“Life is an awful, ugly place to not have a best friend.”
― Someone Like You
The duality of coming out
My Best Judy was always meant to be a cute little story about a teenager being guided out of the closet by a gentle soul. So, I took quite a liking to writing this story after meeting a foreign exchange student from Lebanon who I helped realize who he really was in the community. It was a gentle nudge where I got to answer all his questions without poking and prodding into his mental state. This was the very essence I wanted to compass the story around. The “science fiction” part of it came in the oddest of places.
As I’ve said numerous times, science fiction is in my blood and brain. I grew up on The Twilight Zone and always love how a story can be told without actually making the real world obvious. The appeal is in the symbolic nature and the symmetry and that’s what I’ve always been thriving for in my writing. Now, this story wasn’t so hard. Aliens. All members of the LGBTQ+ community see themselves as aliens to others at some point in their lives – present company included. So, it made sense to me to have an alien in this story; I just had to figure how to do make it unique as I didn’t want to repeat myself.
So, this time around, I wanted to use art as a plot device from the start. And since art is meant to provoke an emotional and mental response to its viewer, it actually made sense for the artist to have some form of empathic and telepathic ability. Thinking with this line of thought, I ended up finding myself using another of my favorite plot device: parallel storytelling. I don’t think that’s the proper term but my mind is drawing a blank at the moment.
Anyway, the title is a little funny little thing, too. Fun fact: It’s based on a famous slang from the 1900s. When homosexuality was being viewed as a social virus, people would ask “Are you a friend of Dorthy?”. If the recipient knew the term, they would respond in kind and both parties would then know that they both belong to the same community. The best part was that was term used for discussing sexual orientation WITHOUT others knowing its meaning. It was funny to read about law enforcement trying to actually find this “elusive Dorthy”.
My aunt and all my LGBTQ+ friends figured out that historical anecdote and were quite pleased with it. My best friend, Tyler, praised the fact that I even remembered him telling me about that little nugget of history. I had to remind him that just because I don’t look it doesn’t mean I’m not. I think I might revisit this story in the future. And, with that, I hope you enjoy the story.
You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.
You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.
