So I think this relationship makes sense for these two characters. While I don’t want to make any grand claim about queer relationships, I do think that for these specific characters, they both came of age in times of immense loneliness and their formative sexual romantic experiences were secretive, you know? A lot of queer people’s first brush with love and lust is in the shadows, right? I think that is especially true of queer women because women are always taught to hide our lust. Do you think the usual power dynamics in younger/older relationships are different when it’s two women? And I just kept thinking about if the woman had been a man, how much more disturbing I would have found that dynamic. That’s when you know the imposter syndrome is not real at all! So when the book opens, we’re told that the woman is twice Mallory’s age when they start their affair. And some of them blurbed my book!ĬL: Oh my god, you got the best blurbs. I spent four years covering books by some of my absolute favorite writers. But on the other hand, it’s imposter syndrome run amok.
The way that I revere and want to talk to certain authors-I want to be the author that somebody wants to talk to. I got the hardback copies of my book the other day, and I put one on my shelf and I slotted it in between Melissa Febos and Garth Greenwell, and I was like, Michelle Hart, what’s she doing there? While I was working as the editor, I often had the thought that I could do this I want to have a book in the world. How does it feel to be on the other side now, as one of the queer writers you used to champion? I was truly elated to be able to read the novel early and speak with Hart about it via Zoom.Ĭelia Laskey: I wanted to start with how you were such an incredible champion for queer books when you worked at O.
I was lucky enough to hear Hart read a snippet from the beginning of We Do What We Do In The Dark at a reading series long before its release and as soon as I heard it, I was like GIVE ME THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW. The book begins with the affair, then flashes back to Mallory’s youth, detailing her mother’s illness and Mallory’s close friendship with a neighbor girl and eventually that girl’s mother, then it moves forward to show Mallory reuniting with the woman after many years, then it moves forward five years after that, showing Mallory in a new relationship where she tells her girlfriend about her affair with the woman, stating “…the me that’s next to you right now is only here because of my relationship with her,” showing the profound and continued sense of self the woman gave to Mallory.