On Tragedy & Queerness
'The End of Eddy' and 'Lie With Me' capture the fire of queer coming of age.
On Books…
I’ll never forget when my mother first (and it was the first of many times) told me if I “stayed gay” my soul would know no rest. Little did she know that the queer life was already bathed in tragedy, that I knew her meaning, that her homophobia had no impact on me for I was already expecting a miserable existence. In the years following that harrowing conversation in my childhood bedroom, I discovered the joys of queer life—through joyful queer media—and realized the great tragedy of queerness is not our existence, but the way people fail to appraise our humanity and deservedness.
These feelings rushed back as I spent the last week reading The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis and Lie With Me by Phillippe Besson. Translated from the French by Michael Lucey and Molly Ringwald, respectively, these two queer novels reminded me the world is unforgiving, and queerness is merely caught in the crossfire. There is no implicit suffering in queerness; such is a punishing myth invented to keep us from vilifying the very people who hurt us.
Eddy and Lie have vast similarities—they take place in France, they feature young men coming of age, they showcase the difficulties of growing up queer in a bigoted society, and, too, they explore the body and passion, and what it means to have unending desires forced to be silenced. Both novels are affecting and wonderfully written, the translations feel fluid and faithful. Both novels deal with the vitriol of society and the ache in the hearts of queer youth merely looking to live. Yes, both novels deal in tragedy, but they do not place the onus of pain on our protagonists. Instead, Eddy and Lie accuse the world at large of being unfair, of being repugnant. Here, tragedy humanizes both of our protagonists, affirms their queerness, and dispels the notion that to live out and proud is to have an unrested soul.
The End of Eddy is just as heartbreaking as Lie With Me; to say there are happy endings for these novels would be to go too far. Though, both our protagonists do find happiness and success—for Eddy the happiness is implied, and for Lie With Me, the success is boundless: We’re dealing with a famous author in Lie With Me. Both characters gain a sense of retribution for their troubles, too. They are accepted in ways their boyhoods would suggest impossible. And yet, there is so much pain to these works. I see this inevitability as a truth of all life, not just the queer life.
I read The End of Eddy and Lie With Me back to back in search of something. Without realizing, I was looking to prove my mother wrong. I was hoping these French texts would reveal to me some secret about the queer existence. And they did, in part, show me a few key things. Firstly, pain is a universal force. Secondly, hatred is a universal force. Thirdly, retribution is possible. Fourthly, the center of any wound for a queer person will always be their queerness, but not because queerness invites pain. Instead, because people use others’ queerness as a vehicle for their own anger.
My soul is happy, fulfilled, even, and for all my suffering, I could never say queerness is the source. She is a scapegoat at best. I love who I am and I loved these novels for their candor. Plus, I have a thing for France—bistros, little coffees on rickety iron tables on side streets, art, culture, the works. The End of Eddy and Lie With Me weren’t exactly my typical French dreams, but they were necessary reads for my continual establishing of a personal queer canon. I cannot recommend them enough.
On Craft…
I spend so much time talking about writing, but today I want to talk about how to stop writing. There’s nothing wrong with a break, but if you’re anything like me, there’s a huge mental block keeping you from actually taking said break. There’s a looming feeling of failure if you stop writing midway, even if your rational mind is telling you there’s nothing wrong with stepping away from the page. Learning how to stop writing is just as important as learning how to muscle through a piece. This section is dedicated to being easy on ourselves, to learning how to be kind during the creative process.
The best ways I’ve found to get myself to stop writing are the ways wherein I redirect my creative energy. Sometimes, all I want to is to keep writing, even when there’s nothing left in me and the piece just isn’t happening. I’m sadly stubborn in this department. I will write until the wheels fall off, then have to heavily edit everything I’ve written. If you have a creative hobby that doesn’t strain the mind too much—I’ve mentioned photography before—switching gears and indulging in the lesser pressures of something creative is a huge help. Stop writing and go sketch, go read, go do anything but confront the page. It’s best to pick battles and know when to walk away.
Of course, before you can really walk away, you’ve got to convince yourself it’s fine to do so. I don’t think I’ve ever fully convinced myself it’s okay to stop working—damn you, capitalism—but I have discovered little mental tricks to get myself feeling secure enough to put down the pen. I tell myself two things: I’ll be more effective later, and I am deserving of the goodness of stepping away. For the first, it’s admittedly toxic, but framing a break as an investment in productivity helps me reason with myself to the point of actually taking said break. I hope to eventually do away with this trick, but as my life revolves around productivity, this line of thinking is very helpful.
Secondly, and this one is most important, I have to remind myself I am worthy of kindness in the form of a break. So often, I equate the difficulty of writing and suffering to the big Must Haves of life. As in, I must suffer for my art. But that’s just not true. No one actually has to suffer for anything. That’s a capitalist trick. I have to remind myself I am worthy and deserving of the goodness of relaxation. There’s no invisible measure to meet before I can stop working. I deserve to stop—period. We all deserve to break away.
Stopping writing is an act of self-care. Radical, even. In a world designed to make us go, go, go, it is definitely some type of rebellious to establish boundaries with yourself and your work. I encourage everyone to stop writing as much as I encourage everyone to write every day. This may sound contradictory, but within that balance is the real key to living a fulfilling writer’s life. Craft is as much about the time spent away as it is the time spent in process. Consider everything part of the process, and, suddenly, time away feels much easier. Consider yourself worthy of all elements of the process, too, and time away begins to feel approachable and still luxurious. It takes immense work, but pausing is one of the best things you can do for yourself. If not for yourself, at least do it for your art.