We hear Florida is a wild place, a fun park-shaped peninsula where, bad news, alligators can apparently climb walls. The literature of Florida is similarly outlandish: Karen Russell, Carl Hiassen, Tim Dorsey—all writers who seem to be having far more fun than most.
Add to the list Kristen Arnett, whose Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One is a rollercoaster, both a serious study of humor, grief, and the full rainbow of love and a red clown nose-honk of a book that delivers on its own gag by being funny, too.
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One is the story of Cherry Hendricks, a young professional clown who takes her art very seriously—even if no one else seems in on the joke. The rest of Cherry’s life is in shambles: a family decimated by the loss of Cherry’s brother, a dead-end job at a failing pet store where even the friendship of a fellow outsider can’t quite sustain her. A love life that mostly consists of hitting on everyone’s moms. When Cherry encounters Margot the Magnificent, an older lesbian who spins real magic, Cherry has to decide what she truly wants from both her art and her future.
This is Arnett’s third novel. Her prior books, With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things, have earned her bestselling status and Lambda Literary Award notice as well as—surely a bucket-list item— making her a “Jeopardy!” clue. She lives in Central Florida.
I talked to Kristen by email about Florida, ambition, and taking fun absolutely seriously.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Lori Rader-Day:
Cherry Hendricks has naked ambition for her art—clowning. Some people might balk at the idea of clowning being “art.” Why clowning? Did you grapple with taking Cherry’s art as seriously as she has to, in order to write this book?
Kristen Arnett:
Since I’m from Orlando—third-generation Central Floridian—I’m really used to the idea that people come to a place for entertainment and simultaneously consider it tacky, or specifically “unserious” when it comes to art. We have a lot of performers here, due to the hospitality and tourism industry, and the fact of the matter is that there are so many different kinds of art here that it’s an embarrassment of riches: dance, theater, music, food, etc. You name it, we probably have it in abundance down here. The clown, for me, became a real symbol of the preconceived ideas that people bring into a space. Even inside of performance, there are hierarchies that exist. I wanted my protagonist to be a kind of underdog, someone who knows that what they make is vitally important to the world, but also understands that people despise them for that love and don’t necessarily “get” what’s being made or why it should matter. It also gave me a lot of pleasure to write about the “clown” from this kind of vantage point. It allowed me to have a lot of fun with the writing process, because it’s always very exciting to write from the perspective of someone who is happily obsessed with their work. Their joy naturally rubs off on you! Cherry is a great time and it felt exhilarating to write from her perspective because of that natural optimism and good humor.
Lori Rader-Day:
Why is ambition important for you to write about? We’re not supposed to admit to being ambitious… Do you consider yourself an ambitious person? (I do.)
Kristen Arnett:
I think ambition is a fascinating topic, mostly because I think it can be construed in so many different ways. For instance, Cherry is incredibly ambitious when it comes to clowning, but I wouldn’t necessarily say she’s ambitious in other aspects of her life. She doesn’t care about “work,” but she cares about art. That’s where her ambition lies (complimentary). There have definitely been characters that I’ve written that skew in the other direction, too. Sammie from my last novel (With Teeth) has a real lack of ambition, and that aimlessness kind of defines who she is as a person. Because she refuses to make any decisions, her life repeats itself in toxic cycles. Her lack of ambition makes her feel adrift. My first novel featured a woman who was obsessed with taxidermy, an ambition she took from her father, who used to run their family-owned store before he died. In that case, it’s familial ambition. I do consider myself to be ambitious, but I try to think about it from the perspective that I’m always trying to be a better artist than I was the day before. I want each project to build on the one that came before, to make me feel as though I’ve grown into a different shape as a writer. I think ambition can be construed as something corporate, or something that has to do with capitalism, but ambition also has to do with the self and personal growth. How we challenge ourselves on a daily basis. That’s a very good thing!
Lori Rader-Day:
We’re also not supposed to take fun so seriously, either. Can you talk a bit about your commitment to writing funny, weird, wild? And, of course, gay?
Kristen Arnett:
Life consists of all different modes of being, and one of the big, important ones is joy. The thing that makes writing exciting and fun for me is the element of play and levity. I want to try out something new and different each time I sit down. I want to feel surprised and wowed by something, to genuinely get a kick out of the concept my brain decided to construct. Don’t get me wrong, I think my work often contains the opposite side of that coin, too—grief, trauma, loss. Also mundanity, which is a part of all of our daily lived existence. I want to create on the page what it feels to be a human being, and that means holding all of those things, simultaneously. It’s a very gay state, Florida, and that’s something that people forget! Performers are all pretty gay, so Central Florida is specifically hella gay.
Lori Rader-Day:
Why is Florida the perfect place to write from and about?
Kristen Arnett:
I mean, I could talk about my home state all day! Let’s be serious, how could I possibly write about Florida and not have it turn feral? It’s a place that refuses to be pinned down, full of fecund life and wildness, and also jam packed with absurdity. I am never bored here and it makes for perfect scene building! Indoor and outdoor combine to form one monstrous, gorgeous creature. Super saturated with color and fun and queerness. It’s such a physical place, I think. It refuses to let you forget that it’s always present. No matter what else is going on, Florida will make itself known. Lizards everywhere underfoot, plant life bursting through concrete. It’s so damn alive. Hard not to be charmed by all that!
Lori Rader-Day:
There are a couple of short lines that caught my attention: Cherry thinks, “I lose myself. That’s the price I pay for art.” The story seems, to me, about Cherry finding a balance. Can you talk about how you have seen this—the loss, the balancing act—play out, in your art or for others?
Kristen Arnett:
For many people, balance is an awfully hard thing to keep in check. And I don’t even mean work-life balance (which has been getting the contemporary satirical shoutout in media right now, especially from shows like Severance). Trying to move through life while making art that fulfills means taking time away from something else, something that’s likely important. It can mean sacrificing romantic relationships and even friendships, if you’re not careful.
Finding balance also means discovering what it is you’re actually supposed to make. If you aren’t balanced when it comes to creative acts, then it’s likely you’re not pursuing the thing that’s meant for you. In Cherry’s life, it means that she gets so hyper-focused on the thing that she’s already made that she’s unable to see ways that change might actually bring about real and satisfying discoveries about herself and about her work. In order to make change, we have to be flexible, which means achieving a level of equilibrium.
Lori Rader-Day:
Some of Cherry’s clown knowledge is pretty poignant. I was struck by her point about how the court jester served the king, not the whole court, and was often joking at other people’s expense—that joking could be cruel. In that realization, she recognizes the humor of her deceased brother, even though she idolized him. Is that a lesson you’ve had to come to, yourself? How do you make sure your humor cut the way you wanted it to, not cruelly?
Kristen Arnett:
Speaking of balance, I think this is another example of having to learn how to do something without pushing it all in a single direction. Many people learn to “joke” around at a young age by either making fun of themselves or by making fun of other people. I know that for myself, I got my start indulging in a lot of self-deprecating humor. A big part of that was the fact that I was gay and I was stressed and unhappy about it; I came from a very conservative household and being gay made my life really hard. I handled a lot of it by making jokes about myself, which allowed me to process a lot of my baggage. However, as time passed, I was able to develop a better sense of who I was and what I wanted out of life. I think with time and distance, we’re able to understand that humor can reflect a lot more about us than it does the audience. If I ever felt bad about a joke after I told it—and I mean even a week later, or a month later—then I examined what it is that made me feel that way. There’s not really a need to be cruel to myself (and absolutely not to anyone else) if I’m doing the joke the way that I really want to do it.
Lori Rader-Day:
When Cherry witnesses protestors getting rough over a children’s story hour led by a drag artist (another artist in makeup!), she thinks about how hard it is to be queer in a place that won’t protect her. She ends up saying, “If there’s no joy, then what’s the point?” What do you want readers to take away from this moment and this book?
Kristen Arnett:
I truly hope that readers get a sense of satisfaction and delight from reading this book. If a reader at any moment gets one single laugh out of it, then I’ll really feel like I did my job well here. There is enough horror and sadness in the world right now—I know that will be present in my art no matter what I make—but I also want readers to understand that pleasure can sit right there alongside it. If we don’t allow joy to exist, then we’re smothering the light in favor of perpetuating the darkness. I hope readers see that clown can mean a lot of things. I hope they leave with a sense of renewed creativity and want to make some work on their own, too. That would be wonderful.
FICTION
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One
By Kristen Arnett
Riverhead Books
Published March 18, 2025
