But what if the act of writing a novel, I wondered, enabled one to practice a way of life that negated the brutalities of race, gender, hetero- and homonormativity, capital and property? Rather than change the world, a novel could index a longing for something else, for a different arrangement of bodies, feelings, and environments, one in which human flourishing wasn’t inhibited for the marginalized, which seemed as urgent an act of rebellion as any.
