“Joy like this was inseparable from pain—pain made the joy last, like carving initials into a tree.”
-Chapter 3: Eruption
Overview
This novella began as an isolated short story. The inspiration came to me while visiting a parasitological museum in Tokyo. I saw all the parasite lifecycles, the way they transferred hosts and took on new forms, and wondered, “How can I make this a love story?” When my wife and I were expecting our first child, we shared an amazing with another couple and their newborn, and began to sense the world and person waiting for us. The two ideas merged, and the first part of Good Night My Love was born.
Full cover for the print version
“The mother put her hand on Sam’s, brought it to her cheek to feel the tears. Through their skin, Sam could taste the salt, perceive its ionic bonds—and something deeper. The child opened their mouth, and the tongue seemed to peer out, like a frightened cat. The endless length of yellow muscle slowly flitted out of the mouth, turning flat and slim. The mother did not flinch as it wiped at her tears, tasted what they stored inside.”
As time went on and my new child grew, the characters in the novel kept returning to me. I saw how life could unfold for them, and over the course of a few years five more parts of the story came to me. The story took in parts of my life I had no place to discuss before: the isolation of raising a child during Covid, the internalized shame I learned from religious schooling, my own non-traditional biological origins.
Seeing as it became so personal, I added an afterword about my own story and how it inspired the book titled, “They Told Us Not To Tell You: The Inspiration for Good Night My Love.”