“There’s no being free on the outside without being free on the inside,” proclaims the Mighty Matthias in Venessa Vida Kelley’s lush and luminous debut novel, "When the Tides Held the Moon." The themes of freedom, agency, self-empowerment, community and resilience play out in a nostalgia-tinged kaleidoscope in this historic romantasy set in 1911 Coney Island. Reminiscent of Michael Chabon’s "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and the romantic comedy "Splash," this book is its own unique creation.

"When the Tides Held the Moon" tells the story of a young Puerto Rican immigrant who leverages his skills shaping metal to find work in a foundry in early 20th century New York. Benny unwittingly builds a tank that has an astonishing purpose — it will hold an actual merman stolen from the banks of the East River. Impressed by Benny’s skill and artistry, sideshow impresario Sam Morgan invites Benny to join his crew.

This new position isn’t without unforeseen benefits. Not only is Benny now away from the smoke and heat of the foundry that inflamed his asthma, Benny who is an orphan, finds himself becoming part of the Morgan’s Menagerie family of sideshow performers. Kelley paints the Menagerie as fully integrated people trying to find their place in the world. “Aren’t we all fish out of water?” they ask.

The greatest revelation is the merman, whom Benny names Rio. Rio is far more than a mythological creature; he’s a philosopher, a poet, a linguist, and more beautiful and compassionate than anyone Benny has ever met. Morgan assigns Benny to Rio’s care, and as they get to know one another, their friendship deepens into love.

While Rio appears to have a dual nature, it’s actually Benny who is split down the center. “Benny is trying so hard to become an integrated, whole individual after having been fractured by a combination of colonialism, racism, and internalized homophobia,” Kelly says.

As Benny begins to heal, Rio’s condition worsens. Benny realizes Rio cannot survive in the tank, but freeing him has major consequences. Can Benny betray his new found family and the show that supports them all in order to set Rio — and himself — free at last?

If Kelley’s name or their art seems familiar it’s because their drawings of queer romance characters have been widely shared online. Particularly beloved was their fan art of Alex and Prince Henry, the heroes of "Red, White, and Royal Blue" by Casey McQuiston. In fact, their original fan art gained so much popularity it led to a Cinderella moment when a special anniversary edition of the book was announced.

“It was actually Casey themself who made it happen. They were familiar with my work through all the fan art I had drawn, and when the inquiry came up about who should draw the endpapers, Casey said there was ‘no question who should do it.’ They volunteered my name and their editor reached out,” Kelley recalls. Other illustration opportunities appeared when an agent approached them after discovering their online web comic.

Fans of Kelley’s might be surprised to learn that they have a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature with a concentration in film. That education came in handy when Kelly drew a young man in period dress pressing a kiss to a tank that held a merman. “The questions immediately began to emerge,” they say. “Who is the young man? How did the merman get captured?” They followed the trail of images straight to the story. “It felt like the story existed apart from me, I was just the pen,” Kelley says.

This scene is recreated in the book, which features Kelley’s gorgeous art on the cover, the end papers, and in 27 two-color illustrations. “I wanted to create a book that feels like something you’d purchase in 1911,” Kelley says. She pitched W"hen the Tides Held the Moon" as a time-capsule of a book, complete with illustrations. “I was super shocked when Erewhon asked, ‘How do you envision this?’ I couldn’t be happier.”

The book draws on the confluence of events that occurred in 1911. It was a fast-paced, tumultuous time of great change in New York City, referred to as the Gilded Age. Great buildings were going up, women were demanding suffrage, immigration was at an all-time high, the industrial age was in full swing, and new technologies were being invented.

They based the events that happen in the book on actual historical events, “although in the real world they didn’t have supernatural causes,” Kelley laughed. The historic New York City heatwave of 1911 was particularly inspiring. “I realized this heatwave happened because the sea stopped issuing a breeze. I thought, wouldn’t that be a fitting punishment for stealing a merman from the ocean?”

Kelley’s research took place online while trapped during the height of COVID-19. The keepers of New York history happily shared their knowledge. “This book took a village and there were a lot of people who were passionate about the story I wanted to tell and wanted to set me up for success,” Kelley says.

Drawing from these rich resources, Kelley’s writing illuminates the period with the tastes and textures of the time while vividly describing what it meant to live through it. “Stories of resilience let us find the resilience within ourselves — it’s built into our DNA. We’ve been here before and we can figure out how to make it to the other side again. That’s the thing that accidentally got me into the lane of a historical romantasy writer, the comfort from looking into the past. Mutual aid was possible in 1911 and it looked like a sideshow.”

Sometimes freedom can originate from the most unexpected places.