When the Tides Held the Moon
Title: When the Tides Held the Moon
Author: Venessa Vida Kelley
Genre: Historical, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 464
Age Range: Adult
Rep: Gay, Demisexual, disabled, Latinx, secondary non-binary rep
TW: Violence, murder, slurs, heavily implied rape of a secondary female character
If you've ever yearned for a gay, 1910s Little Mermaid with tear-jerking prose, Spanish poetry, and illustrations to salivate over, I've got some great news for you.
When the Tides Held the Moon tells a romantic, emotional story about Benny, a queer Nuyorican blacksmith who joins a curiosity show on Coney Island in 1911 after helping them capture a real, live merman. Just as Benny finally begins to feel at home with his new, lovably colorful menagerie of a family, he realizes that he has fallen in love with Rio, the beautiful and sensitive merman trapped in a gilded cage of Benny's own making. Literally.
Everything about this book is gorgeous, from the prose to the illustrations, from the chapter plates to the paper it's printed on. Kelley is setting the standard for novels going forward. If the publishing industry really wants to start making waves again, this is how you do it.
Give me more illustrated novels for adults and give them to me N O W!!!
This book spurred a lot of conversations between myself and my girlfriend, who is a proud, queer Puerto Rican native. Perhaps unsurprising for such a small island, but many of the locations mentioned were immediately familiar to her. Not just "oh, yeah, I've heard of that place" but "oh, yeah, that's where I'm from." The text is rich with Spanish words and phrases, many of which are unique to Caribbean dialects. Being able to share in part of my girlfriend's culture while reading such a beautiful, emotional story was an experience I will always be grateful to this author for. The excitement when Joss pointed to an illustration on the back cover where she immediately recognized a cuatro guitar was adorable, and resulted in a delightful afternoon of listening to her favorite bachata songs.
Yes, this picture was just an excuse to show off how cute Basket is, what of it
I also read this book after having recently finished When Brooklyn Was Queer, by Hugh Ryan, which really felt like kismet. Ryan's book describes the experience of queers of all kinds living in the Brooklyn area from the late 1800s to Stonewall, and touches briefly on the lives of immigrants and carnival curiosities as well. It was nice to have the context from this book while reading WTHM, and I really recommend it as supplemental reading for this novel, and in general.
You can find out more about When the Tides Held the Moon and author Venessa Vida Kelley on their website, or by following them on BlueSky. If you're interested in purchasing When the Tides Held the Moon, please consider buying directly from the author's website, from your local independent bookseller, or online bookstores that support independent booksellers such as Bookshop.org.
Thanks for reading!
~Jacq
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