Candice Carty-Williams made waves with her debut novel, Queenie, capturing a generation's struggles with identity, relationships, and mental health. Now, nearly a decade later, she's brought back her iconic protagonist in Queenie is Working on It, in which she navigates fertility concerns, career changes, and the messy realities of life in your thirties. Here, Carty-Williams shares what it was like to revisit a beloved character while tackling difficult conversations, and why some stories deserve a second chapter (or maybe more).
Tricia Ford: Nearly 10 years have passed since we first met Queenie. What made this the right time to return to her story? Was there a specific moment when you realised you had more to say about her life?
Candice Carty-Williams: I always knew that I’d return to Queenie and her world, but that I’d do it only when the time was right. I knew that, at 25, I’d put her through some traumatic things in order for her to deal with her own trauma, and that I didn’t just want to put a character I cared about through sticky situations just for the sake of it. I wouldn’t have enjoyed that, or believed it. And so, bringing her back at 33, when she was older and a bit sturdier, I could put her through her paces again.
Plus, I am also older. I know more. I’ve seen more, felt more, done more. When I wrote Queenie in my twenties, it was my way of 25-year-old me working things out. Now that I’m in my thirties, not much has changed. I still need to process things in a creative and expansive way. Queenie might not be my life, but through her I can navigate my way through parts of it that might apply to me through this character and the characters around her.
The tagline "Bigger. Not better. Older. Not wiser" is painfully relatable. How did you balance showing Queenie's professional growth while keeping her authentically messy in her personal life?
I think Queenie’s mess comes easily to me, honestly. I think that I also am smarter now that I’m older (hopefully, anyway), and so actually it was just easier to balance the scales narratively of how much I wanted Queenie to try her hardest to keep spinning the plates of her life while ultimately realising that she was going to slide back into some of her worse habits and her more challenging ways of dealing with what she was finding hard.
Especially for audiobook listeners who experience Queenie's voice so intimately through their headphones, can you talk about how you approached her internal dialogue in this book? Has her inner voice matured, or is she still having those same catastrophising spirals we loved (and cringed at) in the first book?
Ha. Honestly speaking, I allow Queenie to take me where she wants me to go, and this time around, while she’s advanced emotionally, those spirals will always be a part of how her mind works, and I really, really love writing them. Because she is smart, is the thing, but how she sees herself means that she will often free-fall back into a place of fear. I think that this time around I experienced her feelings more? And while she is someone who is still trying to live life as a Strong Black Woman who doesn’t cry, it felt impossible to stay in that emotional place.
The fertility storyline feels particularly timely. What drew you to explore this specific pressure on women in their thirties? How did you navigate the nuances of someone coming to terms with the reality that they’re not even sure they want what society says they should want?
I think I’ve been experiencing it myself for a long time! My family are bored of asking if I’m going to have kids and know my position by now, but it probably won’t surprise you to know how many people ask a woman in her thirties upon meeting if they have children, and if not, why not. While I’m not up for having children of my own, and being quite aware of why, I know that a lot of women when they reach their early thirties haven’t even considered it yet. We all think we have more time, I believe, until the outside world suddenly starts reminding you that you don’t. So, I thought, "You know who can navigate this while, in her own way, helping others to understand what the actuality of this pressure, and of navigating fertility issues, could be? Queenie."
The West Indian family dynamics, particularly with her mom, grandma, and Aunt Maggie, continue to be such a vibrant part of Queenie's world. How do those relationships shift now that Queenie is in her thirties? Does being older change the advice she's willing to take?
I think it changes the advice she’s willing to take because she doesn’t have that stubbornness and know-it-all that comes with being in her mid-twenties anymore. When she was 25, Queenie was running from everything while believing that she knew everything. How does that even work? Now, she is open to listening and learning because learning what she has learned about her own body means she knows she needs help. And knows now that there are things life throws at you that you can’t hold in anymore, because it does more damage than good. So, while there has been some learning, there’s always more to take in. Queenie is also looking at these women not just as family members, but as mothers. She’s also looking at them as women who might not have wanted to become mothers, but stepped into that role.
The first book resonated so deeply that Queenie became "real" to many readers and listeners. On top of that is the television adaptation that introduced Queenie to a whole new audience. What's it like writing a sequel when your character has taken on a life beyond the page?
It felt nice to take her back, actually. I felt like she belonged to me again, after years of talking on Zoom and in meeting rooms about what she was doing and what she should or shouldn’t be doing. It was just the two of us again, and I really felt at home with her this time around. I always love how invested people feel in Queenie, though. And it’s a huge compliment that she feels so real. I always wanted her to be as relatable as possible despite being a creation.
Without committing anything, do you see this as the end of Queenie's story, or is she the kind of character who could keep aging with us through different stages of life?
I will always want to write Queenie, and not just because she helps me to navigate my inner world and the things I face as someone similar to her on paper, but because I really love the people around her. While Queenie is work, writing her, her family, friends, lovers, and enemies never feels like work to me. It’s a world I can get totally absorbed in. Plus, there’s still so much for her to experience. Marriage? Divorce? Cheating? Death? Children in some form? As I navigate life I believe that I will always need her to navigate through it all. Even if it doesn’t make it onto the page (or onto audio), I’ll probably write it for myself.
For listeners who connected with twenty-something Queenie's chaos, what do you want them to know about spending time with thirty-something Queenie? What can they look forward to in this audio journey?
First of all, they can look forward to the return of Shvorne Marks bringing this huge cast of characters back, and in such an intuitive way. It was amazing to spend Shvorne’s first day of recording just chatting about where Queenie is now, but also where she is, and where I am. We’ve all grown up, and I feel like that means we, and the listeners and readers, are still on a journey together. I also think that this book is a lot funnier than the last one, but is also much racier, so I would encourage listening with headphones.
