‘I had a pure impulse to write a horny lesbian novel’: K Patrick on their steamy debut, Mrs S

K Patrick’s dazzling debut ‘Mrs S’ won them a place on the prestigious Granta Young British Novelists list. They talk to Helen Brown about gender, sex scenes and the Brontë sisters

K Patrick: ‘The sex was the most important part of the book' (Alice Zoo)

The sex?” nods K Patrick, earnestly. “Oh, the sex was the most important part of the book for me. Sapphic literature too often gets trapped behind metaphor so I wanted to be direct. Truthful. I had a very pure impulse to write a horny lesbian novel. Then it became more emotionally complicated…”

The novel in question is the ridiculously steamy Mrs S, a literary debut so striking it scored 38-year-old Patrick a place on Granta’s reliably era-defining list of Best of Young British Novelists, before it was even published. Initial reports incorrectly announced Patrick as “the first non-binary author” to appear on the list. “I don’t know where that came from,” they shrug, “because I’m not non-binary. I’m actually the first trans-masculine person to be on the list. It’s been exhausting. Because I get asked about it a lot. We all know why I’m the first and that’s not a good thing.” Another, wearier shrug. “But it’s also important, so not something I want to shy away from either. Do we need to talk about it?”

I think it might be a good idea to talk about it a bit, later on, because Mrs S shines such a beautiful light into the dark, secret corners of queerness and gender fluidity. It’s set in an exclusive old girls’ boarding school where the pupils ritually kiss the bust of a celebrated Dead Author, who was also a former pupil. Their 22-year-old narrator is a butch, binder-wearing matron who develops an intense crush on the headmaster’s perfumed, fortysomething wife.