I had the pleasure of interviewing J. Vanessa Lyon about her novel Lush Lives, which came out with Roxane Gay Books on August 1.
Lyon’s almost-debut novel (the second title from Gay’s imprint) is racy, thoughtful, and delightful. When I (somewhat impertinently) asked Lyon why her book matters, she said: “I hope my book matters because it’s doing something a little different—a little speculative—with the Harlem Renaissance canon, challenging some main character conventions, and asking, along with other authors, why ‘literary’ can’t also apply to the genre of the ‘kissing book’.”
Check out the interview here.