This article was originally published at Shondaland.com
“Something About Her,” Taylor’s debut novel, explores youthful sapphic attraction.
In spite of rampant book-banning and other attempts at censorship of LGBTQ+ content here in the U.S., the genre of teen-friendly queer literature is growing each and every day. Something About Her, Clementine Taylor’s debut novel, proves to be a hearty, moving addition to the canon. It’s a poignant love story between two college students who meet at school in Edinburgh that explores the emotional complexities of first love and how what we carry into relationships can lift us up and weigh us down.
In Something About Her, Maya and Aisling meet the way so many first loves do: in college. It’s an age of self-discovery when individualism cultivates rapidly and organically the further away one steps from their parents’ gaze. The novel is told as a she-said-she-said, and Taylor deftly toggles between Maya’s and Aisling’s POV — from meet-cute to the book’s dramatic what-just-happened last pages — to sketch out the plot, while a confessional approach colors in the subtler aspects of each character’s emotional journey as they inch toward their entanglement.
Taylor recently connected with Shondaland virtually while she is currently working toward her doctorate at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England — her hometown — researching the connection (or lack thereof) between artificial intelligence and gender. She is a pedigreed academic with an undergraduate degree in theology and religious studies, and a master’s degree in gender studies (and a few years were spent working as a researcher in Cambridge and London), and it quickly becomes evident in conversation that writing and reading have always composed Taylor’s beating heart. References to poets and poetry are peppered throughout her prose and our conversation, and her passion for the written word and how it transforms her experience is exuded with a smile every time she mentions it.
VIVIAN MANNING-SCHAFFEL: What inspired you to write Something About Her?
CLEMENTINE TAYLOR: When I was growing up at school and in those early years of university, I was reading more and more and thinking I’m not seeing queer protagonists as much as I would like to see. I really wanted to write something that I would have wanted to read at that point in my life and to put queer characters front and center not just to deal with issues of sexuality, but to think about also all of those other things you’re dealing with at that time of your life: your friendships and what those mean to you, and your family relationships and trauma that you’re going through at that age, which takes all shapes and forms. Also, creativity and expression. Having said that, I do think the older that I get, these are things that keep arising, and they’re not things specific to that age necessarily but that [were] important to me at that point.
There are some decisions that I made consciously and some things that were given to me that came with the story in my head. One of those things was that it was going to be in first person, and you were going to hear both of their perspectives, and the other was that they were going to be college age. It’s that age where you’re developing a lot as a person and reflecting on who you are.
VMS: Even though there’s been progress in terms of queer lit, it’s slow. But watching this genre grow is something really special.
CT: I think it’s so important to have more of these characters. I read somewhere that Jeanette Winterson, who wrote Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, wondered why people kept labeling her book as a lesbian novel. Why? It’s a novel for everybody.
VMS: It’s a love story! You can tell that’s your goal. And it’s coming out at a time when LGBTQ+ books are being banned here in the States.
CT: I’ve been obsessed with this whole banned-books thing. It’s so sad because one of the themes in the book is freedom of expression. What expression does for people who are expressing themselves and also receiving that expression, receiving that creativity, and the importance of people having a voice … cutting off people’s voices just creates less diverse literature, which is a real shame.
VMS: And more lonely kids who don’t see themselves anywhere. How long did it take you to write from beginning to end?
CT: I started the book in October 2018, so five years ago. I was writing it for, I would say, two years, on and off. I’d go through periods where I was writing loads; there was one three-month period over a summer where I was writing every day, and months where I barely wrote at all. I think I had a finished draft by October 2020, and that’s when I submitted it to agents. So, two years of writing and three years in agent-querying editorial stages. I think it’s really important to have people who really champion the book and understand what you’re trying to do. We kept going back and forth between drafts, but it was an amazing experience. I think, honestly, it made me grow so much as a writer to have someone work with you like that and really invest time and energy in you.
Clementine Taylor is pictured in a headshot.
United Agents
VMS: A believer is essentially all you need. I want to know about your process, especially with your academic career; it’s so hard to carve out that time.
CT: It’s an interesting thing; everyone has their thing and their thing that works. It’s about testing that and seeing what works over time. I’m not a night owl at all, so I have to capitalize on that morning time and that early afternoon time. What worked for me was just writing on the weekends because that way I could wake up early, maybe do a bit of exercise, and then just really sit down early and write a few chapters or a chapter. Sometimes, you’re just not in the headspace to do it during the day, and just write a couple of paragraphs that maybe you eventually chuck. I was working a full-time job during the week, and when I’d finished the evening, I couldn’t really let my brain do that switch. It’s really important for me to have my headphones on and to have good music.
VMS: Yeah! I can’t write without music.
CT: I don’t know how people write without music! I can’t write in silence. I have to have something playing, and it has to be something that I’m relatively familiar with so that I know the lyrics or something without lyrics. But it’s something that’s really important to me, to kind of get the vibe of the book through that music. I think it helps me to get in the headspace. You’re nodding!
VMS: Oh, yes! Absolutely. It helps to pull me in to the characters. I’m curious what you listened to for Maya and Aisling.
CT: There’s only one chapter where I mention they have different tastes in music, which is when they’re having dinner together. They both love Nick Drake.
VMS: Pink Moon is the best record. Music is like a mood board for the characters.
CT: You’re so right. It’s one of my favorite songs of all time. Nick Drake always captures the vibe of Edinburgh for me as well — ethereal and really eerie. But they have a real contrast in music taste as well, which I love. Maya is so much more into jazz and soul. I kind of love that Aisling is into hard rock — it makes me so happy. It’s really nice to think about what your characters might be doing and get to know their music tastes as you get to know them. One of the big things about writing this book for me was getting to know these people and actually spending time with them, and just looking forward to being with them. It is a real respite and escape when you’re writing because you’re kind of with your mates. It’s a great feeling.
VMS: How did you decide to write it in first person and toggle between Maya’s and Aisling’s POV?
CT: Going back to your very first question, the other half of what really inspired the book was I went to see Edinburgh Fringe in 2015, a play called A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing. It was adapted from the novel by Eimear McBride. Reflecting on that afterward, I think what I loved about that play and performance so much, and about Eimear McBride’s writing and Annie Ryan’s adaptation of the book into the play, was that you’re really hearing the voice, and you’re really in the girl’s head. You grapple with all these things, like her sexuality, and family, and illness, and trauma; it’s this real rawness, and you get this real intimacy with the character.
I would never compare myself to Eimear McBride, she is incredible, but if I could capture the essence of that, that was the aim. It was always in the first person in my head, and it was always going to be a dual narrative. Initially, I wanted it to be a series of monologues because I was aiming for that level of intimacy. I love novels in the first person as well. Call Me by Your Name was another big inspiration for me. [With] Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, you get these real intimacies with the character, and it’s not necessarily that interesting things are always happening, but it’s really the day-to-day and their inner thoughts that you’re becoming familiar with. That’s what I wanted.
Clementine Taylor is shown in a professional photo.
Gemma Turnbull Photography
VMS: Without me giving too much away about the story, your book also explores abuse and alcoholism, and how experiencing those things from a parent as a child can impact you long-term in terms of your relationships. Tell me a little bit about that.
CT: Going back to My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, one of my favorite books ever, there’s a scene in the book where Lila says that she also wants to go to middle school like Elena goes to middle school. They have this big argument, and at the end of the argument, you see Lila being thrown out the window by her father — she flies over Elena and lands on the pavement. I think there’s a parallel between that and what I’m trying to do in the book, which is to say these acts of really deeply gendered or sexuality-based violence do happen, whether they happen in the book or not. We still live in a world where two-thirds of LGBTQ+ people have experienced violence or abuse, and 70 countries in the world criminalize same-sex relationships. These very specific and horrific acts of violence don’t just represent those specific actions; they represent something much bigger. I think it’s kind of trying to make a bigger point than those specific actions.
VMS: You’re grappling with internalized homophobia, all this pain, and all these negative societal messages to get to your inner truth. It’s all about the journey toward self-love, which is universal — everyone can relate to that.
CT: Especially at that age, you really absorb the messages you’re presented with. We all go through that in some way, shape, and form. But it’s different, and it’s extreme. It’s captured with the symbol of the apple, which is obviously on the cover. It’s a traditional religious symbol — everyone would associate it with sin — but actually, in the book it’s about taking that symbol and saying, “Do I have to be the same? Do I have to adopt these same ideas as what I’ve always been presented with?” That’s really what the apple symbolizes. That’s why I love, in the beginning of the book, Katherine Mansfield’s quote [from her short story “Bliss,” as quoted on the first page of Something About Her] — I think she’s so masterful at taking these subtle symbols and twisting them on their head. To Aisling, it’s a symbol of rebellion, the apple: Not this is evil, or this is wrong, but can I go against everything I’ve ever been taught is good or bad and what’s inside of me?
VMS: Was writing the book cathartic for you in some way?
CT: I think there are always going to be parts of yourself in the novels that you write — that’s inevitable. Definitely, there were some elements of catharsis, and of course, there were elements of the book that were things that I was grappling with at the time, or was grappling with before that, or maybe that I’m still grappling with now. I don’t think that just refers to sexuality but also things like my friendships with people and my relationships with my family. So yes, there were definitely elements of catharsis, but equally, it’s not my story — it’s very much their story. I just hope that there will be elements in there that maybe people can pick out and say, “Oh, that really resonates with me.” Even if there’s not stuff in there that resonates with people, that’s totally fine. Books don’t have to resonate, but they can also present people with different lives and different opinions, and I think that’s also valuable.
VMS: What were some of the challenges, or elements of writing the book you found challenging? How did you overcome them?
CT: There are two elements that I struggled with actually. Because there are elements of will-they, won’t-they in the first bits of the book, I think when they get to — sorry spoiler! — but when they get together, I almost struggled to write them together, if that makes sense — what that relationship looked like. I built up this whole thing where they weren’t together, and all these reasons why they weren’t together. I was so enjoying that buildup and knowing that at some point they were going to get together; then when they were together, it was about shifting that shifting direction. I needed to adjust to that a bit. And then the ending, the ending was tough.
Something About Her
VMS: I was going to ask you about that! How did you figure out how you wanted the story to end? [Spoiler alert.]
CT: I always knew I wanted the narrator’s name not to be there at the end. This is really going to divide people, and that’s totally fine. I think the function of doing it that way is so that we as readers turn inwards and say, “What assumptions have I built up throughout the book? Who am I sympathizing with? Whose voice am I hearing, and whose voice do I still hear?” I really hope it gives people that jolt of like, “Whoa, where’s the voice?” Or maybe some people will go, “I hadn’t noticed there was no narrator because I was so sure it was this person.” I kind of love, as soon as you release the book into the world, it’s yours [meaning the reader], so you play a role in shaping the narrative. It was an important point that I wanted the book to make, like, “I’m handing this to you.” It’s this inward turning and this reflection that I think always happens with books when you finish them. You think, “I’m just going to sit for a moment and think how I feel.” I guess what I wanted was that on steroids: Whoa, I don’t know who’s talking, so what’ve I thought throughout the whole book? What’ve I picked up in there that I’ve noticed in the rest of the book? That in itself to me is interesting.
VMS: It’s a choose-your-own-adventure kind of ending. How do you want people to feel when they put the book down?
CT: Hopefully, they will have enjoyed it a bit at least! I would want them to feel any range of emotions, from confusion to certainty or anything in between about the ending, especially because that’s why it’s the way it is. I think it’s intended to be equivocal and unclear in terms of the reaction that you take from it. So, anything is fine with me!
VMS: Can you share what you’re working on now?
CT: I have got two manuscripts on the go, and I think I’m just about to make that turn where I pick one and go with it. I’m just really enjoying that process of writing and seeing where it takes me at the moment. We’ll see what happens!