Full disclosure first: I worked with Jen St. Jude at Chicago Review of Books for a number of years. Like many of the creative professionals here, I knew they were at work on a book though I didn’t know many of the details. Reading If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come first offers the pleasure of seeing a colleague’s work come to fruition, but very quickly, the book engages on a deeper level.
Just as nineteen-year-old Avery has planned to drown herself because she doesn’t feel she’s enough, she and the rest of the world discover that a deadly, incipient asteroid will be destroying the Earth in nine days. What do you do when the end of the world trumps the end of your life? In Avery’s case, she elects to see those she loves, finally express her love to a close friend and ultimately accept—and love—herself for exactly who she is. The intersection of the challenges of young adulthood with the oncoming end of the world provides an ideal opportunity to examine identity and the societal influences that can crush the spirit. But unlike other apocalyptic investigations, there’s a core of joy, underscoring what is imperative in our lives regardless or especially because of the brevity of our lives: love, connection, acceptance.
Mandana Chaffa
Almost 2 years ago, you wrote a first-person essay in the late Catapult magazine about writing, and being a writer. It’s about whether our passions and dreams can save us, and what it means to be committed to the craft, without—somehow without—expectations.
“At the time of writing this, I don’t know if my first novel will sell or if it won’t, despite my hard work and stellar agent and the many brilliant friends who have helped me write and rewrite and dream again. But I know with certainty that I’m proud of it. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done, I want to share it, and one day soon I will, in one way or another.
It is so satisfying that two years later, we’re talking about this book as a real thing in the world. How did this novel originate? How did it change from your initial idea to what it is now, in my hands?
Jen St. Jude
That essay is still something I return to all the time, and stand by it completely.
I started writing this novel in 2012 in a writing class at Colby College under Professor Jenny Boylan (who is a marvel). I’d been really sick, mentally, for some time, and it was really all I could think about—how I would always be that way, how nothing would ever get better, how lost and ashamed and empty I felt. I started exploring it through vignettes that were in the loose shape of a novel. But much has changed since then. I didn’t have a full draft until 2018, and it wasn’t even gay until then either, ha. I was in a relationship with a woman (my now-wife) for the first time and finally felt like I could tell that piece of me. It also wasn’t a young adult book until 2020.
Sometimes you have to give yourself space and time to change as a person before a story can land where it needs to be. Sometimes you have to meet the right people, too, who will help you place it there. At least, that’s what happened for me.
Mandana Chaffa
“Young adult” is such a strange signifier. When I was in that age group, I read books without considering if they were “adult” or not. I think this genre can speak to a cross-demographic of readers (and I could make a good case that Catcher in the Rye is the quintessential YA book). What do you feel you can do in this genre that you can’t elsewhere?
Jen St. Jude
I didn’t read young adult books until I was an adult largely because it didn’t exist in the form it does now. There’s a lot of talk about what’s appropriate for young adults in YA—especially when it comes to censorship and banning books—and I’m utterly baffled. The things I read in high school were incredibly dark, challenging, and violent. We read The Color Purple (important literature!) and The Heart of Darkness (not so much!). Furthermore, kids all have the internet these days. Hide the girls-kissing-girls books if you must but I promise they will seek it out if they want to.
But I digress—children’s books are for people of all ages because they treat their main characters with dignity and respect. They insist their stories and voices matter. And they really, really do. Anyone of any age should be able to see that. I am also drawn to YA because the characters are allowed to have big, messy emotions and there’s an emphasis on how we treat each other and why that matters. I love adult literary fiction as much as the next person (as I’m sure you know!) but am more drawn to genre fiction and children’s literature where hearts are allowed to spill all over the page.
Mandana Chaffa
One of the things I love is the juxtaposition of a person’s personal end of the world versus the collective, and how those two experiences connect, conflict, and alter one’s perspectives and actions. Does the imminent end of the world—imminent as in a set number of days and hours—embolden us to say and do what we want, but fear?
Jen St. Jude
It’s always an interesting thought experiment—what would I do if I only had 9 days? I would be incredibly intentional. I wouldn’t waste time on the mundane or unfulfilling, and I would take risks and push myself to be open and loud and adventurous.
But ultimately, that’s not how I live my every day because that’s not (knock on wood) my situation. There are bills to pay and future generations to think of. There are boundaries and fears and expectations. I think there’s a middle ground, though. I can still be intentional. I can still consider, frequently, how I’m spending my time. I have become very loud about the people I care about because I always want them to know it. There are dreams to chase and people to love and new experiences all the time.
“The world was ending but hadn’t it always been?”
Mandana Chaffa
I appreciate how you capture the differing responses to the imminent end of the world.
The novel also underscores how people process time, and in a sense, asks us to define imminence. We know there’s imminence about the end of our own world given what we’ve done to the environment alone, but it still seems distant, so the majority of people continue as they are. Yet when there’s a date—a close date—then one can’t help to actually react to it. It reminds me of writing deadlines!
Jen St. Jude
I’m also just someone who has always been acutely aware of mortality. Maybe because I lost some people young, maybe because I was raised Catholic, maybe just because it’s who I am. I think about death constantly! Sounds morbid, I know, but I’ve always felt like it’s the only way to live an intentional life.
Mandana Chaffa
There’s a certain relief to stopping, isn’t there? How did it feel to be writing and editing this during the pandemic, which demanded that (many of us) stop, for an unspecified amount of time?
Jen St. Jude
It was hard! I had more than one meltdown over it, if I’m being honest. I’m sure it was hard for my agent, too, to be working on it then. It made me think that the book wouldn’t ever sell, because suddenly we lived in a world where it hit way too close to home and it was just too painful to sit in. But a few years later, I think people are ready for some catharsis, for a story like this where a global event (an asteroid, not a pandemic) threatens human life. I feel completely convinced the story is where and when it was always meant to be, and therefore so, so ready to open my hands and let it go into the world.
Mandana Chaffa
You have such an organic sense of the stakes of this time of life, the swings between the identity we hold, the one we want, and all the confusion fogging around that. I’m obviously speaking from my own far-removed vantage point, but I remember how everything felt like life or death, and how uncomfortable I was in my own skin at times. It occurs to me that creating your personal narrative is a similar experience to writing a novel. In the early chapters, one doesn’t know that it’s going to be what one wants it to be.
Jen St. Jude
I think there have been times in my life—especially when I was younger but even now—when I’ve realized something about myself that feels big, and there’s this swell of emotions and focus. For example, when I realized I’m nonbinary a few years ago, it felt like an internal hurricane, and like I needed the world to see me and if it didn’t, it would be crushing. And somehow a failure on my part.
Eventually I realized many people won’t see me the way I want them to and it kind of doesn’t matter. After the waves of angst and fear, the tides went back out. I’m just floating along more peacefully. There is something incredibly powerful about being curious about yourself and your stories, even if there are storms to weather to reach stiller waters. Even if the discoveries are only for yourself and the people who love you most.
Mandana Chaffa
Jen, I also appreciate the conditional nature of the title. I think that “If” is especially important: to the story, and as shading of Avery’s experience of her life at the beginning and at the end; and maybe even a hint to your own perspective about the world, as it is, and as it can be.
Jen St. Jude
It’s funny you should use the word conditional because the title was inspired by Ada Limón’s poem, “The Conditional.” I read it one New Year’s Eve and was struck by how closely the poem’s final image mirrored my novel’s final image (spoiler alert), and sent it to my mentors at the time, Kelly Quindlen and Adrienne Tooley. In the same moment they had the same thought: What if the first line, “Say tomorrow doesn’t come,” read a little differently? It felt so perfect and I’m so happy it’s made it through to publication. I’m not sure if my second book’s placeholder title will hold the same sticking power, but I returned to Limón work again to find it, this time in “Instructions on Not Giving Up.”
Mandana Chaffa
Jen, the nuanced, sensitive exploration of Avery’s queerness is an important part of this book, depicting her experiences around belonging in community as well as her own self-acceptance. This speaks deeply to what young people are dealing with now, in exceptionally fraught political and societal times.
Jen St. Jude
Although society has come a long way since when I was in high school in terms of representation and acceptance of queer people, that only goes so far for kids living in homophobic environments. Sure, they can dream of something different when they’re older, but they still have to live through their day-to-day wanting to be loved and included just like everyone else. What I wanted to communicate with Avery’s story is that you can know in your heart being queer isn’t bad but if you’re in an environment that is relentlessly telling you it is, it’s still scary. It’s still hard. You still feel like you have everything to lose.
“If the world had to end, everything would be right. We would all be with the people we loved most. In a warm place. Wrapped in delicate quiet.”
Mandana Chaffa
This line struck me deeply, Jen. Throughout human history there have been threats of the world ending; there still are. One of the things addressed in this novel is what we don’t actively want to think about: being the survivor if all those we love are lost. In Avery’s case, how it’s harder to imagine saving the self—that she is worth saving.
Jen St. Jude
Yes, I think Avery values her friends and family so much and so deeply. She sees their humanity easily. She would do anything for them to live. It’s a much harder thing for her to see it in herself, but over the course of these 9 days she finally arrives. I’m not someone who thinks, either, that we must always be living for ourselves only. Sometimes if the only reason you have to keep living is someone else, that’s OK. Our lives are often longer than 9 days. There is time for many reasons, we just need at least one at all times.
Mandana Chaffa
What is the tour for the book going to be like? What are you looking forward to?
Jen St. Jude
It’s kind of like a homecoming! After an isolating few years, I just really wanted to use it as an excuse to see a lot of people. I’ll be doing an event here in Chicago, where I live, on May 10th at Women & Children First with my dear friend Jas Hammonds, the author of We Deserve Monuments. In New Hampshire, I’ll be in conversation with more friends, Kate Fussner (The Song of Us) and Sacha Lamb (When the Angels Left the Old Country). I’m also having a private party in New York just because a lot of my close friends live there, and because I wanted to say thank you to my terrific publishing team. I am so grateful for all the people who have supported me in this decade-long dream.
Mandana Chaffa
What advice would you give to those wanting to break through in this field?
Jen St. Jude
I think celebrating other people—your peers, favorite authors, people just starting out—is incredibly important. And maybe that sounds simple, but I think most people (myself included) have to do a lot of internal work to do this sincerely and without jealousy. But that work is worth it. It’s how I’ve met some of my best writing friends, just reading their work, loving it, telling them about it. It’s been the biggest joy in my life, too. To return to my Catapult essay, connecting with other writers and readers has been the number one most rewarding part of this whole experience.
Mandana Chaffa
It seems rude to already be looking into the future—savor all of this now!—but what are you working on?
Jen St. Jude
My next book—whose working title is The Breakers Take it All—is currently on track to be published in 2025 from Bloomsbury. It’s about a hot-headed soccer player, climate change, and the fragile and yet enduring nature of friendship. And it’s gay, of course.
Mandana Chaffa
Bonus question: What are your favorite Chicago spaces, literary or otherwise? What shouldn’t people miss when they visit?
Jen St. Jude
Chicago is my favorite city and the independent bookstore scene is EVERYTHING. Women & Children First is iconic; every time I’m in the store I dream about living there. Never leaving. Semicolon Bookstore is an excellent BIPOC-focused store and gallery doing fantastic work, and other favorites are City Lit Books,Unabridged Bookstore, and Volumes. I have not been yet but I’ve also heard incredible things about Exile in Bookville, and can’t wait to check out Understudy. I live in the suburbs now, too, so I’m a massive fan of Anderson’s (so excited for their YA Midwest event in June!) and The Book Table. I also want to shout out Story Studio—if you’re a Chicago-based writer of any level you must check them out. Every class or program I’ve attended there was more than worth my while, and they have lots of virtual events as well.
And last but not least, I want to mention two other local YA authors debuting this year: Alex Crespo (San Juniper’s Folly) and Miranda Sun (If I Have to be Haunted).
FICTION
If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come
By Jen St. Jude
Bloomsbury YA
Published May 9, 2023