Love Grows Up in the New Aristotle and Dante Novel

Goodreads: What was it like writing two characters who are both growing in different ways?

Benjamin Alire Sáenz: It felt natural to me. And it felt right—because I think that’s realistic. I wasn’t so much committed to the relationship between Ari and Dante, as I was committed to writing each character truthfully and honestly and figuring out in what ways they would realistically grow.

Ari and Dante are not the same person. Dante was much more romanticized in the first novel. We saw him through Ari, who idealized him, because even without realizing it, he was in love with Dante. This time we get more of who Dante really is. And he’s a wonderful guy, but he’s not as perfect as Ari made him out to be in the first novel—but Ari doesn’t need him to be perfect. Ari wants Dante to be himself. Dante simply wants Ari to love him.
  They love each other very differently. And it’s Ari who is much more realistic about their love. Dante always trusts his emotions and is very spontaneous in expressing himself. Ari feels every bit as much as Dante, but he is much more careful in expressing himself. I loved writing Ari and Dante as individuals and then having them interact, each of them bringing out the deeper parts of themselves. And it was a helluva lot of fun writing their conversations. So much so that I threw out half of what they said to each other. My editor and I had a lot of work to do regarding my conversations between them.

GR: One thing I enjoy about both Aristotle & Dante novels is the way Ari and Dante explore and share new places together. How did you imagine/write these adventures during a pandemic where we aren’t safe next to one another? Was this an escape for you?

BAS: This part of writing the novel made me very sad. I was, and remain, very sad about the kind of world our young people are forced to live in. I like to say that I write to give young people hope because the world conspires to take their hope away. Sometimes I sense their hope slipping away. What kind of world are we creating for them?

All through this novel, I remembered what it was like for me growing up. In high school, I grew up skipping school and going to the river and doing things we weren’t supposed to do. It was all pretty innocent, but we weren’t afraid. There was so much freedom and interaction. Our children are growing up in a very different kind of world, and it must feel so confining for them.

As I was writing, I wondered—and still wonder—how the pandemic is affecting them. Ari and Dante are free to wander the world despite what the world thinks of their relationship. They are free, in a sense, to become cartographers. Are our children offered the same opportunity? 

GR: Aristotle & Dante Dive into the Waters of the World shows readers how much older both characters are now. They notice more about their feelings, their families, and what haunts them. Why was this important in the sequel?

BAS: It wasn’t just important—it felt urgent.

The first novel, because it was focused on two boys falling in love, was turned inward. But this novel is turned outward. It’s not just about two boys who are in love—it’s about the world they live in—and not just about their families and their friends. Their lives and their love have a context. And that context is the cruelty of the world that, in a very real way, hates the idea of who they are.

It mattered to me, too, that my readers see Ari truly becoming a man. Dante is central to this novel—of course he is. But in the end, this is Ari’s novel. He’s telling his story. We are looking at the world through his eyes. And I very much wanted my readers to see and experience Ari coming into his own. He is every bit as virtuous as the young man he loves. And he is, by the end of the book, very nearly a man.

I have to say that I wept at the end of the novel. I think I wrote Ari as the boy I wished I had been. 
 
GR: In the novel, Aristotle has trouble navigating his thoughts about being worthy of love and also begins to realize how difficult love is—and how it’s especially difficult when you’re queer. Why did you want to show this journey of love and acceptance?

BAS: Because that’s everyone’s story. Only that journey to love and acceptance is much easier for straight people. And that journey is also easier for white people. Love is difficult enough already. And if you’re queer, then the dream of being loved and accepted feels like just that—a dream.

I’ve never had a successful relationship with another man—probably because I always had a thing for bad boys. Setting aside my own experience, I wanted to write a story that was optimistic about love between young men, a story that made the reader believe that queer people can find love and acceptance. And they have—and they do.

I know that heterosexuals feel themselves to be more virtuous than we are—even those who deny it. I wanted to write a book that would allow the reader to experience how much love we have inside us—and how much we aren’t allowed our full humanity. Even today. We aren’t as enlightened as we think we are. I get messages from young people every day.

I always imagined that coming out was a walk in the park for young people these days. The letters I get tell a different story. I am very proud that Ari and Dante have accompanied so many young people on the journey to self-acceptance.

GR: I love Ari’s use of journaling and writing letters in Aristotle & Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. How did you come to this, and what did you hope Ari (and readers) took away from it?

BAS: Ari is shy. He’s not always comfortable in his own skin. He’s humble—though he would never use that word to describe himself. But I did want the readers to know how much he loved Dante and find a way that he didn’t say the things he felt about him directly to Dante. That would have been out of character. So, I had Ari talk to Dante in a forum he felt comfortable with. He felt free to talk to Dante and express things he held inside without actually talking to Dante. And it was a way of communicating to the reader who Ari was in an intimate way. The reader could experience Ari’s secrets and feel close to him. I loved writing those passages.  
 
GR: Both Aristotle and Dante are coming to understand desire, what that means for them, and how they want to act on it. Tell me more about exploring this theme. 
 
BAS: It was difficult to present young men whose love spilled into the desires of the body—even though that’s an important part of falling in love. Desire isn’t the least bit subtle. And young men aren’t particularly subtle when it comes to wanting to have sex. Young people need to explore love and desire and what those words mean, and not only what they mean, but they have an overwhelming need to express and experience those words. But they’re scary words, and the vulnerability and the sense of inadequacy that those words can conjure are scary.

Sex is an important part of falling in love. I felt I needed to handle this topic as tenderly as I could. But it wasn’t so difficult to write about—because Ari and Dante are so innocent about these things. They’re inexperienced and tender. But they have an irrepressible curiosity about what touch means and the possibilities and importance that touch has in their journeys to become men. I’d never written a love scene. I have now. 

GR: I know during these times your reading habits may have totally shifted, but what or who have you been reading lately?

BAS: Francisco X. Stork’s Illegal. During the pandemic, I read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, the essays of James Baldwin in The Price of the Ticket. Mostly I read a lot of poetry. I reread much of the poetry of Denise Levertov (who was my mentor) and the poetry of June Jordan, Adrienne Rich, Federico Garcia Lorca, Alberto Rios, Juan Felipe Herrera, and I read some Shakespeare plays—something I hadn’t done in a long time: The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and my favorite, The Winter’s Tale. And I read (yet again) The Grapes of Wrath. Oh, and I also read Luis Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North.

GR: Who are your YA influences? 

BAS: This isn’t a fair question. Because my colleagues will look at me differently the next time I see them face to face. They won’t say you didn’t mention me because my colleagues tend to have a lot of class—but they might think it.

So, I’m only going to name a few of the many authors whose writing I admire. The list is brief and by no means exhaustive, and I’m sticking to authors who only write contemporary, realistic novels. I don’t often read authors who write fantasy or create alternative worlds—the world I live in is all I can handle.

In no particular order: Ellen Hopkins, Chris Crutcher, Walter Dean Myers. S.E. Hinton, Andrew Smith, A.S. King, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jeff Zentner, Jessica Powers, Gene Luen Yang, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Bill Konigsberg, and I’m going to stop because I already know I’ve forgotten to mention someone whose work I really—oh, yeah, Francisco X. Stork.  
 
GR: What books are you looking forward to reading soon (or are lucky to have a galley of right now)?

BAS: I don’t ever get galleys. Books in my pile that I look forward to reading: The Music of What Happens, In The Wild Light, Switch, Crank, 100 Sideways Miles. And I look forward to listening to the audiobook of Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. I’m crazy about Lin-Manuel Miranda—and he allows me to experience my own novel without criticizing it.