Let Them Stare
by Jonathan Van Ness & Julie Murphy
From bestselling author, queer activist, and Emmy Award-winning TV personality Jonathan Van Ness and #1 NYT bestseller Julie Murphy comes a timely, high-concept young adult novel from a powerhouse team that blends humor and heart to explore themes of queer identity and blooming where one is planted.
LET THEM STARE stars Sully, a gender-nonconforming eighteen-year-old who is ready to get out of their stifling small town of Hearst, PA, and move to the big city for a fashion internship. But when their plans go awry, Sully finds themself stuck in Hearst for the summer. They find solace in their local thrift store, where they discover a vintage bag haunted by the ghost of Rufus, a drag performer from the fifties with no memory of how he died. As Sully helps Rufus unlock his past and move on, they discover there might be more to Hearst than they thought, including a surprising history of queer acceptance.
Available May 20, 2025
“Just like Sully, I know what it’s like to feel trapped in a hometown that doesn’t feel like it has room for someone like me. That’s why I’m so excited to partner with the amazing Julie Murphy to tell this story of finding the extraordinary in perfectly ordinary places and learning how to take up space even in places where you’re certain you don’t belong. I’ve realized that places don’t change without people there to change them. Because queer people have existed everywhere since the beginning of ever, honey.”
“Like Jonathan (and admittedly myself), Sully is the definition of main character energy. Both of us infused so much of our own selves and experiences into Sully’s life and were constantly coming back to the fact that queer people deserve to belong and feel safe everywhere. I think so much of this project originated with what we wanted to impart to our younger selves, but it turned out that our adult selves needed Sully just as much if not more. What started out as such an ambitious idea about a haunted handbag (yes, really!) and queer history is really, at its core, so completely about being human and how that is an experience we all have in common.”