Its frank representation-a biracial first family, an openly trans Secret Service agent-and mix of romantic charm and political optimism offer a salve to today’s fraught climate. It’s honest in a way that resonates in an era where more and more millennials are openly discussing their mental health issues.Īs for Red, White & Royal Blue’s success, McQuiston thinks the book is a lightning strike of right place, right time, right story. Yet it’s also a highly specific story-a queer romance as interested in flirty Snapchats as it is in addressing its characters’ struggles with anxiety and depression. It’s pure rom-com, down to its enemies-to-lovers premise and the bubblegum pink of its cover. Set in a reality where the United States elected a female Democrat to the presidency in 2016, the novel follows the secret romance between first son Alex Claremont-Diaz and British royalty Prince Henry.
That’s probably why Red, White & Royal Blue became the year’s surprise best seller and the so-called book of the summer. “My brand is writing super of-the-moment books,” she says. Case in point: a party scene set to Lil Jon’s “Get Low,” featuring “that guy from Stranger Things” and a nameless actress “from the new Spider-Man movies.” But this is what it means to be 28-year-old McQuiston, who worked in magazine publishing before writing her book.
It also shows in the hyper-specificity of her debut novel, Red, White & Royal Blue, a romantic comedy with a distinctly 2019 sensibility, thanks to the near relentlessness of its pop-culture references. It shows in the way she speaks about cancel culture, Twitter reply guys, and the eternal bingeability of Parks and Recreation in the span of one conversation. Casey McQuiston is a child of the internet, and it shows.
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