Stephanie Sy-Quia, A Private Man

In this episode Brett sits down with Stephanie Sy-Quia to discuss her debut novel, 'A Private Man'. They talk Catholicism, elder care, writing from real life, being a foodie, male beauty, women ahead of their time, a life of service and having a soul fulfilled. 

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Transcript

Brett Benner 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Brett Benner and welcome or welcome back to another episode of Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with author Stephanie Zakia for her debut. A private man. A little bit about Stephanie. She was born in California in 1995 and is based in London. Her writing and criticism have been published in The Guardian, the White Review. The Boston Review, Granta and elsewhere, her debut poetry collection. Amon published in the UK by Grant, a Poetry 21, received a Somerset Mom award and was a poetry book society winner. Recommendation was long listed for the Wrath Bones Folio and RSL and Deje Prizes, and won the Forward prize for Best First Collection. She's the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and is a fourth generation teacher, so. I hope you enjoy this episode. hey everybody. Welcome back, to Behind the Stack, where today I am sitting down with Stephanie Akia for her gorgeous fiction debut, A private man. It is so beautiful. I have to show you, I started to tab your book for a variety of reasons. One, because there's things I wanted to remember, but also. Your writing is so exquisite. We were just talking about Sean Hewitt before we started. He blurbs your book and both of us were raving about him for a moment. But I have to say like Sean, it's no surprise to me that I found out kind of after the fact been way through that you are also a poet. Because your writing is so lush and so restrained in this beautiful way, you have this incredible way of conveying so much emotion. There's so much depth to it with so few words, and it reminded me a lot of Sean's writing. So I just love that you guys have that connection and that. You have that. So anyway, congratulations for the book.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 2:09

Thank you so much. That's so kind. Yeah. Big fan of Sean's. As I say, his collection Tongues of Fire was one of my best reads of 2020. And I actually found out after I reviewed the book that we have the same agent. So then I panicked because I was like, oh my God, you know, I don't want Sean to believe, to think that I, You know, that there's some kind of conflict of interest in that. Therefore, I was being insincere, like I was genuinely right. Being, I meant every word and I wasn't just trying to flatter him up and to keep our agent happy, you know? But then I guess, yeah, our, our agent has, if, if you're picking up on similarities, maybe it's, he's the reason, he's the common denominator.

Brett Benner 2:45

So I, I have to say like, now I have to read your poetry collection, ion, is that what it's called? Correct. Yeah. Now I'm completely going out and getting it because I'm just. I'm, I'm so curious. You also just told me that you just got back from your teaching job. What do you teach? I'm assuming it's English.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 3:01

Yeah. Yeah. It's just the biggest pyramid scheme ever. Like loved English at school, was lucky enough to have several amazing English teachers studied English for my degree, and now I try and persuade more young things to go and do the same. Yeah, it's just a racket,

Brett Benner 3:18

but it's a, it's a generational thing. Never like you're the fourth generation right. Of teachers in your family.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 3:24

Yeah, it's one of those professions that tends to run in families. I think along with, as was the case back in the day, priests, I mean, it doesn't run like father to. Were a priest. There had been a priest in the family at some point, but then also these big Catholics with big families. There was kind of a, like, you gotta donate one of the guys to the church mentality as well. So I think they, yeah, it, it was a push and pull factor,

Brett Benner 3:52

right? You're either a priest or you're going to war. I mean, it's one of the other, um, or maybe both for some. All right, so I wanna get right into the book because there's so much to unpack here. But, and, and also just about. Your family's history in relation to the book? Do you have a, uh, an elevator pitch for a private man?

Stephanie Sy-Quia 4:11

Yeah, so the elevator pitch is, it's about my grandfather who was a Catholic priest and like, that's like the short story in 10 words or fewer, which is aligned from the book, in fact. But that was always the joke I had growing up because for some people, the kind of general literacy of religion has declined so much that they don't quite get the joke. You know, that Catholic priest aren't supposed to have families and have sex, right? So there are those people who are like, I didn't get it. And then there are the others who are like, oh, say no more.

Brett Benner 4:39

Well, it's interesting too, because I was looking at the pictures of your grandparents, and they were gorgeous. I mean, they were so beautiful. Like your grandfather's photos, he looks like a matinee idol. I mean, he literally could be a movie star, like the two of them. So. Having that, you know, so many times when we read, we create these images in our head or, or sometimes I don't know about you, but sometimes when I read, I don't have the specificity of someone in my mind. I could almost like kind of get a sense of the person, but I don't actually see a face. But having this face to attach to what I was reading was pretty amazing. So good on you for the good genes.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 5:23

I mean, she was very striking. She was beautiful in an unusual way, whereas he, my grandfather was beautiful in an old Hollywood kind of way. Yeah, and I think that male beauty holds more cultural currency than female beauty. It's kind of like this amazing added bonus to someone's. Personhood if, if they're a gorgeous man, and it attracts so much more attention, I think, than a gorgeous woman. You know, it's sort of presumed that a woman is always trying to be the most gorgeous possible version of herself, which as I found actually when I launched the book here in the uk, is very time consuming and expensive. I went and I got my nails done, and my hair done and my makeup done, and that was really fun. I felt really glamorous. But I was like, wow, this is just back to back appointments. And he was just, yeah, men are not expected to try to be beautiful, so when it does happen, it just feels like this kind of cosmic lottery. And that was a really, really important part of how he moved through the world, because I think he recognized the fact he was really beautiful, but he didn't really know what to do about it. You know? He was one of those buttoned up British public school boys, and so he retained this element of kind of shyness and usefulness. Which only increased his appeal and therefore the fact that he was then occupying this position in society that made him sexually unavailable and his sexual Ava unavailability was constantly being broadcast the world by the fact that he was wearing a collar, you know, it's literally around his neck, you know, would only have increased the. The kind of liveness of that beauty and what it symbolized, I think so that ended up being very, very key to the character of David and something that needs to be stated plainly from the outset.

Brett Benner 7:01

Yeah. I was thinking about when you started, when you were talking about this idea of male beauty, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, and one of the people that. This is so zeitgeisty, so forgive me for that. I was thinking specifically about Connor's story, this kid from heated rivalry. I dunno if you've watched heated rivalry every, if it's over. I was,

Stephanie Sy-Quia 7:18

is that ice hockey thing? Sorry, this is gonna make me sound so funny. Dody. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Brett Benner 7:22

No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. Not at all. Because I know it also was more delayed getting, you know, it was like a rollout over into Europe. But he's this kid one. Leads of the show, and it's been pretty extraordinary to watch. Like he just, I think, sold out the cover of it was on Vogue or one of these fashion magazines and it's never happened before. And it's women, you know, women and gay men, but women who are really driving this, he looks like a Greek god. And he's the kind of person that whenever he gets in front of a camera lens, it just loves him. So it is that kind of thing that you're talking about so much and, and yes, that inaccessibility or unobtainable, unobtainable.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 8:01

Yeah. And also there's something so erotic about, you know, men, because I have heard about this show and we're actually, I was talking about it at school with my colleagues on a panel that we did for all of our kids who are doing English A level and we're studying, Christina's Goblin market, which if, you know, it is a very, a strange poem about two sisters. And, and it sort of has a lot of. I think like at the moment we have a lot of like preoccupations around the incest taboo. And it has these really like sic subtexts and it's very erotic in ways that Christina Rosetti herself I'm convinced, was a bit coy about, to be honest. But what's so interesting about looking at, you know, the popularity that male gay love plots. Of the, the male gaze, kind of objectifying women. But it's not that you are kind of countering that by objectifying men. It's because there's something so erotic about, people who are held up as sexual subjects in our culture. IE men just going and like going after the sexual experiences that they want, rather than, you know. Kind of giving it this, like whenever people talk about the male gaze and therefore the female gaze, there's something that kind of sticks in my throat about that because it's not really a question of just flipping it back onto the men and like making the camera chop up the men and present the men as these like desirable sex objects. It's really about the eroticism of being fully in charge of your own sexual destiny and going after it in this incredibly self-possessed way.

Brett Benner 9:41

Yeah, and it's interesting if you ever see the show, I think this whole idea with these men in the show is that. They're hockey players, they're closeted, they can't, so this attraction is existing between the two of them. So it also plays into this kind of trope or stereotype of, you know, of will they or won't they? Interesting. Like they, they can't do this, but how much they want to do this. Which I think there's something in that that, because you're rooting, it's like reading this, you know, at the outset what this book is. The journey to get to that destination is what the interesting part is to me, and it's kind of with this, the journey of these two characters I think is so amazing just before they're ever even together, especially for her, I just, I loved her so much. How much information did you actually have to pull from. And where did that come from for you? Was some of it in conversations, reading, document, getting all of it.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 10:39

So the, the headline is that they both succeeded in taking the story of how they fell in love and how they reached the, for them very difficult decision to leave the church. Which then of course ended up being a humiliating and hard shove, especially for my grandfather. They kept the details of that to themselves and managed to take them to their respective graves. So she outlived him by almost 25 years. You know, I never really got the juicy details. The details. She did divulge some of them. She divulged when she already had dementia, although we didn't know that at the time. But it was sort of obvious with retrospect where I thought, wow, that is a new detail that you've never divulged before. And this is really. Interesting. So, you know, she alluded to a previous boyfriend for instance, and that was just, you know, it was a tiny tantalizing little bone that she threw me, but ended up being providing the basis for one of the characters that we see her entangled with at the start of the book because she doesn't actually, Margaret and David don't meet each other until about halfway through. Um, so I did really want them to be, have this sense of them being on kind of parallel tracks, freighted to. To each other. That doesn't actually really work as a engineering analogy. But anyway,

Brett Benner 11:50

but no, I'm totally with you. Yes, no, I totally have you.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 11:57

And, and then they kind of like collide and then, you know, In fact, my head of department at school read it. I gave my first proof to her and my second proof to my mom, and she said, you know, the first half is quite slow, you know, and you wanna savor it. And then the second half is like downhill, in that it's fast.

Brett Benner 12:14

A hundred percent. Um, a hundred percent. It becomes like a page turner almost. Like, I'm like, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough in the second half.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 12:18

Well, I'm glad that was your experience, your question about the truth. I was given kind of an. Good skeleton of the story. And I think the main tension, or one main tension for me was that they definitely tried to spin their decision to leave the church and to get married as an an, which you. I think it's hard to, it's easy to silo the what happened to Catholicism in the 20th century off as being like, apart from the general cultural climate of the sixties. But of course it was part of it. And so trying to kind of reformulate that as like them sticking it to the ultimate man was quite a fun, intellectual challenge for me, I think. And then my mom was the one who, you know much later in life. Suddenly it cl clicked for her where she thought, well, no, actually this is also a beautiful love story. Um, or maybe that was me and my mom was the one who was like, no, they always told me it was intellectual. So there was this kind of like, whose version is gonna win out here? And then when I was caring for my grandmother, so my grandmother was developing dementia, could no longer cope at home. And so I went to live with her. I was unemployed at the time, so it kind of like. Mutually beneficial, but there's a lot of paperwork involved in moving someone into a care home, for instance, and well a retirement home first, then a care home. And so I had to troll through a lot of their documents, you know, looking for like land taxes from the eighties or, you know, something boring. Mm-hmm. That was in like very unintelligible French. And then I would just make these really tantalizing discoveries where I would be rummaging around in. Files and I would find, you know, like her class photo from when she started studying theology in Rome or like his ordination photos from when he, that's your pre-graduation. If like me didn't grow up Catholic in this terminology, foreign you or you know, the biggest one, the mother load was this kind of binder of old type written documents that had been written on a typewriter that were sort of like sermons or. Talks or you know, drafts for articles that were sort of annotated in both of their handwriting. And so you could really see like the intellectual chemistry building to a kind of crescendo. But what was so funny about making these discoveries was that they'd be so exciting, but I was so exhausted from looking after her that I had to kind of remind myself that like I had made this discovery and I needed to make the time to read them properly and think about how this kind of fitted into the preexisting. Skeleton that I had. So I had, I had very limited material evidence to work with. But what I did have was, you know, those writings were really beautifully written and were really true to their voices, as I remember them both. I mean, I had much longer to get to know my grandmother because she died when I was 28. Um, manner. And so I wanted, I wanted to quote those writings verbatim at times, which I then did in the book there. For instance, there's a parable, um, at the end, which is kind of a standalone chapter that is basically it's just trimmed down, um, quotation of something I found, because I wanted to pay homage to the fact that I think they did this incredibly. A moral decision where they, they really allowed their faith to guide their conscience, in making some a really, really difficult decision. And so it, it is a novel, but I also wanted it to be doing something to the memory of two really quite remarkable individuals.

Brett Benner 15:48

Yeah. And going back, there's a, the character,, it's a, a grandson in the book, Adrian, who does in the book what you did for your own grandmother, I found this whole relationship so beautiful and so moving. And because I don't think we see a lot of this kind of. Caring and looking after our elders. I found this all very moving and very spot on, obviously because you lived the experience, but I just think it's a beautiful testament, not only in this writing between these characters, but also what you're just talking about in terms of honoring. The legacy of, of your grandparents, because I do think it's important, and I do think maybe because I'm getting older, but the critical need and, and the beauty of not only taking care of our elders and being aware of that, but also the discovery of who they are as people, which is. Such an amazing thing.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 16:32

Yeah. Well thank you that, that aspect of the novel was super, super important to me and I felt that culturally we had reached a moment, or certainly in the kind of publishing market, we had reached a moment of float with kind of talking about the care labor of raising children. And yeah. And I think that is incredibly valid and and valuable. But at the end of the day, it is a socially productive form of labor that is easy to sugarcoat because children are cute and if you are looking after them and if you're doing a good job, they adore you. So it's also emotionally rewarding. Whereas, you know, in the West we really don't like to think about getting older and the logistics and mechanics of looking after someone whose body is slowly down. And I really wanted to. Represent that frankly, but also beautifully. And to be like, no, at either end of your life, there will be a time when you're in diapers and there will be people around you who will, whose role it is to do their very best, to give you as much dignity as they can. And I think that's what. Down to, and I think that it's what our job is on earth. You know, like I don't have a special role in doing that because I'm a writer, you know, or you know, you don't because of the work you do. Like, it's everyone's job to help one another to live with dignity. And this happened to be my first experience of really doing that.

Brett Benner 17:48

Well, it's beautifully wrought and, and how you did it One of the adjectives that I would immediately describe this book is, is sensual and not because of any of the sexuality, which comes so much later. And even that is so much more restrained. And again, it's the urgency of like, oh my God, they're feeling this kind of thing rather than the deed itself. But you know, there's so much descriptive prowess in terms of place, but also. Your descriptions of food are so sensual and amazing that I, that I was sitting there at one point and I was like, damn it, I'm so hungry. After getting through this section of the book, are, are you a foodie?

Stephanie Sy-Quia 18:25

Yeah, it's so funny because the descriptions of food are something that keep coming up in my conversations around the book. And I didn't, I didn't set out to write a, a foodie novel., I mean, I do love food and I think about food a lot. You know, every girl I went to school with in the late noughties and early 2000 tens, Came outta school with a weird relationship to food. Mm. And many of them I think, have since improved. I do think it is a, something that, you know, like a, a very normal teenage phase. Well, if I say normal, that kind of validates it, which I don't wanna do. But, you know, I came outta a succession of those kinds of environments. Unscathed. And I think that's really testament to the culture that both of my parents created around food in the family home. You know, food was where we spoke together at the end of the day. Mm. Um, when we had dinner together, food was about pleasure and nourishment and an expression of love for one another. And it remains so in my life now. Yeah. I mean, I could talk for a. Our, our attitude to healthy eating, for instance, is far too involved, uh, informed by nutritional science, which changes all the time anyway, and we need to have a much more sociological attitude to food and a much more kind of holistic understanding of which food provides, which benefits. Yeah, it's

Brett Benner 19:48

just interesting because reading this, I think, and it's also kind of romanticizing it in my mind too, because, you know, here in America we're so. Oriented towards fast food and quick meals. And this to me is the whole idea of, you know, when you travel to Europe, the romance of having a crusty piece of bread, you know, with a big, wonderful piece of butter and olives and everything, the brine and just the smells, the whole thing.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 20:15

I think there's. Country's food culture and its dominant religion. So like if you look at Catholic Europe versus Protestant Europe, the Catholics are better at food, you know, because they just like have this fundamental understanding of like, indulgence is a part of life and you know, you can do stuff in order to be forgiven your indulgence because you know, but then like you're off the hook, you know? So like forgiveness of sin is like central to Catholicism, whereas like Protestants are just so much more utilitarian about. And about their bodies as well. And so I think if I were to give a highbrow answer and try and retrofit a rationale for why I a say that, I wanted to think about how we can fully live in our bodies and accept our bodies for the beautiful. And the sites of pleasure that they're, and you know, for David's like sexuality was not an avenue for him. So, you know, how do you live a fully sensual life and essentially rich life if sex is off the table and food is probably an avenue for that and an avenue for conviviality and sharing in the company of others, et cetera.

Brett Benner 21:25

Yeah. Now in light of your, in light of your grandfather, were you raised in a, in a very religious household? And what is your own relationship to religion like now? Is it a spiritual thing or,

Stephanie Sy-Quia 21:36

That's a big question. So I was, I was not raised Catholic. I was born in Berkeley, California, and then when I was seven we moved to France. And so France is still a deeply Catholic country. So you're kind of steeped in the aesthetic of it everywhere. Yeah. So I would say my knowledge of Catholicism was largely. Aesthetic. And what's interesting is that my, so my mom is an only child, and my grandparents said to her, we're not gonna raise you religious because we believe that if you are gonna be religious, you should make that decision as an adult. So we'll let you make that decision of your own accord as an adult, which interestingly is what my grandmother did. My grandmother converted as an adult, whereas my grandfather had been raised Catholic, and so she never did. And therefore, as a consequence, neither did. Her kids. So, you know, the fact that I was not really raised religious is a direct consequence of the story I'm trying to tell with this novel. And I think steeped in the aesthetic of religion and then coming to England, which in many ways is the most secular country that I can think of, and then in other ways loves to think of itself as a secular place, but actually has this like. Deeply Ethnonationalist undercurrent that is, it's constantly trying to deny even the way, like sectarianism is still such a live political force in our national life. I went to Northern Ireland for the first time. Last year and that was like, wow. You know, the media that comes out of London would not have you believe this. That religion is still so important to us, which is just the kind of UK establishment sometimes tie itself in knots over That is really, really interesting to me. And then of course, going to Ireland and getting the Catholic perspective on the Church of England and how it's basically just this like completely fraudulent institution that is based on adultery and like isn't worth its own. You wouldn't trust it as far as you can throw it kind of thing. It's also a really refreshing perspective because I went to a Church of England. It's like we've taken the best bits of everything. We believe in reading the Bible and we've got all the great singing and blah, blah, blah. Like sometimes we'll go hard on the frankincense when we really wanna raise the roof. But, you know, and so when people ask me how I feel about religion now. I find it a very hard question to answer because I do think that culturally we're in a really interesting place, especially with Christianity. I think that if you live in a big city, um, in, in many parts of what we would call the west, we've reached this point where we've kind of thrown the baby out with the bath water. So, you know, people have kind of disavowed, many people have disavowed religion, but then they still have an it and they're scratching it with different people. Like. Of Christianity. And I think, you know, people have disavowed religion for incredibly valid reasons, and in many ways the current state of affairs is something that the various churches have completely brought on themselves. But I do think that, you know, going to church, like going a building gives us some things that otherwise we're not getting in our lives, and that is to our detriment. So, for instance, they're very age diverse environments. We live in a really age segregated society. And the benefits you get from hanging out with people who are much older than you and much younger than you are just immense. Like my friends don't come into contact with people younger than them. I'm a teacher and I do, and it keeps me young in spirit. Although one of the cruel ironies of teaching is that it does kind of age you up outside, and so that's something really precious. That we've largely lost, you know, and just like something that decenters the ego and, and prayer is like a mode of address of just like talking to someone where you're not sure they're there. Sure. And all of that, you know, I do find elements of it quite compelling. And I, I also studied. History a level. And so you have to remember that religion is the sponsor for like almost all great culture for hundreds of years. And if it weren't for Christianity, and unfortunately yes, a highly corrupt organized church, you know, we wouldn't have the michaelangelos and we wouldn't have handle, and you know, think of all the amazing buildings, paintings, and sculptures that just wouldn't exist. So purely for that, I have to be like.

Brett Benner 25:53

Yeah. I also like, I loved as the book progressed because, you know, Margaret does switch to Catholicism and, and this is a pursuit and a very intellectual pursuit. But, you know, in the sixties, arguably she was very ahead of her time in terms of women's rights, in terms of L-G-B-T-Q rights, and I think she represents to me how she begins to, begins to view the church is what the church should really. B and how it should act for its people. Yeah. And what it represents. Yeah. As opposed to what it kind of tries to impose. And that's where so much of the interesting dynamic between the two of them comes into play because he is in it, and this is what he's always known and always been taught and always known to believe without question. Right? Because there's so much of what the church is, it's like, well, that's just the way and don't question it. And to have this peer who I think. You know, even in his mind perhaps would intellectually exceed him. Suddenly challenging. And on all of these points is what makes this as the reader, you're like, my God, this explosion of intellect with this undercurrent underneath of like, you guys are screwed, you're really screwed. Um, and I just loved all that.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 27:04

Yeah. Thank you. I do think that's. Specific to the Christian tradition because you know, like if you ask a Jew, as far as they're concerned, the New Testament is just like fiction, you know? And the Christian Bible is like a baggy, messy anthology that is written over a huge period of time. And so it actually has this like. Deep textual instability, which is why as a Christian you can have this kind of like choose your own adventure attitude to it where you're like, well, I'm that stuff, I'm this stuff the bad. And I think that what's so interesting to about Christianity. And this is something that started to emerge in the kind of late sixties and seventies with academic, the Cali, uh, um, uc, Berkeley, Caroline Walker. Bynum, for instance, is that they say, no, you know, there's something so queer about Christianity. We worship in many ways, like a trans God, you know, and that like our, the central rights of Christianity are to celebrate transubstantiation things moving from one thing to another, and we worship a queer God who, you know. Bleeds to give life and you have so much like imagery of, for instance, Christ's side wound as early as like a thousand years ago. You have images of like this, this wound that kind of moves either from very, very high up his torso. So it looks a bit like top surgery or like all the way down into like the hit area. And it's like this elliptical opening. That has blood coming outta it. So you have this like basically vagina that is sort of depicted on the side of Christ. You have angels catching the blood because it's gonna turn into this like incredibly precious life giving force. We talk about Christ martyrdom giving birth to the church, you know, so he is like this human flesh, which is feminized and so there is so much exciting latitude in Christianity that has always been there for us to have. As I say, a queer or a trans God. And for God to be seen in this feminized way, and it's such a shame that things have panned out very differently.

Brett Benner 29:10

Yeah. I'm listening to all of you and I was laughing inside because I'm thinking this like three to four minutes of, of talking that you just did. I'm thinking in this country right now, How horrified people would be. to hear any of this. And, and, and how trans rights groups are bowing in front of you at this exact moment. It's just such a, I guess what I'm also thinking, it's one of the things, you know, you talk about in the book too, and I, I believe why so many people have left the church, and especially Catholics, like I remember because I grew up in a very Catholic community and we were Presbyterian. But I have so many classmates who are Catholic and as becoming adults, all were leaving the church because of various reasons.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 29:49

Timothy Eggen, who has a much higher profile in the States than he does here, but whom I really, really, I mean, what a great writer, but he describes his own catholicity as lapsed, but listening, which I just find such an elegant phrasing for. I would say I'm probably one remove. Further away even than that because there was nothing to lapse from, you know, in my own life. But it's like there's so much about the institution that I can't abide, and yet so many of the ideas are still very compelling to me. I didn't write an anti-Facebook. I wrote an anti-institutional book.

Brett Benner 30:24

Sure. And by the way, I haven't grown up in the church and growing up in a very conservative home. I've come to believe there's a big difference between religion and spirituality, and I'd much rather kind of be in that latter pool than the former because I think that the former now is used, has been weaponized in so many ways. And like you were saying earlier. I do think there's a way to get a spiritual fulfillment if that's the right thing in different ways, like you were talking about earlier, whether it's yoga or food or something else, or just your community that you choose to fraternize with.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 30:58

Yeah, absolutely. Whilst I was writing the book, I kind of fell, asked sideways. Into teaching as many of us do. And also at the same time. So my brother kind of having been a bit lost after university and, and somewhat adrift, I think he wouldn't be too angry at me for saying, so he kind of landed on teaching and he applied for a course and studied it at university and, and went about it in a much more kind of deliberate way. And as soon as he started studying to be a teacher, I thought that's what it looks like. That's what being called looks like, because suddenly everything just fell into place for him. He exuded this incredible sense of peace that was just so soothing to be around. And it was like, no, this is someone who has found their purpose on earth and he's just doing what he came here to do. And then a little bit later I fell into teaching, not thinking that it was something that, which gimme the same thing. But then a few weeks into teaching, I thought, oh no, this is, I'm also feeling thing now you know this, this feels as if. This is what my soul is supposed to be contributing. But yeah, I do, I do have a real sense of it, being the thing I'm supposed to be doing, which is cool. I

Brett Benner 32:03

love that.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 32:03

That's cool. And I think, is it, it feels a bit quaint to talk about one's work as being spiritually fulfilling. Um. And, and sort of slightly unfashionable in the kind of economic reality in which we all live. But I think ultimately, you know, vocation for all is, is what we're working towards.

Brett Benner 32:21

Well, vocation for all, but also the profession is not something where you're talking about be queen, but you, it's not like it's a, financially lucrative profession, you know what I mean? So you, when you're looking at vocation, something that you're, is something that if it's. You know, you're not spending your weekends then counting all your money in your tower. You know what I mean? So I do think, you know, and I don't mean this to sound, at all, condescending when I say I think it's a noble profession in the same way that I think that people are called to the priesthood because what I'm, what I, what I hear is. You are effectively doing something that is helping other people. You are, your calling is to affect other people moving forward. And I think that's an, that's a, it's a very selfless thing. And the fact that you can also find joy and your soul can be filled well, that's, that's incredible.'cause many people don't, I think they really don't. Do you get that with writing?

Stephanie Sy-Quia 33:19

I find writing really, really hard. And it just feels like something I have to do and that that's not to say that I don't get pleasure from it when it's going really well. There is a really kind of muscular pleasure to it, whereas I am much more aware of, and it does and, and writing does bring me joy in the long term. It just doesn't necessarily feel joyful and easy when it's happening. Whereas I'm much more aware of the joy that teaching brings me as it's happening.

Brett Benner 33:47

There's gotta be something gratifying in teaching too, when you're having dialogue. With young people and their whole comprehension and the what they bring to it, I think that must be amazing. Um,

Stephanie Sy-Quia 33:59

well, it was, I mean, one thing that ended up being a huge influence on the novel is, um, William Shakespeare's Anthony Cleopatra, which I was teaching at the time, and I have now taught it to two separate cohorts of kids. That was just like, just kind of turbocharged my thinking for the novel, watching them respond to it. Because Cleopatra is just this amazing character. I mean, I, I fantasize about like, if ever I was gonna work at a university, I would want to design my own unit around the history of the female character. And it would be the wife of Bath Cleopatra Green from Friends Draper from Mad Yeah. Cleopatra. She really speaks to this generation of kids, like boys and girls, you know, and the young men in my care. I have so much compassion for the fact that now is a really hard time to be figuring out how to be a young man because like the rule book just got thrown out the window and so it's bewildering and that the dynamic between Anton is so interesting and so flawed that it becomes a very safe way for them to explore what a healthy relationship looks like in actually a very. Un gendered way, because I think one of the problems is, I mean, not to sound like an apologist, but I think it's really hard for young men to receive all this information about, like, these overwhelming statistics about how bad men are as a force. Yeah. And then to be like, well, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna, how am I gonna create a tender masculinity for myself? And, So it's watch

Brett Benner 35:26

Escal.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 35:27

Yes, yes, definitely. He's doing the Lord's pin work

Brett Benner 35:30

who was pinnacle for all of us. For all of us in every moment.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 35:37

Absolutely. Yeah.

Brett Benner 35:38

He's, he's everyone's boyfriend.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 35:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Brett Benner 35:42

Oh, Gracie Abrams, you're so lucky. Yeah, no, I think you're right. It, it's incredibly hard.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 35:47

Yeah. I mean, one thing that really, in that I wanted to explore with this novel was just like male heterosexuality and how men are under so much pressure to be hypersexualized and to seek sex out and to, you know, it's like seen as a given that you're gonna enjoy it and be wanting it all the time and on the lookout for your next kind of sexual opportunity. And you know, that's really not the case with David, and I think he buckles a bit under that. And certainly in the uk, seeing how certain types of education can just like squash, healthy sensuality outta you. And then of course in current affairs, just seeing how like male sexuality, I pity it in many ways because it's kind of stunted and you know, looking for the wrong things and using it as the wrong mechanism, which is tragic and fascinating. I think there are so many more men than we think there are who are like David and who are maybe a bit kind of overwhelmed and confused by what it's they want from sex. Interesting.

Brett Benner 36:48

You know, it's an interesting dynamic in the book too, because again, Margaret is sexually, she's very confident with herself in terms of even having sexual relations with people well before she even meets. David, one thing that you say in the book, and it made me think of this, but as this attraction begins to. Grow between the two of them. And I think that Margaret says this, I don't remember if she says it to Adrian or where this comes out, but she says There are many different ways to have an affair. And that was so beautiful and so precise to me, and I loved that so much. But the whole fraught of this thing I kept seeing. And I hope this reference lands for you. I believe it will. But I kept seeing Phoebe Waller Ridges and Andrew Scott sitting on that bench in Fleabag when she turns to him and says, I love you. And he looks at her and says, it'll pass. And that just, that came into my head last night and I was like, that's so much of where this book starts to escalate to and that tension. And it's, God, it's good. It's really, it's got it. So good.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 37:49

Thank you. I mean, yeah, I think for me that was a real learning curve of mine. As I wrote the book, because when I started writing the book, I was fixated on this question of whether or not they had had sex before he got kicked out. And I watched myself really trying to get to the bottom of that. And then I thought, this is kind of gross. I mean, nevermind the fact that they're, they're my grandparents, but it just felt seedy and I was like. There are so many different ways to have an affair.

Brett Benner 38:15

Yeah.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 38:16

Actually we should be thinking in terms of ambient eroticism. I'm really fascinated by like Esther Perez's idea that everything is foreplay and therefore, you know, having a really good conversation can be deeply erotic. And given that they have a lot of those, you know, they both know that there's this tic to what it they're doing, but because they're not having sex, they tell themselves That's not an fascinated. That double think that we've all been guilty of, I mean, more broadly, affairs aside, if you take a much broader view to the erotic in your life, it's a really beautiful thing. It really opens up your experience of living in your body and in the world, and it's a great way of being more fully present.

Brett Benner 39:00

I believe that, that so many people could connect and such a, like we were saying, a spiritual way. With each other that it maybe has nothing to do just with actual intercourse or actual sex. It's just a meaning of whatever. And sometimes, so many times those are the most meaningful relationships. So

Stephanie Sy-Quia 39:15

yeah, absolutely. And I think it's Terry Eagleton, maybe paraphrasing Thomas Aquinas, saying that what's really useful about religion is that it invents the concept of daily life. And you know, religion is. Is it great coping mechanism for just like the slog of being alive Because sometimes it's hard work. You know,

Brett Benner 39:35

it's

Stephanie Sy-Quia 39:35

And I think I live in London and so many people are just like starting molecules in Peckham and trying ethical non-monogamy and I find it a bit suspect. You know, people talk about, well, this is my. Mortgage wife. And I think that's another thing that we're not talking about enough, is like actually the economic pressures that my generation operates under dictate a lot of the ways in which we choose partners now. And you know, so rather than talking about like a Morgan marriage, you can talk about a mortgage marriage and then this is girlfriend or whatever. Um,

Brett Benner 40:04

yeah.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 40:04

And it's like I. I do think that I, well, I haven't really gotten to the bottom of how I feel about monogamy in the sense of sleeping with multiple people. I think Dan Savage's idea of like Monogamish is quite compelling, but at the end of the day, I want logistical monogamy. You know, I want utility bill monogamy. I want the daily life monogamy of just like one person where you actually do the boring stuff. That's just long. Yeah.

Brett Benner 40:32

Yeah.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 40:32

I mean, not least because anything else. Presents such a huge scheduling challenge.

Brett Benner 40:38

Well, that's it too. I mean, it's exhausting. It's exhausting with one person, let alone, I can't imagine introducing two or three into it thinking I don't have the bandwidth or like the time or the energy to facilitate any of that. I can barely, you know, make us plans for the weekend with our friends who live next door. So I can't even imagine. But um. Stephanie, you are delightful and I've enjoyed this conversation so much and I have really enjoyed crawling into your brain for a second and listening to your thoughts about all of this. Everybody, please go out and get this wonderful book. If you can buy independent, please buy independent, but um, just get it and congratulations. It's really fantastic.

Stephanie Sy-Quia 41:18

Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure.

Brett Benner 41:20

Thank you again Stephanie, and if you like this episode or other episodes that you've heard on Behind the Stack, please consider liking and subscribing so that you don't miss an episode. Also, if you have the time, what would be really helpful to me is if you could leave a review and or five stars on your podcast platform of choice. I will be back next week with another episode, and in the meantime. I Can Always Be Found at Instagram, YouTube. And now on substack at Brett's books stack. Thanks again for listening.