CARLEY MOORE: We’ve talked about how, in some ways, Indecent Advances is a collection of grief that you have expertly and vividly stitched together.

JAMES POLCHIN: Yeah, when you said, “It’s really a book of grief,” it made me think about how these cases and these murders have been lost to history and how the book is about making them available. This idea of grief is fascinating because it’s about our own relationship to history. By recovering these cases, we are witnessing them through a contemporary lens that I think is really important, both for the victims, and for the family and friends of these people.

CM: Your book came out around the fiftieth anniversary of Stonewall. Stonewall was a riot and a radical act, but so much of Pride now seems to be about celebration and joy. It strikes me that you can’t always get to joy and celebration until you actually give people a space to mourn or grieve—or, actually, those things could be happening next to each other. But it’s hard sometimes, historically, to do both those things.

JP: For me, in writing this, there was a lot of grief, but also a lot of anger that kind of couples with it. I think you’re right, there is a simmering foundation upon which celebration happens, but I would hope that there’s always a sense of grief and anger underneath. Does this coupling play out in your book?

Read more at Bookforum online