Justinian Huang never knew he was writing a romantasy. Now, his debut book The Emperor and the Endless Palace is ready to be one of the hottest books of the year. Picked as an Indies Introduce selection by the American Booksellers Association, the book has generated considerable buzz.
Huang studied English at Pomona College and screenwriting at the University of Oxford and currently lives in Los Angeles. Debutiful caught up with the author for a Q&A about Emperor, genre, and sexiness.
There are a lot of moving pieces to your debut: multiple time periods, romance, fantasy, a grand sweeping story, and small personal stories. I have to know, what came first?
First came my awareness of the true history about Emperor Ai and his male lover Dong Xian: the very real gay couple whose tragic affair brought down the first Han Dynasty in 4BCE China. Talk about epic!
When I first came out as a queer Asian person, I was told that gayness is a Western thing, that we Asians have never had gayness in our history. So when I learned of these two young men from ancient China–and not just any young men, but an emperor who was worshipped as a living god–I was captivated by this secret history that no one knows. What happened between Emperor Ai and Dong Xian is one of the greatest love stories never told, and I wanted to be the one to tell it.
The decision in my book to reincarnate them continuously as doomed lovers came much later, when I found Buddhism during my years living in Asia.
Were romance and fantasy always of interest to you? If so, what were early standouts that influenced you?
It’s funny, I didn’t realize that I had written a romantasy (romance fantasy) until my editors told me I had…
I had Tolkien runes tattooed onto my back when I was 18, so I have always loved fantasy. Some of my other favorite books growing up were the Narnia series, which I read and reread so many times that they are now in a tattered heap on my mom’s bookshelf.
Romance was my more hidden love. I used to sneak Harlequin Romance novels from the supermarket and stare at the sexy covers, and I’ve loved Jackie Collins my whole life, starting as a teenager. It’s kind of baffling to me now that Harlequin owns my imprint, and that Jackie Collins’s estate and I are repped by the same agency…younger me would be floored by that.
I could not put down the book. I love the pacing of novels more than anything. How did you manage to write such a page-turner?
Thank you, Adam. It became a page-turner out of necessity. Because the book is told cyclically in three timelines by three different narrators, I quickly discovered that unless I ended each chapter with a grabby, memorable moment, it wasn’t fair of me to expect my reader to remember what happened two chapters ago in the continuation of each timeline. The end result are teeter-tottering cliffhangers, especially in the second half of the book. I’ve had readers tell me that they didn’t sleep once while reading the book! I am an insomniac myself, so maybe it is contagious through my words.
It’s also a very sultry book. Sometimes sexiness and lust can come off cringy. What’s your key to writing good romance?
Everyone approaches sex and sexuality with their own unique set of baggage, so you are never going to please everyone with spicy scenes. I just write sex that I personally want to read without thinking about who else is going to read it. But more importantly, I never write a sex scene just for the sake of having sex in the book–those scenes need to develop character and interpersonal dynamics in a meaningful and exciting way.
I am somewhat amused that quite a few early readers have taken umbrage with the fact that I use fruit euphemisms in my steamy scenes. What’s funny is that describing sexy bits as “plums” and “peaches” is actually historically accurate for Chinese erotica! One of the most famous Chinese smut novels is literally called “The Plum in the Golden Vase,” and yes, visually it is supposed to invoke exactly what you are thinking. This novel was published in 1610 and was influenced by even more ancient Chinese texts, so I figured if Chinese writers way back then used fruit metaphors in their sex scenes, why wouldn’t I?
So you can’t please everyone, especially with sex, hence you might as well just please yourself! Your intended readership will appreciate it too.
Do you feel literature and other mediums like television, printed art, and film, capture romance and sexiness in a similar way? Different way? I’ve been thinking a lot about how things work visually versus written on he page.
Not just with romance and sexiness, written word in general relies on a collaboration between the reader and the author, though in this collaboration, the reader actually holds more power, because they have the final say in their own minds about how they interpret and imagine the text. In visual mediums like television and film, the image is presented to us already finished, so a lot of the work is done for us. Both ways of digesting content can be enjoyable (hopefully), but they are enjoyable in vastly different ways.
This unique collaboration of written word between reader and author is why books will be around forever. Something magical happens when a stranger reads another stranger’s words and creates new worlds in their mind.
I’m curious about what you enjoy reading. I try to read a wide variety of genres but often find myself coming back to similar titles. What’s on your radar now?
I actually don’t read a lot when I’m writing, and I am currently writing my second novel so I’m entertaining myself with mindless reality TV like The Traitors and Love Is Blind. But what I did read recently was Casey McQuiston’s upcoming novel The Pairing, and it is so brilliant and spicy and fun.