💘📚 Dive into the queer, feminist Palace of Eros with author Caro De Robertis

Wormies, 

Meet Caro De Robertis. 🌟 

Caro recently released a new novel: The Palace of Eros, which, at a high level, is a retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. Don’t worry, we’ll dive into the deets shortly. 

Caro's previous works have garnered prestigious awards, including the Stonewall Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award nomination. 🏆 Their stories are known for their profound exploration of identity and resilience, earning them international acclaim and translation into seventeen languages. 🌍✨

Here's my conversation with Caro De Robertis. My questions are in bold, and Caro’s responses are directly below each question.

Tell us a bit about your novel, The Palace of Eros. 

The Palace of Eros is a subversive retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. In this story, Eros, the god of love and desire (aka Cupid), is recast as a genderqueer nonbinary lesbian goddess. This shift turned a story that was already about passion, transgression, and secret sex in the dark into a queer one, which, for me, opened big burning questions under the surface of the story, about the nature of desire and what happens when we pursue it on our own terms.

How do you know what to write? Where do your ideas come from?

I do a lot of exploring, and a novel often hangs out in “the dreaming phase” for many years before I start writing. So, there’s a lot of time for an idea to develop, and for me to get to know it and see if it has enough energy to become a book. But ultimately, the ideas come to me more than I come to them. I listen for the stories that want to be told through me or the ideas that have heat and light for me, even if it takes a while to understand why.

What drives The Palace of Eros?

The underlying, burning questions that drove this book for me, include: what does it mean to live radiantly when the world seems bent on our erasure? What happens when we name our true desires and dare pursue a large, authentic life? What can love teach us about how to balance the urge to belong with the urge to be free? 

Deep down, I wrote this book as a love letter to the parts of our souls that long for joy and liberation.

What books are you excited about right now?

We’re living in a time rich with so many amazing books! I absolutely loved Alex Espinoza’s The Sons of El Rey, a gorgeous novel spanning Mexico City and LA, and tracing queerness across three generations of a Latinx family devoted to the art of Lucha Libre. 

I also just finished Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox, an incredibly brilliant, exuberant joy ride and the transmasculine historical fiction of my dreams. Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds, about the shamanic powers in her Colombian family lineage and so much more, blew my mind. It’s one of the best books of the 21^st century so far. Memoir—the genre itself—will never be the same, in a good way.

What (and where) are some of your favorite shops?

I love indie bookstores! They are the beautiful brick-and-mortar havens that make literary communities possible. 

In the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, I adore and love to shop at Booksmith in San Francisco, A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, Pegasus and Mrs. Dalloways in Berkeley, and more. 

For the 15+ years I’ve been a published writer, I’ve traveled all over the country and fallen in love with so many bookshops that have welcomed me and made me feel at home: Word Up in New York, Elliott Bay in Seattle, and Skylight Books in Los Angeles, just to name a few.

Reflecting on your writing career, what was a pivotal moment that shaped your path as an author?

I’ll get personal here. After my third novel The Gods of Tango came out, I felt tempted to give up writing novels. In 2015, I wrote more boldly about queerness and gender expansiveness in a Latin American setting than ever before; the bias I faced from mainstream review outlets—like whitesplaining, mansplaining, and heterosplaining—was overwhelming. I knew I shouldn’t take it personally, but I couldn’t help feeling bruised and unheard. 

Then, on a hike, I ran into a local poet. When she casually asked me how I was, I burst into tears. She kindly listened, then said, “The people who said those things: you didn’t write the book for them, they’re not your readers.” That stuck with me. I thought: either I quit, or I write as honestly and boldly as possible for the readers looking for stories like these, whoever they may be. So that’s what I did. I wrote my next book, Cantoras, from a new place inside myself, free and unleashed.

What does your writing process look like?

If it’s morning, I write with yerba mate. Always. I’m Uruguayan, so the ritual of the mate gourd, thermos, and bombilla (metal straw) runs deep and has become beautifully enmeshed with my writing process. I write digitally, but I also believe in handwritten freewrites to unlock the subconscious and encourage the exploratory writing needed for the early drafts of a book.

What singular piece of advice do you have to offer aspiring writers?

Learn to trust yourself, radically. Listen to yourself. Listen on the page. Spend time on the page. Read widely, with a sense of joy and adventure, to fill your creative well. Find community with other writers. And whenever you can, enjoy the ride.

As always, thanks for reading. Don’t forget to save The Palace of Eros to your “To Read” shelf to enter the giveaway.

Looking for another friend on Bookworm? Connect with Caro. 

On social media? Find Caro on Instagram.

Want to read The Palace of Eros? Buy their book from your favorite indie.

Want to discuss The Palace of Eros with fellow worms? Join our book club

Yours in compost,

Ali 

P.S. Have you already zoomed through The Palace of Eros? Me2. 

...AND you’re in luck. For the first time in their career, Caro is launching two books less than a year apart. Recently, Caro received a fellowship for an oral history project. They included twenty of those voices in their upcoming book, So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color, coming in June 2025. Mark your calendars and add it to your TBR. We'll remind you when it’s out 😉 .