Author Snapshot: Steven Rowley
Book jacket biographies don’t tell us nearly enough about the authors we love. That’s why Zibby Mag launched the Author Snapshot, giving readers an inside look at the lives and work of our favorite writers.
This week, we are featuring author Steven Rowley and his new novel The Celebrants, which is a Read with Jenna pick this month! Steven was also recently at Zibby’s Bookshop for an event with his husband Byron Lane. Check out the recording here and order The Celebrants here!
Your latest novel, The Celebrants, follows four college friends twenty-eight years after graduation. Why did you choose this stage in life to frame the novel?
Early in the pandemic, when we were all sheltering at home, I watched a lot of movies that I had fond memories of and I thought would bring some comfort. One of those movies was The Big Chill, a film a lot of us remember for its buzzy cast of future Oscar winners like William Hurt and Kevin Kline (Glenn Close, your day is coming!) and a soundtrack of Motown hits. It’s a movie about the adrift part of middle age, where it feels like there’s a sameness to life—but all the characters were thirty-five. THIRTY-FIVE! Forty years ago that was what was considered middle age? As someone who was staring at fifty, that didn’t bring me comfort! So I wanted to take a modern look at middle age. The film posits that once you have a job, once you’re married and have kids, it’s a slow and repetitive coast to an empty nest and retirement. But that’s not true anymore. People no longer have just one career, stay in one house, or have just one marriage. Today, these middle years can be filled with change and reinvention, along with dynamic growth. And that’s where all the good stories are.
It’s so interesting to think about how friendships change and evolve over time, especially with those you shared such a formative experience with. Did writing this allow you to reflect on your own friendships over the years or did it inspire you to reconnect with anyone?
Those friends who knew you “before” are so essential. Before marriage. Before success. They help keep you grounded and can be there to reconcile who you thought it was you wanted to be with the person you are. I have a group of college friends who I still consider myself close with, even if we haven’t seen each other in years. I graduated college in 1994. In those years, before email and before social media, it was much easier to drift apart. I’m so grateful we have all found one another again, and I have absolutely reestablished a few important connections. I also lost one of my best friends to breast cancer before beginning to work on this book. There’s something about losing a contemporary that makes you face your own mortality, especially one you’ve known since a young age. Facing that hardship bonded those of us left to grieve her.
What makes this book different from your other bestsellers and what do you hope people gain after finishing it?
I think The Celebrants is a more mature book for me, not just in the age of its characters, but in terms of the writing, the structure, and what it’s trying to say. I hope that readers can see a growth in me and my work and that it’s a reminder that growing older holds real value in a culture that is often too youth-obsessed. That’s one of my favorite things about writing and publishing. It’s a business that values life experience. Two of the biggest publishing successes of the last decade are Bonnie Garmus and Delia Owens, debut novelists in their sixties and seventies respectively. Additionally, we’ve all been grieving so much these past few years. If it isn’t the loss of a person, it’s the loss of time. The loss of togetherness. Stability. Grieving can feel very isolating when you’re in the throes of it, but it is also a universal part of the human condition. I want people to know that they are never as alone as they might feel. They may not have a group of friends exactly like these, but people do care.
What made you choose to write about long-lasting friendships versus other long-term relationships like marriage, familial bonds, or work partners? Why do you think certain friendships are crucial to one’s own happiness and growth?
Found family is a consistent theme for queer writers, specifically from my generation—many of whom were rejected by families of their own. But I think the lucky among us have two families. The one they were born into, and the one they chose. It’s easy to have context for the first. People understand what a mother is, a brother, a sister. Even when those relationships are complicated or broken. Friendships are harder to contextualize. We have many friends for many things. And often friends can be closer than family, or occupy a bigger space in our day-to-day lives, which makes losing one so devastating. I’m also fascinated by the language of friendship. Inside jokes. Often repeated stories. A single word can communicate entire memories. I wanted the challenge of creating these friendships on the page. Making them feel lived in, time-worn, flawed. And yet have the reader understand exactly why they are friends, and why they show up for each other again and again, even after they drift apart.
What are you most excited to discuss with your readers after they finish The Celebrants?
A recurring theme in the book is telling people what they mean to you now, while you still can. I’d love to hear from readers about the people who have had a great impact on their lives, and what they would tell them if they could. And if they are able to get in touch, I’d like to know what expressing that gratitude has meant for the both of them.