TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea flew off of bookshelves and filled favorites lists when it was published in March 2020. In it, readers were whisked off to Marsyas Island and introduced to Arthur Parnassus, the caretaker of a group of orphaned magical children. The fantastical story of found family resonated with readers all over the world, and millions of copies of the novel have been sold.
Soon, readers will finally be able to return to the island of misfits for a new story. Klune’s much-anticipated sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, will be released on September 10. Klune is currently criss-crossing the country on tour to celebrate the release, but he made some time to catch up with SLM via email before his stop at the St. Louis County Library Clark Family Branch in partnership with Left Bank Books on September 14.
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Readers responded so positively to The House in the Cerulean Sea. Did that create more pressure as you began to work on Somewhere Beyond the Sea?
Not necessarily. I don’t tend to think of reader expectations when I’m writing a book, even if one happens to be a sequel. I learned early on in my writing journey that you can’t make everyone happy, and it’s foolish to even try. I try my best and hope that readers will be able to connect with the story. Some will, some won’t, and that’s okay. In the end, I wrote the story I wanted to tell, and that’s such a cool opportunity.
What was it like for you to return to Marsyas Island and the wider world you created?
It was like coming home after an extended trip. These characters are fictional, but they feel real to me. I know every inch of the island, all the characters who inhabit it. They’ve been with me for years, and getting to be the one to tell their story is humbling. It’d been a few years since I’d written the first book, and I like to think I’ve become a bit of a better writer since then. It took me a second or two to get back into the swing of things, but once I did, it was like I’d never left.
This is a rich world filled with deeply interesting and creative characters. Can you talk about the inspirations for some of them?
Lucy–the child Antichrist–was always meant to be an extreme. Here you have a being that is supposedly destined to bring about the end of the world, but what happens if that being is a child? What happens if that child likes dead people music and baking and has spiders in his brain? Lucy is my idea of nature versus nurture: What if the literal son of the devil gets to just be a kid? What if he doesn’t have to worry about his title and crown and gets to be weird and wonderful instead? And then there’s Chauncey. I have no clue what he is. Isn’t that awesome? When you’re a kid, you find things to obsess over that become your entire personality for weeks or months or even years. Chauncey is that kid. He wants to be a bellhop more than anything. So what does he do? He sets out to try and become just that. All because he loves the idea of helping people with their luggage.
What were you most surprised by as you worked on telling this story?
What surprised me the most was the depth of Arthur’s character. We got to see him through Linus’ eyes in the first book, but having him be front and center in his own story proved to be more than I expected. Arthur contains multitudes: on one hand, he wants his children to grow up and use their voice. However, like most parents, he has a hard time letting his kids do exactly that. A part of the novel is that push and pull: When do you, as a parent, step back and let your kids make their own mistakes? What kind of trust does it take to do something like that?
You’ve said that Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a celebration for trans people and the queer community, as well as others who have felt or been told that they’re less than in some way. Why was it important for you to tell a story for these communities?
Because many people have put a target on the backs of those in the trans community. Across the U.S. and the U.K., there is a rising anti-trans movement that is causing an unimaginable level of harm. Trans people have some of the highest suicide rates of any marginalized group. According to the National Institutes of Health, 41 percent of transgender persons have attempted suicide at some point in their lives. And yet, we have politicians doing their level best to try and intimidate and make the lives of trans people that much harder. It also doesn’t help that people like J.K. Rowling have made being transphobic their entire personalities. For some reason, certain people find it so much easier to drag others down than doing the work to make themselves a better person. I have a platform to use my voice. If I just told stories, it would be a waste. Trans rights are human rights.
What do you hope readers will take away from Somewhere Beyond the Sea?
That even when things get hard, even when it feels like we’ve been beaten down within an inch of our lives, there is always hope. It might not feel like it, but it’s there. And that sometimes, some people aren’t worth saving. No matter what you do, there will be those who hate just to hate. It’s time we learn the difference between people who are capable of change, and people who will just wallow in their bigotry for the rest of their lives. You can’t help people who won’t help themselves.
What are you most excited about for this book tour?
To see everyone’s reaction to this book! It’s been over four years since the first book came out into a world about to fall into a long pandemic. This book comes out at a time of great divisiveness, and I hope, much like Cerulean Sea, this sequel gives people an escape to a world of color where most things are possible, so long as you try. The readers of my books are the reason I’m here. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be. I’m so grateful for the chances I’ve been given to tell the stories I want to tell.
What’s next for you?
I have a novel coming out next spring–The Bones Beneath My Skin. It’s a queer thriller about two men doing what they can to protect an extraordinary little girl who isn’t what she appears to be. It’s got chase scenes, evil cults, explosions. I wanted to write a queer action movie in book form, and Bones is the result. Next fall, a new book with my first non-human main character [is coming out]. It’s a wild story that’s an homage to childhood favorites like The Adventures of Milo and Otis and Homeward Bound.
