Courtesy of James Brandon
This Saturday, multiple locations throughout the Central West End will become literary hubs as the third annual St. Louis BookFest takes over. Presented by the Central West End Business Community Improvement District, Left Bank Books, and the Left Bank Books Foundation, the event hosts both local and international authors for a day of panels, discussions, and readings.
The lengthy list of authors in attendance includes two-time National Book Award nominee Elizabeth McCracken, Fulbright Scholar Aaron Coleman, children’s book author Daniel Wiseman, romance writer Sonali Dev, New York Times bestselling author Joshilyn Jackson, as well as St. Louis natives illustrator Mary Engelbreit and LGBTQ+ activist and artist James Brandon.
For his return home, Brandon will participate in two events. First, he will read from his debut youth-adult fiction novel, Ziggy, Stardust & Me, at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Left Bank. Then, he'll appear on the panel Pride Comes of Age with Music, an LGBTQIA Panel at 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 21.
Ziggy, Stardust & Me is set in the St. Louis area in 1973, six months before the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Brandon previously didn’t know this aspect of LGBT history. “I was embarrassed, I didn’t know anything about my own history. But I also realized queer history isn’t taught at all in the high school curriculum,” Brandon says. “I decided to write this book to document a lost forgotten moment in LGBT history.”
Ahead of his events in St. Louis, Brandon spoke with SLM about Ziggy, Stardust & Me's St. Louis setting, his writing process, and more.
How important was it for you to set this novel in the St. Louis area?
Incredibly important to me. I was born and raised in St. Louis. I lived there until I was 19, then I moved to Los Angeles. The only way I felt like I could intimately connect to my protagonist Jonathan and the complex feelings he’d been going through—dealing with his internal internalized shame, being told that he is wrong for being who he knows he is to be, and all the conflict, conflicting emotions that come with that. The only way I felt like I could really connect to that piece was to set it in a place that I grew up and in the same environment where I had those feelings. Growing up gay in St. Louis, for me, was really tough. I was raised Catholic as well, and I didn't know being gay was a possibility. That’s not to fault my parents or my family or anything like—it was just never talked about as a possibility. The only time I ever heard about anything gay was from our priest, who said it was a sin. Or that it was just some society thing that’s very bad—so don't even think about it. But I knew I was different my whole life, and I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't talk about it with anyone. I was a child of the ’80s and graduated high school in ’95. This was a time way before it was talked about as publicly as it is now, in a positive way. I felt this intense desire to kind of return home with this book and process my own feelings of my time growing up through the lens of this protagonist.
I wrote in the book that once you see that shame is planted within a person, it only grows. It’s like grief: You learn to live with it, but it never goes away. Once you have the experience of grief, you can let it consume you or you can take care of it and let it help you grow. I think that's what I've had to work through my entire life growing up: feeling ashamed for who I am. [That is] what I wanted to express through Jonathan's story.
What was the research for this book like?
The book is set before my time—I was born in ’77. I did a lot of research. I dove into hundreds of books. I’m an actor as well. So when I look at character work, I really dive into research and immerse myself into character. Before even writing this book, I immersed myself in the music, the magazines, and TV shows. In the story, Jonathan goes through treatment to take care of his quote, unquote mental illness, so I interviewed people who had gone through those treatments. I also interviewed people who lived during that time. My uncle grew up in the ’70s and went to Ritenour High School, so he was telling me all sorts of stories about what it was like to be a kid during that time.
What made you want to tell this story?
I think I was inspired. I've been so inspired by the young people today and the next generation. Their voices are loud, and they're being heard because they're also unified. I really wanted to tune into that and tell the story through that [youthful] lens, almost piggyback on their inspiring actions. I also love young adult novels. I think they're bold and brave. They can get away with a lot more in terms of dealing with tough topics on a more accessible level.
What settings in the book might St. Louisans recognize?
Most of the book takes place in the confines of Creve Coeur. Creve Coeur in the early ’70s is not what it is right now. I spent half of my childhood in Creve Couer, the other half in St. Charles. It’s totally different. In the early ’70s, it was considered living out in the country. In the book, there are things within Creve Coeur Park and around Creve Coeur that people may recognize.
For a full schedule of other authors at BookFest, visit their website.
