Tanya Byrne on Queer Joy and Climate Justice in Rebel Hearts
Author Tanya Byrne shares the story behind her new YA novel Rebel Hearts
Guest post written by Tanya Byrne, author of Rebel Hearts.
When I moved to Brighton in 2017, I was a fundraiser for Greenpeace. That might be the most Brighton sentence ever uttered, but in a town where anything goes but gluten, what can I say? But then that attitude – that heart – is one of the reasons I moved here. I’m queer, so when I came out, I know most people thought that living in Brighton was part of that rebirth. But I was born in London and spent forty years there, so I was hardly fleeing somewhere I didn’t feel safe in favour of somewhere I could make a new life among people who would accept me.
If anything, Brighton is London by the Sea, a moniker its earned because it doesn’t feel that different from London. It’s just as cosmopolitan. As energetic. But if you spend more than a weekend here, you’ll know it’s more of a naughty younger sibling. Restless and rebellious. Mutinous and mischievous. Brighton has an independence, not just of thought, but of spirit as well. And I didn’t feel that more than when I was working for Greenpeace.
What surprised me most about my time there was how young everyone was. Yeah, there were the handful of grey haired, sparkly eyed anarchists who’d been members since the 60s, but everyone else was in their late teens and twenties. In a university town like Brighton, that’s to be expected, I suppose, but they could have worked anywhere and they chose to work for Greenpeace.
It was a joy to be a part of, the old guard and the new joining forces. And that’s what inspired my new novel, Rebel Hearts. It’s about Ren and Pearl who, like the young people I worked with at Greenpeace, are fighting for climate justice, even though it feels like the world is burning and they’re the only ones pointing at it yelling, FIRE.
However, they have very different approaches. Pearl is firmly Team Empathy. She believes that you have to meet people where they are. Reason with them. Convince them that there are still ways to curb the climate crisis or at least mitigate it. But Ren says that we’ve tried that and it hasn’t worked. Her mother has been fighting the good fight since she was Ren’s age and nothing’s changed. So, we’re out of time, she says. Our only option is to make people listen. Disrupt them. Derail them. Get in their way because if they’re mad, they’re paying attention.
Needless to say, the pair fiercely disagree with each other’s methods. Ren doesn’t think Pearl is doing enough. And Pearl thinks Ren is damaging the cause. So when they’re forced to spend the summer together at a remote farm in the South Downs, sparks fly.
They’re brought together by a woman called Melody Munroe who was one of the first influencers. She ushered in the era of clothing haul and empties videos and is now trying to repent by taking up the cause with Ren and Pearl. However, when the pair begin to question her motives, they’re forced to ask themselves if Melody is fighting to save the planet or fighting to stop the glut of new influencers from stealing her followers.
Influencers weren’t a thing when I was a teenager so I’m fascinated by the culture and wanted to write a story about the difference between activism and influence and whether the two work for or in conflict with one another. More than that, though, I wanted to acknowledge that teenagers are being forced to live with decisions they didn’t even make but are told that they’re being hysterical or disruptive when they speak up about it.
When I started writing Rebel Hearts, I had no idea how prescient this story would be. With everything going on in the world right now, I hope young people read it and when they see what Ren and Pearl are trying to do, it will give them the courage to speak up as well, because it’s not too late. I know it feels like it is. How can it not when rights that took decades to earn are being taken away with such gleeful ease? But what Fannie Lou Hamer said in 1971 is as relevant today as it was then: nobody’s free until everybody’s free so we have to keep fighting.
