Interview with Gabe Cole Novoa, Author of “Most Ardently: A Pride and Prejudice Remix”

Nov 29

In our “Romanticism Beyond the Academy” series, we invite literature-lovers to reflect on the significance of Romantic-era writers and ideas in the contemporary world and/or in their own lives. In the following post, author Gabe Cole Novoa discusses his queer Young Adult novel Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix. Interview by Yu-Hung Tien and Mariam Wassif.

1. Could you give us an overview of Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix? What social, historical, or literary contexts are important for understanding the storyline? Are there any points that you’d like to particularly draw readers’ attention to?

Happy to! Most Ardently is a queer YA retelling of Pride & Prejudice. There’s a popular mistaken belief that queer people are a “new” phenomenon, but if you look at historical documents you’ll find that there have been queer people all throughout history. This is a big part of the reason I love writing queer historical fiction—because it’s an opportunity for me to tell the stories of people who have largely been left out of or straightwashed in the most popular historical accounts.

When I was writing Most Ardently it was important for me to consider what life was like for real queer people who lived in the early 1800s. Where did queer people find community, during a time when being queer was, technically, illegal? How did queer people find happiness when the choices that would make them happiest were not only antithetical to cis heteronormative expectations but not really discussed as options at all? While not all of the realities of what life was like for queer people then fit into the love story I was trying to tell with Most Ardently, it did feel important for me to talk about historically real avenues for queer people, like Molly Houses, and consider the context of decisions queer people made at the time to survive.

2. Could you share with us your motivation for this adaptation? What was your first encounter with the original Pride & Prejudice, and what inspired you to adapt it?

Most Ardently’s origin story is an unusual one for me, because it began when I was presented with an opportunity to write a YA retelling of a Classic work. There were so many that I considered while I was mulling over the opportunity, including quite a number of Shakespeare works, when it occurred to me that there were many themes in Pride & Prejudice that resonated with me personally.

While I read some Austen in undergrad, and I’m relatively sure we must have discussed Austen in my high school English classes, my first encounter with the original actually wasn’t until after I’d begun considering writing Most Ardently. Like many others, my first exposure to the story of Pride & Prejudice was the 2005 movie adaptation which has become a huge cultural touchstone. But as I began to seriously consider writing an adaptation, I knew it was time to pick up the original. Funnily enough, the combination of being acquainted with Austen’s works from undergrad and the general plot from the movie meant reading the original felt uncannily familiar.

3. How does Most Ardently “queer” Pride and Prejudice? Why did you choose to remix this novel in order to tell the story of a trans boy?

Most Ardently looks at Pride and Prejudice and queers it with two vital changes: Elizabeth is a trans boy and Darcy is gay.

Pride and Prejudice is, among other things, a story about rigid gender norms, societal expectations, and finding unlikely love. As a trans masculine person raised in a conservative home, I know what it’s like to feel trapped in a family with rigid expectations around gender norms. I know the pain of hiding yourself to keep the peace and having to make your own way to find a love the world has made you believe isn’t possible. I know Elizabeth’s struggle intimately because it was mine.

I’m fortunate to have found a happy ending to my own love story, even while our cis heteronormative society made it feel impossible. I wrote Most Ardently because I want queer and trans teens to know it’s possible for them, too. Queer people have for so long been shut out of the Classics canon, so to have the opportunity to rewrite a well-loved Classic as a queer love story and shine a light on the reality that queer people have, historically, always been here was an honor.

4. It would be especially inspiring if you could share with us the process of adaptation. What fascinated and intrigued you the most while adapting the story? What challenges or obstacles did you encounter?

Changing two core tenets of Pride and Prejudice (making Elizabeth a trans boy named Oliver and Darcy gay) created some fascinating implications while I considered how to shape my retelling. I considered how Darcy’s behavior in the original could be explained if he was a closeted gay person being pressured to court women—his morose attitude at the balls and aloof nature fit perfectly. I considered what it might be like for Oliver to interact with Darcy as a boy, and how that might differ from when he must interact with Darcy presenting as a girl. I considered how a gay Darcy would feel most comfortable in the presence of other boys, and how he could open up to Oliver in ways that he never could to “Elizabeth.” There was so much nuance to play with while queering Pride and Prejudice that really made it an endlessly interesting project.

As for challenges, my biggest difficulty with this retelling was figuring out how to balance the original with my retelling. How similar did I want it to be? How much did I want to deviate from the original? How did I want to honor the original and nod at Austen’s voice without creating something stilted and disjointed? It really wasn’t until I was revising that I was able to truly nail down a balance that felt comfortable and true to the story and ultimately, I’m happy with where I landed. But it was certainly a daunting task trying to figure out how to balance such a well-loved Classic with the queer love story that I wanted to tell.

5. Do you have any other projects on the horizon? Do you have any suggestions for audience members who may be interested in creating more inclusive adaptations like Most Ardently?

While I think Most Ardently specifically will remain a standalone, I had such a blast working on this queer retelling and I’d certainly be happy to do another one! There are so many Classic works out there that would be fun to adapt through a queer lens (including several works that arguably have a queer foundation to begin with!). I really do love being able to dive into what life may have been like for queer people throughout history, so I certainly anticipate I’ll continue considering possibilities for future queer adaptations or queer historical stories.

As for suggestions, I think becoming familiar with what’s already out there is a great place to start. The Remixed Classics series that Most Ardently is a part of is an especially apt suggestion if you’re looking specifically for retellings that take in underrepresented perspectives. (One of my favorite reads this year, My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix by Kalynn Bayron is also part of the series!) More broadly, there are a lot of great Historical Fiction and Historical Fantasy books featuring underrepresented perspectives, like This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke, The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, and, if I may, my own novel The Wicked Bargain.

My final suggestion is to consider the stories that you have to tell. Is there inspiration you can take from your own experiences? Your family history? What does the world around you look like, and what would you like it to look like? Incorporating the realities of marginalized peoples into stories isn’t new—marginalized people have always existed, from the very beginning of human history—but if it’s new to you I’d encourage you to consider the stories you can pull from your own experience, think carefully about the makeup of the worlds you create in your work, and read intentionally and widely to ensure the media you’re consuming isn’t born out of a single point of view.