Douglas Stewart

That's right.

Yeah.

You know, all my novels are character driven.

I love people and I love getting to meet people.

And when I went from settlement to settlement, I would ask about people and their neighbors and their lives.

And when I heard about the older people who hadn't married, I sort of inquired why.

And often there was a very practical reason that perhaps someone had to care for their parents as they aged.

Or often it was said that farmers and crofters didn't want to be bothered with the opposite sex, which was funny.

But there was this one sort of standard answer I got often, and it was, well, they missed their window for love.

Mm-hmm.

And as a novelist, that just really sparked my mind that in rural places, it's, you know, you might not meet the person you're going to spend your life with.

And I began to think, you know, well, it's if heterosexual people have a difficult time with that, it must be even doubly difficult for people who might be gay.

And I was at one lady's kitchen table one day and I said, well, it's very possible some of these people that never married are gay.

And the woman sort of pulled back a little bit, said, oh, no, no, no, that's that's not possible.

And I thought in that moment, just that very honest, genuine response, there was a type of erasure.

And that was where the novel came from.

I was just imagining what it might be to be a crofter and to be gay and and to be searching for love.

I think that's right.

I think we assume that people always, whatever they are, can come out and be themselves.

And sometimes you cannot do that.