TJ Klune’s gentle yet politically pointed tale of six magical orphans, their devoted caretaker, Arthur, and Linus, the government official who comes to love them, The House in the Cerulean Sea, was hailed as a beloved modern classic practically the second it hit shelves. Klune’s sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, is told from Arthur’s perspective as he, Linus and the children continue the fight to protect their makeshift family.
The title card for the novel coming after the prologue felt wonderfully cinematic. How and why did it end up there instead of in the very front of the book?
I thought of some great moments in film, television and video games where the title card comes not at the beginning, but partway through. I tend to be a visual writer, and the thought of the title coming after the prologue felt like a neat little trick. Not only that, it’s different! I want to try and find new ways to tell stories, and this is just the first step.
The technology in Somewhere Beyond the Sea, which takes place in a world just a few steps away from our own, is both fantastical and outdated—almost like what people thought “futuristic” would look like in the 1960s. What inspirations did you have for the setting, especially its technology and time period?
I adore the idea of retro-futurism. It’s kind of funny how I chose what and what not to include. For example, there are radios and computers, but no mention of cell phones or televisions. Music gets played on records. People dress a certain way. It’s timeless, in a way, but also very much in the right now. It gives the illusion of this being a fairy tale of sorts, while allowing me to write about issues of today while still bopping about in the old-school.
The rich and playful sartorial choices in Somewhere Beyond the Sea are delightful. What visual or cultural influences went into our beloved characters’ iconic looks?
OK, stick with me here because this might sound a little weird: You know Studio Ghibli? The makers of such animated film treasures like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke or The Castle in the Sky? No one—and I mean no one—can animate food like they can. The soups! The bread! The big hunks of meat! Not only do I want to create literary visuals on par with Studio Ghibli (Reach for the sky!), but I want readers to feel like I do when I see Studio Ghibli animated food. It is such a weirdly specific thing, I know, and yet, it is something that gets stuck in my brain. You can feel the love and passion the animators have over such little details. That’s what I want to do with my writing. I think so many authors can get stuck on the Big Picture which, OK, fair play. To me, however, it is these little details that mean just as much.
“So many decisions are being made on behalf of children, but why is no one asking what they think or want?”
Poetry and song lyrics, especially from jazz standards, are absolutely everywhere, whether it’s via direct quotation, allusion or description. Why is music so important to Somewhere Beyond the Sea, and why the emphasis on jazz in particular?
Music has always been a big part of my books, perhaps none more so than in these two books. But with the sequel, I wanted to push it a little further. Jazz music in particular feels like these characters, given how many variations of jazz there are. Jazz can bounce, it can sneak and slither, sometimes all at once. Particularly, I think of Lucy and Chauncey and Talia [some of Arthur’s charges] in terms of jazz music.
There are multiple moments in Somewhere Beyond the Sea when older generations try to pass down the defense mechanisms of respectability politics, an act that is generally met with justified pushback from the children. What do you hope people—especially older readers—take away from this debate?
That so many decisions are being made on behalf of children, but why is no one asking what they think or want? It boggles the mind that some people seem to think that they can take away books or come down hard on trans students and not expect there to be repercussions. The youth of today are smarter, more worldly than we ever were at their age, and we expect them to just sit there and take it? That’s not going to happen. Kids know what’s going on, and they are furious about it. They walk out of schools in support of their classmates. They’re marching in the streets to show that they won’t let people in power get away with taking away their rights.
This book is meant to show that no matter how hard you prepare kids for the future, there will always come a moment when you have to step back and let them make their own decisions, their own mistakes. It’s part of growing up.
Read our starred review of ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ by TJ Klune.
The idea of equity and human rights as an intersectional struggle comes up several times, from comments about nonbinary pronouns, to opposition to queer couples adopting, to race. You could create whatever kind of world you wanted, so why did you decide to create one where transphobia, homophobia, sexism and racism are still issues?
Because I remember how certain people reacted in 2015 when same-sex marriage was legalized. They said things like, “Homophobia is over now that queer people can do what everyone else can!” Do you remember what followed? We were told that allowing same-sex marriage was a slippery slope toward degeneracy.
And now, here we are, in 2024, and the world has gotten that much worse, especially with regards to the LGBTQ+ community. If we don’t face these things head on, if we don’t call them out immediately, then they fester and grow.
Same-sex marriage isn’t even a decade old, and we have certain Supreme Court justices signaling they think the 2015 decision oversteps. We were told Roe v. Wade wouldn’t fall, and yet it did. The same could very easily happen with same-sex marriage.
And it boggles the mind that there are people in the queer community—mostly cis white gay men—who are just as transphobic as right-wingers are. Do we really think they’ll stop at the trans community? They won’t. If people in power have their way, they’ll come for the rest of us next. It brings to mind the fun little internet expression coined by Adam Brott on Twitter in 2015: “ ‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”
All the children have their own stories and struggles, but Lucy’s transformation into a child who loves actively and fiercely over the course of both books is such a powerful one. How do you balance that with the fact that he is, technically, the Antichrist?
Initially, I chose to include the Antichrist in the first book as I wanted an “extreme,” someone who is capable of great power. It fed into the idea of wanting to explore nature versus nurture. What would happen if a child like Lucy, a child of immense power born of darkness, was given the chance to be a child? What would that look like if he got to grow up just the same as everyone else?
In these stories—particularly in the sequel—we get to see Lucy reckon with the idea of what it means to be human. As he says, it is so hard being human. And it is. What I love about Lucy is that he takes this all in and makes his own decision about what it means to be human, or what it means to be good. Though I adore Arthur, I think it’s important to show that not everything is black and white; there are so many shades of gray that we can fall into, and still try to be good. That’s where I think Lucy is.
“Not everything is black and white; there are so many shades of gray that we can fall into, and still try to be good.”
Arthur’s relationship with the basement changes by necessity when David, a new addition to the orphanage moves in. Why did you put David’s bedroom there?
These stories have always been about healing. What does it look like? How can it be different for each individual? How long does it take, or is it a lifelong process?
Part of Arthur’s healing was to remove the power that some places/people/things can hold over us. In his case, the basement was a place where Arthur was held because he was told he was a monster. To take something that caused pain and suffering and turn it into a beautiful thing, a room for a boy who has never had his own room before, seemed like something Arthur would do. It is for David, yes, but I like to think it was also for Arthur, too.
David mentions wanting to be a monster—and wanting to scare people—as a way of giving them what they want and bringing them joy. To say that Arthur is at first ambivalent about this concept feels like an understatement. How do you think each of their perspectives has changed by the end?
Arthur has spent so long fighting against that word: monster. Not only for himself, but for his children, his community. And then, to have a child come to their home, one who finds power in that word? While Arthur is lovely and caring and would do anything to help, he’s also a bit stuck in protective mode, as many parents are. Bringing David to the island with his monstrous talents was meant to show that even Arthur can sometimes make mistakes. He too needed to grow, and I think David was the best thing for that.
Lucy mentions Florida as a place to send an unwanted individual, and the existence of Ella Fitzgerald does imply that the U.S. exists somewhere in this world. Does it—and Florida—exist as we know it in your version of Earth, or has Lucy glimpsed its unique horrors through the fabric of the cosmos?
I do believe the U.S. exists in this world, at least some variation of it. And let’s be honest: Florida is probably not so great there, too. How delightful is it that even children who have never been know not to travel there? Though Chauncey would probably enjoy all the hotels along beaches in Florida, he would be dismayed at the fact that the Florida government isn’t allowing rainbow colors to be shown during Pride. As Chauncey says, “Gay rights are human rights!”
Photo of TJ Klune courtesy of the author.