SL Huang is joining us today with her novel Plastic Smile. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Cas Russell, antisocial mercenary, has decided to Fight Crime. With capital letters, like in one of her friend’s comic books.
After all, she has a real-life superpower: with her instantaneous mathematical ability, she can neuter bombs or out-shoot an army. And it’s Cas’s own fault violence has been spiking in the world’s cities lately — she’s the one who crushed the organization of telepaths that had been keeping the world’s worst offenders under control. Now every drive-by or gang shooting reminds Cas how she’s failed, and taking out these scumbags one at a time is never going to be enough.
She needs to find a way to stop all the violence. At once.
But Cas’s own power has a history, one she can’t remember — or control. A history that’s creeping into the cracks in her mind and fracturing her sanity . . . just when she’s gotten herself on the hit list of every crime lord on the West Coast.
Cas isn’t going to be able to save the world. She might not even be able to save herself.
What’s SL’s favorite bit?
SL HUANG
A Real-Life Story
I have horrible gaydar. I’m really, truly terrible at identifying other queer people. Only twice in my life have I suspected someone’s sexual orientation without being told.
One of these was N. When I walked into the first meeting of one of the many theatre groups I belonged to in college, N. was sprawled on the floor sporting a tiara and a pink feather boa, waxing boisterously on some entertaining story for the room. A few minutes later, I thought, “Hmm — I think he might be gay.”
He was — proudly and openly so. He was also a charming and talented fellow who was a tentpole of the college theatre community. He deservedly snagged leads in everything he auditioned for, and was funny, vivacious, and very well-liked.
One show, a post-rehearsal tradition was to go out for beers at a local campus-adjacent watering hole. They served only cheap beer at $3 a pitcher. That show had a small cast and crew, and all eight of us would cram around one of the tables and joke and tell stories until the wee hours of the morning. As a freshman, I was the young ’un of the bunch, and though I couldn’t share in the beer, I felt awed to be included in the company.
During a very normal such night, N. got up to use the bathroom. He was sitting against the wall, so had to squeeze past everyone else to get out. One of the people who was scooting his chair in for N. to pass was R., another pleasant, friendly fellow in the cast.
As N. squeezed past R.’s chair, he touched R.’s shoulder with his hand.
R flinched.
He flinched loudly. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was huge, it was obvious, and the entire table went from uproarious chatter to dead quiet. Everyone stared.
N.’s face went red.
So did R.’s. He started stammering an apology. To his credit, he didn’t try to make it out to be anything it hadn’t been. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying. “I never would have thought I was homophobic, that I would ever do something like that. I’m so sorry.”
The incident etched itself into my memory forever.
Plastic Smile
The real-life memory informed the writing of a similar instance in Plastic Smile, the fourth book of my Russell’s Attic series. It’s a minor character note that some readers may not even notice — one person flinching from another after connecting that he’s gay.
In the book, the difference — a major difference — from what I saw in real life is that the person flinching is someone framed as bigoted and a buffoon. Which is not the same thing, not as powerful, because to me, what made the real-life incident so visceral was that the person perpetrating homophobia was a good person. An accepting person. Someone who considered himself a non-homophobic person, but who still had a reflexive reaction that was drastically homophobic.
Having a character who’s written as bigoted do such a thing is not, to my mind, nearly as affecting. We expect it of such people. We don’t expect it of our friends and allies.
So maybe I’ll be writing about this again, and again, in other contexts. Especially as an author who is (mostly) out and openly queer myself now, and who wonders sometimes —
Who would flinch from me?
Who would pull their children away from me?
Who would vote for my civil rights but still not want to touch my hand?
I don’t know. I go through life, I meet people, wonderful people, accepting people. And I don’t know.
Who will flinch?
LINKS:
BIO:
SL Huang justifies her MIT degree by using it to write eccentric mathematical superhero fiction, starting with her debut novel, Zero Sum Game. Her short fiction has appeared or is upcoming in Strange Horizons, The Book Smugglers, and Daily Science Fiction, and she’s unhealthily opinionated at www.slhuang.com or on Twitter as @sl_huang.
I wondered if I should leave this reaction, as it’s something personal. Then I thought, if it might help you feel less sad, disappointed or rejected if you encounter such a flinch, I should.
This is not a reflection on the incident you describe: you were there and know best what happened and why.
But there are people, and I know because I’m one of them, who will always flinch noticeably when touched unexpectedly. This happens regardless of who does the touching, and can happen in crowded conditions too – if I didn’t expect that touch, there on my body, at that moment. I’m not always very aware of my surroundings, certainly not if I’m engrossed in conversation or a book…
In my case it’s the result of years of bullying, which is not something I’d like to go into and explain in such a crowded environment.
I never realised, that just by apologizing without explaining beyond saying “Sorry, you startled me” I might leave the other person feeling personally rejected.
In my case, it even happens if it’s a twig or leaf or a thread or something like that which touches me unexpectedly, but that’s for a different reason: a spider-phobia (if I’m in a situation where there might be insects, such a light touch could mean one has -nearly- gotten on me). Bullies used that phobia against me, so being among people does not nullify that reaction, though it’s stronger in the garden or attic. I don’t *always* flinch at each unexpected touch, and I don’t know why I sometimes do and sometimes don’t, beyond the fact that if I’ve been reminded of spiders, I’ll flinch more often. Awareness of danger (and crowds always feel dangerous to me) seems to prime the reaction.
Maybe the other times I’ve subconsciously seen something coming and identified it as not-a-threat? Maybe it’s semi-random, dependent on the background noise in the synapses that fire to cause the flinch?
I just wanted to say, if someone flinches when you touch them when they didn’t expect it, it might be for a reason that is not connected to you personally. Maybe that will help, if it happens with a friend or someone you like, to let it hurt less, and to give them a second chance if you feel their company is worth it to you.