Robert Jones Jr.

Not to get too, you know, invisible beret about this.

And I love her books.

I think they're brilliant.

My parents read that book to me so many times.

James Baldwin is someone that I consider my spiritual godfather.

Kate, thank you so much for having me.

Isaiah and Samuel are two young men who are enslaved on a plantation in Antebellum South, Mississippi, in the 1800s.

And what makes them unique or special is that they are in love with one another.

And the prophets examined precisely what it meant to be both Black and what we now call queer in a time where that's almost unimaginable and what effect it has on all of those around them, whether enslaver or enslaved.

You know, initially the novel was going to be told only from Samuel's perspective because

But I kept running into the issue of I can't describe enough of the world through his eyes alone.

So I said, OK, maybe it is Samuel and Isaiah's story to tell.

But still something fell short.

Until I realized, ah, I know what the issue is.

The issue is that what's at the center of this novel is the love they share.

And if that is the case, then the love needs witnesses.

And out of that idea grew the other characters who I give their say in the narrative.

And so that all of these people are witnessing, whether they are inspired by Samuel and Isaiah's love, frightened by it, frightened for them because of it, or if they find it disgusting and they want to smash it.

All of these people are witnesses, for lack of a better word, who get to tell the reader what they see, why they see it.

And from that, that sort of chorus, I get to look at Samuel and Isaiah's deep, profound love for one another in a way that is more dimensional if I had just let them themselves tell it.