Florida is a land of dueling identities. It’s home to white, sandy beaches and alligator-infested swamps alike. It’s a state that is simultaneously a dreamy tropical getaway and one hurricane away from total obliteration. And Then the Gray Heaven, a novella by RE Katz, leans all the way into Florida’s fractured sense of self, deploying its backdrop to expertly blend pleasure and pain. Dealing philosophically and rather practically with an artist’s immortality, as well as the symbiotic relationship between the mind and body, the book is an observant, heartfelt, and darkly comic story of queer love and loss.

Growing up in a transient state within the Florida foster care system, Jules has always struggled with feeling at home anywhere, including inside their own body. They describe a childhood social worker as “[…] the one who took me shopping for my first bathing suit. I remember it because it was one of the first times I thought about what it means to have a body.” Adding to a sense of disconnect from the body is the fact that Jules also suffers from what they call “glitches,” described as dissociative episodes in which their mind travels elsewhere for undetermined lengths of time — a condition they learn to hide in order to be seen as more viable to foster families. Further challenging Jules’s perception of their identity is the existence of two birth certificates in their name, indicating their birth occurred on adjacent dates. “In other words: I was born twice, and both times sucked. So, of course I have always been trying to kill one of me,” Jules explains.

When their long-time partner B is hospitalized following a tragic accident, Jules watches helplessly from the outside as both the hospital and B’s family’s refuse to recognize their relationship. When B finally succumbs to their injuries, Jules is left to mourn alone. Though denied access to B during their final moments, a sympathetic family member eventually presents Jules with two-thirds of B’s cremated remains. Jules then sets off on a mission to honor their memory in a fitting tribute.

Jules teams up with a new friend named Theo and the two hatch a plan to sneak what’s left of B into three museum exhibits around the country featuring B’s artwork, resulting in a tale that at times feels more heist caper than road trip story. The ride itself offers Jules the chance to reflect on their love for B, the challenges they faced expressing themselves as individuals and as a couple, and the strength Jules finds in friends — the “outsiders and queers and radical artists” — they met along the way.

Katz writes shrewdly about Florida throughout, characterizing the state as a place where the young are dying to leave and the old are coming to die. “I survived my childhood of humid horrors,” says Jules, who describes living through the “airbrushing golden days” of helping their foster mom sell tacky souvenirs. They paint a picture of a lonely childhood spent inadvertently photobombing spring breakers while swimming at public pools:

I have appeared in the background of so many vacation photos this way: capsizing in giant black t-shirts. Imagine identical bikini girls in mesh cover ups bobbing on floats with cup holders. I was the oil spill dog paddling behind them. A lot of it is funny. The rest I’ve blocked out.

The Florida Katz creates is a wild space full of dangerous wildlife and brutal weather. But that is also the area’s greatest defense. Briefly summarizing the state’s violent colonialist history, Katz writes:

Florida has a reputation for being both uninhabitable and too overgrown with life. But make no mistake: the precarity of the peninsula is white settler legend. The land is hostile because it is good at fighting for itself against invasion. All of the venom of Florida is purposeful.

With each stop on their tour, Jules examines B’s remaining artistic contributions, now enmeshed with their actual remains. While their work lives on as installations for all to see, their name is never mentioned. In at least one case, Jules considers the absence of B’s name beside their art a blessing: “[…]I realize that the plaque would deadname them forever, so it’s best this way.”

The journey to B’s final resting places is a story about the connection between art and memory, as well as how one’s art can survive an individual life. Throughout the book, Katz chooses to honor the life of other artists as “tributes.” A full chapter is dedicated to a road trip playlist, detailing the personal connection Jules feels to each song. Even the book’s title is a nod to the work of late American poet David Wojnarowicz.

And Then the Gray Heaven packs an outsized punch in its brief pages. Its structure as a novella keeps the reader beside Jules as they process their grief from losing B, simulating a sense of near-real time. The result is a perfect container for a complex, expansive story about love, death, and the competing realities of life in Florida and beyond.

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