Sex and politics make us dirty: Peter Cameron
Writing without filters, dirty minds, clean pages: conversation with American writer Peter Cameron about sex, shame, and the stories we hide
Interview with Peter Cameron
Our lives are never smooth, they are edgy, difficult, rough. Peter Cameron’s work often dwells in the corners of human experience, where people stumble through life not as polished archetypes but as real, complex beings—messy, hopeful, uncertain.
Interview with Peter Cameron: the meaning of roughness in literature and life
DM: In a world obsessed with filters and smoothness, what does roughness mean to you?
Peter Cameron: Roughness is about conflict. Relationships are rough and are not progressing smoothly. When things are smooth and there’s no conflict, there’s no story there. Roughness is perceived as the bad guy but our lives are turbulent and rough both physically and mentally.
DM: Do you feel dirty?
Peter Cameron: I feel dirty either because I’ve done things that I wish I hadn’t or if I’m in situations that don’t reflect a good part of myself. When we are not proud of ourselves and where situations or life has forced us to do things that challenged our sense of ourselves. We are good people, but suddenly it can happen that we find ourselves doubting that. It can be humbling, but also upsetting, when we realize that we are not that good.
Peter Cameron on being gay, writing, and identity in fiction
DM: You have stated: “I was a gay teenager in a small town on the fringes of the country. I suffered a strong loneliness and I was unhappy”.
Peter Cameron: It’s hard to know why I became a writer. A lot of being a good writer consists of being interested, observing and trying to understand others. If you feel lonely, you try to figure out how you fit in or you don’t fit in among others. Being a lonely teenager can give you skills that help you, as a writer, try to understand what others are thinking.
I felt free to write about gay people. I came out in my fiction before I came out in my real life. I’ve always felt that my sexual identity is only an aspect of my life. When I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s if you were gay you were identified as gay and people thought you had to write gay books. In bookstores there’s not a section for heterosexual books. Why do we think that gay books are separate or should be separated? I’ve tried not to let my sexual identity dominate in my books but at the same time I’ve tried to be honest and open. There are some gay characters because I feel like in life there’s lots of gay people around and so they should be in books. But they don’t always have to be the subject of the book. Gay people have problems just like everybody.
DM: In your book What Happens at Night, one of the characters – the old and kinda crazy Livia Pinheiro-Rima – states We are all a bit homosexual.
Peter Cameron: Sexuality is something we want to categorize and define, but if you’re alive and attracted to people it seems natural that you would be attracted to many different kinds of people. Some people are predominantly heterosexual, and some are predominantly homosexual and then there’s a lot of room in between. There are people who have one homosexual experience in their lives and then never again or people who go back and forth or people who are exclusively one or the other. That’s what is intriguing to me.
Queer representation in literature: Peter Cameron’s perspective
DM: What do you think about queer representations in contemporary literature?
Peter Cameron: When I was growing up, there was very little representation of queer people in films, television, or any area of popular culture. That absence was a major reason I often felt deeply alone — I couldn’t see myself or my sexuality reflected anywhere. It was as if I didn’t exist. Today the visibility helps people understand they’re not alone. Playwrights like Tennessee Williams, who had to write plays about heterosexuals — but there’s something very gay about the sensibility of those plays. Queer people have historically adapted themselves to fit into a predominantly heterosexual culture.
Interview with Peter Cameron: timeless adolescence and viral books
DM: It’s almost twenty years since you wrote Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. After almost two decades still so many young people find themselves in it. So much that it’s one of the most viral books on BookTok.
Peter Cameron: The book is set in 2003 so that’s twenty-two years ago now. In a lot of my books it’s sort of vague when they’re set, and there’s not a lot of attention paid to current events or contemporary things. But in Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You there’s a date almost on every page — July 2003. I thought this book is going to become dated and young people will not relate to it. It’s the same with The Catcher in the Rye. There are some things about being young and being an adolescent and struggling that are sort of eternal: confusion, loneliness, the struggle to find yourself.
Peter Cameron on dating apps, technology, and generational shifts
DM: Today, relationships between young people, but not only, are born or pass through chat rooms and dating apps. Love, connection, and even sex have become virtual — with sexting and platforms like OnlyFans becoming part of the landscape.
Peter Cameron: There’s a difference between sexting and having sex but in some ways, it’s fulfilling the same psychological and physical needs. I admire older people who embrace contemporary culture. I’m impressed when someone of an older generation is fluent in technology or open to change because once you stop keeping up, it’s easy to feel disconnected. I don’t know what it’s like to be young today but I respect the ways people are navigating it. I avoid thinking things were necessarily better back then. When I began working, everyone went into the office five days a week. That daily, in-person interaction was our professional and social life. Now, many work from home and communicate via Zoom.
I’m concerned about censorship. I’m very concerned about discrimination against trans people in the United States. Once you start marginalizing and going after one group of people, it’s very easy to start targeting others. Protest is one thing we can all do — and the one thing the administration is trying to discourage. To the extent that I can, I want to keep doing it.
Peter Cameron on media, censorship and banned books in the U.S.
DM: It’s also different the narrative of the protests that the government or some media is doing versus what people are sharing on social media. On TikTok or Instagram we see people participating in the protest, marching and walking and being peaceful. They’re smiling and they’re completely fine, then you see the national news — there seems to be civil war in the streets.
Peter Cameron: We’re not so trusting of the media anymore, which, being owned by corporations, can be very misleading. When you have a place like Instagram where people can reflect their own experience, you get a sense of how complex situations are. In the United States the administration is also trying to take books out of libraries and ban them. They’re so afraid of books that they want to ban them. It’s funny, because people don’t pay much attention to books normally and then all of a sudden, they say: “oh well, we don’t want children to read these books because they’re dangerous”. Books are what make us sympathetic to other people. Librarians are working hard to keep books accessible for children and young readers.
Interview with Peter Cameron: adoption, parenthood and gender equality
DM: In What Happens at Night a couple travels to a remote and desolate country to adopt a child. In Italy we are a bit behind on the whole issue of adoption or gestation for others. Recently, however, there was a landmark ruling. The Consulta ruled that it is unconstitutional to prohibit the recognition of a child, born in Italy through medically assisted procreation (MAP) practiced abroad, by both mothers of a same-sex couple. However, this does not apply to fathers.
Peter Cameron: Gender should play no role in our legal systems and there’s no reason to discriminate or to differentiate between men and women as parents.
DM: Men have always had fewer rights when talking about childcare.
Peter Cameron: One of the reasons why men are often thought of as inferior parents is because their role as a parent is not taken as seriously as a mother’s role and so they haven’t been allowed to be as responsible parents as women.
DM: It’s still more common to see a single mother than a single father.
Peter Cameron: That’s changing with the advances we’re making in biology and technology. There are different ways to become pregnant now than there used to be and that is changing the culture around it. I’ve thought about adopting. Maybe because I’m a writer, but I feel like the satisfaction I would get from having a child I get from writing books. It has to do with being selfish too. I’m aware of what a responsibility it takes to be a good parent. I’ve never felt like I had that amount to give to another person.
Peter Cameron on solitude and the writing life
DM: Do you embrace the loneliness the being a writer sometimes requires?
Peter Cameron: I do.Peter Cameron is an American novelist and short story writer known for his quiet, precise explorations of human vulnerability and connection. His works include Coral Glynn, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, and The City of Your Final Destination. Cameron’s writing often dwells in moments of introspection, uncertainty, and the quiet complexities of everyday life. In Italy, all his work is published by Adelphi.
