by Adam Sass
Holy cow, what is the author of queer oppression book Surrender Your Sons doing talking about queer joy? On what PLANET? What BUSINESS do I even have here?
In my upcoming debut Surrender Your Sons, Connor Major is sent to a mysterious island conversion therapy camp, where he befriends the other captive teens and plots the camp’s destruction.
Joyous, right?
Well, this queer joy is actually probably closer to queer catharsis. The joy of breaking a cycle of trauma. The joy of righting a wrong. Big arms held up to the sky while rain comes slapping down, Shawshank Redemption-type joy. Most importantly, it’s the joy of Connor understanding that there’s more to his oppression than being a lonely cis white gay boy in a small Trumpy town. There’s kids on this island who have suffered longer—and worse—than him, and none of them are escaping the island alive if they don’t listen to each other.
Surrender Your Sons is a cross-section of the queer community that’s dropped into a jungle Petri dish. Their story is the greatness I believe queers are capable of when we listen, learn, fight, make up, and work through our differences to unite against a common enemy. You can’t truly save yourself if it means abandoning others in the community.
Thrills also give me joy.
I got a ton of joy writing a lovable, funny, bickering, imperiled ensemble working their way through a jungle adventure. To me, just BEING queer feels like a thrilling adventure story—Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Indiana Jones. We’re always escaping one damn thing after another. Queer progress is basically just a history of “out of the frying pan and into the fire”—yet always, always managing to thrive. Unstoppable. Queers are made for thrillers. Thrillers revolve around one of three plots: no one believes you; you can’t trust anyone; and you’ve got to do whatever you can to survive. Who knows how to do all those things better than queers? Added to that, we love being scared, and we LOVE screaming. There’s cliffhangers and suspense in shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race—a thriller is just another type of gag and reveal.
That’s not to say I’m a stranger to actual, uncomplicated, straightforward stories of queer joy.
Queer YA has seen many great buzzy, sweetheart love stories, but even in the terrifying landscape of Surrender Your Sons, there’s a full-feels love story (several, actually). It’s just that in this book, the stakes for the relationship are higher. On this island, falling in love is a dangerous thing. It’s the old classic: forbidden love. These kids find love and joy blossoming among the rocks, when the very reason they’re trapped there is so that adults can stamp out these pairings. I take my creative cues from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where they took all the emotional turbulence of being a teenager and amplified it to become the actual end of the world. In Surrender Your Sons, the emotions of being a teenager, being queer, and figuring out what that even means become literally life and death.
But I refused to tell this story with anything other than victory and hope in its bones. Queer joy can be found anywhere, even among the wreckage.
That’s important to understand, more now than ever before, when we’re facing indoor Prides apart from each other and flare-ups of loneliness. But distance cannot sever the interconnectedness of this community.
“You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.” It’s an infamous Star Wars phrase as our main character begins their hero’s journey. It’s also the moment many young queers realize that queerness is much greater than their single experience. To me, queer joy is about collaboration and cooperation within our great big collective. Our experiences are innumerable, so how could any one story encapsulate them all?
That’s what’s so exciting about LGBTQ+ YA literature in this moment. Historically, and most definitely in other media like TV and film, when queer people show up, we tend to be isolated as the only gay or only couple. Yet in YA, with each passing year, we’re seeing these arbitrary, inauthentic restrictions break down, allowing for more of us in a single space. After far too long, the world is finally getting a sense of the broadness and richness in variety of stories young queers have to tell. Trans stories, non-binary stories, ace/aro stories, Black queer stories, Latinx queer stories, and all the other beautiful stories that have been shut out, ignored, and suppressed for far too long.
The non-queer world has been shown a very limited view of how vast and fascinating our community really is. We MUST support these underrepresented voices, protect and grow their space in the YA community, and champion the access and availability of these titles to the people who need them most.
It’s also vital to have queer characters show up in multiple genres of YA because—first of all—the best way to avoid being boxed into a particular category is to organically make us part of every story. Romcom queers are great, and so are thriller queers. Queers are astonishing in high fantasy, as well as urban fantasy. Also, queer readers don’t collectively love the same genres. Surrender Your Sons is an adventure for everyone, but I primarily made it for the weird kids. The gothy kids, the snarky kids, the kids who enjoy a bit of wallowing in their own beautiful sadness. That’s what I longed for as a teen.
Expanding the genres of Queer YA expands the menu to allow for these divergent tastes.
With Surrender Your Sons, I wanted to add my voice to this variety of queer experience and expression—whether it’s through relationships, friendships, or even rivalries. There is no one way to be queer. And if you’re a white cis gay, there’s a big lesson in here about learning when to shut up, put your ego on the shelf, and listen to the other queer voices in the room because it just might save all of our lives.
So, my joyful queers, get to writing. There’s an entire ocean of untold, untapped stories out there, and the world is absolutely craving something so fresh and beautiful.
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Adam Sass began writing books in Sharpie on the backs of Starbucks pastry bags. (He’s sorry it distracted him from making your latte.) Raised in an Illinois farm town, his desire for a creative career took him to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and currently, North Carolina, where he lives with his husband and dachshunds. When he’s not dropping hot takes on Twitter, Adam is a recurring co-host on the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast Slayerfest98. Surrender Your Sons is his first novel.
