When out author Drew Banks published his first novel, Able Was I, in 2005, he might never have foreseen that the journey he had embarked on would span twenty-five years and another two novels. Readers who undertook that journey with him discovered a triptych that creates a mosaic of moving human stories that take place across decades and span the spectrum of sexuality — including some of its darker aspects. 

In Able Was I, the protagonist, Grey Tigrett, ventures to the island of Elba, off the Italian coast, where he discovers new cultural and sexual experiences that open a door to parts of himself he’s shut away. In the sequel, Ere I Saw Elba, published in 2009, one of the characters from Able Was I — a French woman named Brigitte — takes center stage, with the story of her life the focus of the novel. Now, after sixteen years, readers can complete the journey with Banks’ third and final volume in the trilogy, I Before E, in which Paolo — first introduced as a child in Able Was I — grows up as a first-generation immigrant in New York City in the 1990s. His mother, Maria, has moved to the U.S. with her children in the wake of a family tragedy, the details of which she refuses to divulge. The mystery so intrigues Paolo that he clings to his Italian heritage and, in the course of a relentless quest that spans his young life, discovers there is more — much more — to the mystery than his father’s untimely death. Adding a dimension of possibly supernatural intrigue are Paolo’s recurring dreams… near-mystical visions that tease him with the possibility of discovery but also point to something more personal. 

Complex family dynamics, emotionally charged psychology, generational trauma, and a sexual awakening that takes place degree by surprising degree all propel I Before E. Banks’ capstone to the trilogy broadens the canvas and brings everything home… literally, as Paolo, growing into a young man in his own right, heads back to the island where it all began.

As a matter of full disclosure, Drew Banks and I have been friends for two decades. It was a personal, as well as professional, pleasure to interview him via email and a Zoom call about his latest novel.

Kilian Melloy: Our last interview was in 2009, with the publication of the second book in your trilogy, Ere I Saw Elba. It’s been a minute! Did this third book, I Before E, need a long time to gestate?

Drew Banks: Not exactly. After the media tour for Ere I Saw Elba my husband, Nick, put his foot down: “Either a startup or a book; you can’t do both.” Writing wasn’t going to pay the bills, so I stopped cold turkey. I knew then I wanted to write a trilogy, but I hit pause until I retired.

Kilian Melloy: Did you have any fiction writing experience prior to writing Able Was I? Or are you one of those disgustingly talented people who can say, “I’m gonna write a novel” and then sit down and do it?

Drew Banks: I’m going to go with “disgustingly talented.”

[Laughter]

Drew Banks: Seriously, I love stories; I always have. So much so that I spent much of my career in corporate communications. So, even though I didn’t have an MFA or a track record in fiction, I knew I could craft a compelling story. I also knew I could finish a book — which, as any writer will tell you, is half the battle — because when I started Able Was I, I had already published two business books.

Kilian Melloy: What made you decide to write Able Was I?

Drew Banks: I wanted to develop a psychologically complex gay character who wasn’t a stereotype or caricature. When I started writing that novel in 2000, we were on the threshold of a new millennium, and yet most LGBT stories still lurked in the celluloid closet. I wanted to break free of those storytelling confines by writing about a gay protagonist whose coming-out process and sexual exploits were not the focus. I wanted the sex in the book to be real — not comic allusions — and sexy, but not pornographic. I wanted to depict our sex lives as just part of our stories. I wanted LGBT characters to be as expansive and complex as straight protagonists often are. LGBTQIA+ stories have come a long way since then, but in the early aughts, accessible, serious LGBT literature was far from the norm.

Kilian Melloy: What was your thinking behind the sequels delving into the backstories of characters that had appeared, perhaps only tangentially, in the first book, rather than continuing to tell Grey’s story?

Drew Banks: I felt like Able Was I was less about Grey and more about his self-imposed “exile,” or inability to engage in life. That’s why I set the novel on Elba. I wanted Ere I Saw Elba to be thematically linked by this concept of exile, yet narratively independent. So I chose to write about Brigitte, my favorite side character.

I worried this decision would impact my readership, because of how my gay readerspraised my ability to write authentically “hot gay sex,” which Brigitte was not going to have. But once I decided, I never looked back. 

Kilian Melloy: And now you circle around to Paolo, who’s very much a tertiary character in the first book. He’s a surprise choice for the protagonist of I Before E, but if you wanted to bring things full circle, this feels like the way to do it.

Drew Banks: My original idea was to have dual protagonists, exploring the mother-son relationship of Maria and Paolo. About halfway through, I realized the book was about Paolo’s sexual awakening. So, I rewrote the story from his perspective, which, as you say, does feel like coming full circle. 

Kilian Melloy: One of the things I found to be fascinating about the book was that Paolo explores a particular fetish. What is the story behind that?

Drew Banks: If you’re asking if I’m personally interested in that fetish, the answer is, No. 

[Laughter]

Drew Banks: I guess the story behind the fetish about how childhood environments and curiosities can impact one’s sexual fantasies in unexpected ways. When something orthogonal enters and you’re like, “What’s that? Is that part of my sexual desire?” 

Kilian Melloy: I know what you mean. Growing up gay, you may start having feelings you don’t understand; and then you start to have an inkling of what they are, and you go into denial, or into “exile” as you put it — at least in our generation, maybe not so much now. Then it takes a whole different kind of sexual awakening to drag yourself out of the closet.

Drew Banks: Absolutely. You have to find out who you are as an integrated person. It’s an iterative process. First, there’s your sexuality. Then, how to come out. Then, how to live an open life. Then, all the other things that make us who we are apart from our sexuality. 

Kilian Melloy: This might be a strange comparison, but when it comes to portraying a cast of characters with complex interplay over generations, the only thing I can think of in gay literature is Amistad Maupin’s Tales of the City novels. Have you heard that from anyone else?

Drew Banks: Yes, one other person. It was last year at a creative writing program at Oxford, where my tutor said, “Your writing is like a combination of Armistead Maupin and Elena Ferrante,” the Italian writer that wrote My Brilliant Friend. While this comparison is flattering, my stye is not as commercial as Maupin or as literary as Ferrante. I’m probably somewhere in the middle.

Kilian Melloy: These are not necessarily “queer” books (after the first one, anyway) though there’s certainly plenty of queer undercurrents and subtext. It feels like you are approaching these characters in a way that’s meant to allow for all colors of the rainbow.

Drew Banks: That’s exactly right. Having fought my way out of the closet, I didn’t want my sexual orientation to force me into a literary ghetto. I want my characters to resonate beyond the genre categories the literary and cinematic world has created for us. I hate reductive profiling. I always have. 

Kilian Melloy: Another place where there’s a depth of nuance — and also some dark mixed with those rainbow hues — is a pair of scenes in I Before E that involve, respectively, a blackout room at the back of a gay bar and a play space at the Folsom Street Fair. These tie into a larger theme of sexual shame, exhilaration, discovery, suppression, and even sexual assault. Your approach to this is a delicate balance. It doesn’t delve into trauma porn, though trauma is clearly present. What was behind this aspect of the novel?

Drew Banks: It will come to no surprise to my readers that I was abused as a child. I’d rather not dwell on this other than to say I was groomed — not by family member — and my abuse was more akin to Brigitte’s trauma in Ere I Saw Elba than Paolo’s in I Before E. 

As for Paolo’s experiences, they are very different from mine. With one exception. For most of my adult life (until I acknowledged my abuse), I’ve had an extreme aversion to stories about child abuse. For example, I literally threw Lolita across the room when I first started reading it in college and couldn’t finish it until over a decade later. I was also uncomfortable with any media or environments where dominance/subservience is festishized. For years, my discomfort extended to the kinds of situations like those Paolo finds himself in, where the dom/sub dynamic and intergenerational sex are consensual. 

Kilian Melloy: Is this the first public acknowledgement you’ve made of that abuse?

Drew Banks: It is. When I confessed my abuse (I’d disavowed it for years) to my therapist and Nick, I made a conscious choice not to tell anyone else or dredge up its memory. Clearly, this passive approach has influenced my writing, and so I feel I should publicly acknowledge why two of the three books in this trilogy include child abuse.

Kilian Melloy: That makes perfect sense. You ask yourself, “Where does this process end?” I don’t think it ends. I think it’s an ongoing process: This happens to be part of my life.

Drew Banks: I totally agree. I can’t believe I’m still dealing with things that happened to me when I was nine! But I do see progress. Two years ago, I accidentally told a small group of friends. We were sharing stories from our past, and it just blurted out of my mouth. It was so liberating. It’s crazy how destructive secrecy and shame are. They weave a psychological web that both Brigitte and Paolo find themselves caught in.

Kilian Melloy: The book leaves Paolo in a hopeful place, but it feels like he is going to make some crucial choices in later years. Do you have a tickle at the back of your mind to continue his story at some point? 

Drew Banks: No. I can confidently say that I’m done with the trilogy. But, similar to my own journey, I hope that Paolo’s acknowledgment and acceptance of his convoluted sexual awakening enable him to move forward in life without the shadow of his tortured past. As for me, I’m finally on to my next novel.

“I Before E” is available now. For more information, visit Drew Banks’ website.