are more determined than ever to deliver more daring and out-of-the-box romances with each new novel.
The only way to get [traditional publishers] To publish a story about gays or trans people is to appeal to their sense of the common good or their sense of tragic art. And so we end up with a lot of gay stories. [young adult] “Novels and literary stories are full of melancholy,” they say. “But I think it is short-sighted and absurd to think that romance can only be one thing.”
But what drives McQuiston to keep writing romance novels? Partly because of the online response. Social media communities have propelled entire genres of romance publishing to popularity—think of the current dominance of Sarah J. Maas or Emily Henry. And authors are experiencing a renaissance in online books, which McQuiston hopes will allow books that were once considered “too crazy” to find a wider audience.
“BookTok is something that can’t be manufactured, can’t be bought. It’s so funny to watch publishers try to be like, ‘How do we fit into this market?’” they say. But indie publishing and e-books have been where most gay romance has lived for a long time. These authors have built a readership just by producing 300 pages of porn and then putting it on Kindle and now they’re being taken over by publishers. It’s unbelievable. I know viral metrics can be anxiety-inducing for authors, but I really love and have a lot of gratitude for [BookTok]”.”
The McQuiston sitting in front of me is not the person I met years ago. They are certainly equally passionate about being erotic in the first place. But before that, where there was a pause—in both words and feelings—they were composed. Steady. Confident. So while the author people experience in Conjugation It may seem different to those who consider themselves experts on the writer's work, but it is still McQuiston – perhaps as they should have written all along. In exploring their own journey with sex and understanding, McQuiston uses The coupleMy goal was to paint a beautiful picture of rediscovering love, food, and self, all at the same time.
“There’s a kind of nostalgia for a second chance in this book. It’s very much like chasing something that feels very summery, and I’m excited about the idea that people will pick this up on their last week of vacation and feel like, ‘This is a beautiful romantic story that I can look back on and hold in my heart when it’s cold in three months,’” they say. “It’s the work I’m most proud of.”
