The novel reimagines the myth of Jack Sheppard, a notorious 18th-century thief with a checkered past.
Confessions of the Foxis a bold first novel, unwieldy but accessible, and layered but thrilling.
Read on for our conversation below, and purchase your copy ofConfessions of the Foxhere.
Credit: Beowulf Sheehan
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This is your world that youre writing about, in terms of your research.
He was really represented that way.
Dr. Voth seems modeled on you to some extent.
One World
That was something that I was really supported in by Chris Jackson, the publisher of One World.
So I had to think about who he really was.
I just wrote him in an intense burst.
Its not like you need a password to read a novel.
Ive obviously written it in a way where I want anyone to enter it.
At first, I was trying to write in a way that protected trans embodiment and our bodies.
Then I started to think about the intimacy of novels in general, and the intimacy of language.
At certain points, the novel obviously says, Im just talking to you.
But I dont really know who that you is.Thats the thing about fiction.
You leap into an unknown space, in the reader, and speak to that.
But you cant control who the reader is.
I wanted to make that form of intimacy open to whoever.
Something like, Some unrealities we fight for, and some we fight against.
Not just for trans people, but across ranges of oppression.
I wanted to metabolize some of that painful unreality.
These things are all interconnected.
I set myself the goal of trying to write a novel that was about that.
And also was about forms of resistance to those interconnections.
This is one of the first novels by a transgender author to be published by a major company.
I just cant believe whats happening to me.
My agent is probably still getting over the hardships I gave her.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
