Kayla Ancrum’s fiction has a way of bringing the fantastical back to something recognisably human, exploring love, identity and belonging through characters whose lives are shaped, for better or worse, by the people around them. A National Book Award longlist author for The Corruption of Hollis Brown and Lambda Literary Award winner for Icarus, Ancrum now turns her attention to one of literature’s most enduring stories of creation and consequence.
With Adam, Mine, releasing today, September 8, Ancrum delivers a queer romantic horror thriller that serves as a love letter to Frankenstein, while giving Mary Shelley’s familiar creation myth a brand-new perspective.
Victor Frankenstein is a young and brilliant prodigy determined to prove himself through the reanimation of the sick and dying. But after a drunken bet leads him to experiment on Elias Hilfiker, a teenage boy from a neighbouring village, Victor’s ambition leaves both of their lives irrevocably changed. Elias awakens without his voice, his body stitched, scarred and marked with strange symbols, while Victor sets out across distant lands in search of a way to undo what he has done. Bound together by the consequences of Victor’s actions, the two find themselves sharing each other’s pain, joy and regret as they grapple with vengeance, mercy and the possibility of forgiveness.
To celebrate the book’s release, CinemaChords sat down with Ancrum to discuss the genesis of and themes at the core of Adam, Mine, from its relationship with Frankenstein to its exploration of family, responsibility and the consequences of the choices we make.