When I heard there was going to be a queer love triangle novel inspired by one of my favorite queer-coded movies, The Philadelphia Story (1940), I got my hands on it. Kat Stoddard’s Wasp’s Nest introduced me to the alternating POVs of bride-to-be Tess, her ex-husband Peter, and Peter’s fake wedding date Mitch over a chaotic wedding week on Cape Cod. Layers of tension, including class divisions, untold truths, and lingering feelings, are baked into this situation and the story that unfolds, which makes for sharp comedy. More dramatic are the tensions the characters feel within themselves, which are heightened as they come together, each “on the precipice of a new life,” as Kat told me.
I couldn’t have imagined that as Wasp’s Nest claimed a spot on my bedside table, Kat would quickly become a friend and confidant during a singularly crazy experience–publishing our debut books a few weeks apart. It was a delight to talk with her about the importance of relationships to art making, censorship parallels between 1940 and today, our mutual disdain for culturally mandated milestones, and why a creative life is worth pursuing, no matter how much money it leads to.
Samantha Paige Rosen: When did you start writing? And when did you start identifying as a writer, if that was at a different point in your life?
Kat Stoddard: I started writing fiction pretty much as soon as I could write, but I didn’t identify as a capital W Writer until my late twenties. I went through a creative dry spell in my early twenties–I wasn’t even reading fiction for a few years–but found my way back when my mental health plummeted. Reading and writing fiction again was a way back to myself. I spent years building a writing practice from necessity. It was something that I did for myself and only me, a refuge from professional and personal stress. During the early pandemic, I was working from home with a baby (my daughter turned one the week before a state of emergency was declared in our home state), and if it hadn’t been for my writing practice, I don’t know how I would have made it. That was when I decided I wanted to try and get a book published. Clearly, I didn’t have enough going on, ha.
SPR: I know you still work from home and your day job is not writing. How do you balance that and your creative work, especially when writing a first novel?
KS: Balance is definitely a moving target. Something that’s really helped is outside accountability in my writing practice. I had three main people I was sharing early drafts of this book with: my developmental editor (Beth Weeks, without whom this book would not exist), my critique partner Ce, and my best friend Fern. I feel like I’m always talking about how much relationships matter to my creative practice, but it’s so true.
SPR: I second that! Speaking of relationships, how did you come up with the idea for Wasp’s Nest? How did The Philadelphia Story inspire it?
KS: The chemistry between Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart has always made me curious about a version of the story where the love triangle connects on all sides. What if a socialite’s wedding plans are complicated by the arrival of her ex-husband and a young writer, and what if that young writer falls for them both? I spent years wondering what that story would look like, and eventually I decided to just write it and find out!
SPR: You know I also deeply love The Philadelphia Story, and so I’m curious more specifically about how the film–or the context around it–made its way into your novel.
KS: I think the context of the Hays Code is crucial here. The Philadelphia Story is a fantastic example of how to circumvent those strict moral guidelines–the entire genre of remarriage movies exists because it was a way around depicting extramarital sex and adultery. Critics at the time objected to the irreverent (read: clever and subversive) ways director George Cukor and writer David Ogden Stewart depicted sex, sexuality, and the institution of marriage, not to mention the things they hinted at happening off-screen. We’re certainly in a new era of censorship and anti-queer sentiment, but artists have always worked around the restrictions forced on them. Queer artists today have the ability to be more direct in many ways about our experiences, challenges, and dreams for the future. Carrying on the legacy of those forerunners is an incredible responsibility, and a unique gift.
SPR: Can you talk about the ways that this book subverts readers’ expectations around intimacy and why you were interested in doing that?
KS: One of the things I’ve become most passionate about in my thirties is the importance of intimacy in non-romantic relationships. We put such priority on romantic pairings (heterosexual marriage, specifically), and other relationships are treated as secondary at best. I really like the concept of relationship anarchy. Love is not a limited resource, romantic relationships are not superior by default, and culturally mandated milestones aren’t relevant to many of us. I think a lot of the issues people struggle with (loneliness is a big one) are exacerbated by these boxes we force ourselves into. Why is marriage considered the only true partnership? We celebrate weddings and baby showers, why not career achievements and friendship anniversaries? I have a platonic life partner, parents and siblings that I love, a daughter who is the light of my life, I have friends, I date, I check in with my neighbors and coworkers, all of those relationships hold me together, and I hold them back.
SPR: I agree wholeheartedly and although our books are very different, they have this in common. I also think there’s something distinctly queer about seeing life and relationships this way. Do you think of Wasp’s Nest as formally “queering” The Philadelphia Story, and if so, what does that mean to you?
KS: The triangulated romantic dynamic between [the film’s characters] Tracy, Dexter, and Mike is so rich and queer-coded. I know I’m not the only gay kid who watched that movie and felt the impact of two queer stars and an iconic queer director. There’s an aspect of Wasp’s Nest that’s me saying to The Philadelphia Story “the queerness in me recognizes the queerness in you.”
SPR: Are you someone who enjoys looking for queer coded media? (I am!) What are other favorite “straight” stories you see queerness in?
KS: I’m definitely someone who sees queerness in a lot of “straight” stories. One example that I will talk about for days is The Summer I Turned Pretty. To me, it’s a multi-generational epic that stems from the deep (and ultimately very repressed) romantic love between the matriarchs of two families, Laurel and Susannah. I love the relationship between the main couple (Belly and Conrad), with all its mess and tenderness, but their bond is another iteration of the connection between their moms, who are life partners raising their kids together and relying on each other before their husbands. You don’t need to look too deeply in the text, either. Laurel’s ex-husband literally tells her that there were always three people in their marriage–the two of them, and Susannah.
SPR: Between the characters of Peter, an artist, and Mitch, a writer, Wasp’s Nest demonstrates the highs and lows of being creatives. I’m sure everyone will be asking what you hope readers will take away from this book about relationships or queerness or class, but I’m wondering what you hope readers will take away about art.
KS: It was important to me that Peter and Mitch were both working people living paycheck to paycheck, like so many of us. They’re not people who can really get away with dropping everything to follow artistic inspiration or creative opportunities, so the material impact of taking a week off to attend Tess’s wedding is present in both their lives. I think it’s fair to say the only artists who aren’t motivated at least in part by money are those that have plenty of it. That said, I believe a creative life is worth pursuing for other reasons. It’s how we connect with each other and the world around us on a deeper level. So maybe writing or painting isn’t your day job (it isn’t mine), but you can still make time for a creative practice on some scale. Maybe that means learning how to arrange flowers, or writing fanfiction, or doodling a design for your holiday cards, or keeping a personal journal, or decorating cakes for your friends.
SPR: The book’s epigraph is a quote delivered by Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story: “The time to make up your mind about people is never.” What is your belief in people’s capacity to change over time and what did you want to convey in this area through Tess, Peter, and Mitch?
KS: I think that the core of this belief is grace, towards others and towards ourselves. I was raised in an evangelical community, which directs a lot of shame toward women and queer people, so this wasn’t something that came naturally to me. I had to embrace all of myself before I could approach my own shortcomings with compassion. Like Mitch, I came of age as a “late bloomer” by acknowledging my queerness in my twenties. It’s scary and disorienting and inconvenient, but also exciting and liberating, to be on the precipice of a new life, which Peter, Mitch, and Tess all are in this book. My life has gone down an unexpected path too, and I’ve felt the most at peace with that when I remained open to understanding myself and other people in a new way.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kat Stoddard lives with her daughter in Baltimore. Wasp’s Nest is her debut novel.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Samantha Paige Rosen’s writing on identity, culture, and the arts has appeared in the Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, Slate, Them, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. She’s written about everything from the crazy cat lady stereotype to ADHD and running late to why Friday Night Lights is actually a queer TV show. Sam earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and lives outside of Philadelphia, where she is a freelance writer and editor, a writing tutor and coach, and an amateur potter. Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection is her first book.