And Then The Gray Heaven

by R.E. Katz

RE Katz’s And Then the Gray Heaven centers on Jules, whose partner B has recently died in a freak accident. Confronting the red tape of the hospital, the dissociation and cruelty of B’s family, and the unimaginable void now at the center of their lives, Jules and new friend Theo embark on a road trip to bury two-thirds of B’s ashes in the places they most belong. Along the way, Katz delves into their relationship and their life stories—Jules’ rise from abandoned baby origins through the Florida foster care system, and B’s artistic transformation, surrounded by kindred spirits who helped them realize it was possible to be regarded as a human and not as a body.

Delving into what it means to try to be alive to your own pain and the pain of others under late capitalism, And Then the Gray Heaven explores the themes of queer grief and affection, queer failure, burial as hero’s journey, and the grotesqueries of artistic determination within and beyond the institutions that define our lives.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Transgender, Literary Fiction, Novella, Contemporary

148 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2021

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is on the Tournament of Books long but not shortlist. It's about a relationship that ends abruptly when B- dies, and their partner is not allowed in the hospital and then is excluded from the family's ceremonies. So they take on a way to commemorate their partner that has to do with their work/art.
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There is a back story of foster care that made me pick it up and I think that feeds into the "found family" element in the book as well. I think the pacing is a bit odd at times but the unevenness also feels like a part of it - the grief, the story, the good parts. It felt unique in many ways, and I'm glad I read it.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite novels of 2022 so far. A nuanced view of dealing with the loss of a loved one, this is elegant and melancholic, but somehow also manages to be clever and funny. I look forward to more from the author.

[yenni m · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this completely. A queer voice that rendered me hopeful for growing old as I am, continuing to evolve into my queer self with beautiful queers around me. Need more queers around me immediately!

There's a space in me that doesn't play out often. I'm reminded of it when I'm touched by grief or stories that pack an oof punch to the gut. I feel oddly aligned and at home with this feeling, rarely get to encounter it.

Adore that this became a living grief-filled adventure. Rarely too do I feel drawn to an author that I want to share a brew with them or go bike shopping or something.

[Diana · Rating 2 out of 5]

flat characters and a story that did a lot of telling and little showing.

[Charlott · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When we die, do we belong to only those who remember us as we knew ourselves? I would say we do, but that's not what history is."

And Then The Gray Heaven follows Jules whose partner B has died unexpectedly in an accident. B's passion had been museum's dioramas which they have built for many places throughout the US. After their death, Jules packs a (borrowed) truck and new friend Theo (also owner of said truck) for a cross-country road trip to some of these places - to leave some of B's ashes.

I struggle to concentrate at the moment, but when I got this slim novel (just over 140 pages) yesterday I read it in one evening. Then The Gray Heaven shows so vividly Jules struggle as B's longterm partner who is not really recognized by B's family and has no legal rights. But while this is part of Jules very specifically queer/ trans reality of loss and grief, the book's focus eventually lies elsewhere: As grief is a powerful form of love, Then The Gray Heaven is an ode to new and old friends and found family, to queer love, to care and support in unexpected places. As Jules recounts in one instance about a friend: "B said Fran was like a stister stepdad to them or some safe thing that straight people don't have a word for, someone looking out for you without being expected to, that queer affection whose namelessness is its power."

This novel while tethered to reality feels fantastical in many places, just like a fun heist movie was swallowed up by the beautiful, quiet prose. It is strange to describe but the blurb uses the phrase "burial as hero’s journey" and it's incredibly fitting to the content and feel of the story.

The title is taken from the book Weight of the Earth by David Wojnarowicz, the artist and activist (who wore the infamous "If I die of aids - forget burial - just drop my body on the steps of the F.D.A."- leather jacket to protests in the 1980s). The paragraph which ends with "And Then The Gray Heaven" begins with the line: "But I know that I want to live." RE Katz draws on this lineage of queer grief, experiences with death - but also artistery, community and the irrepressible will to live and to live fully.

[Catherine Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was vibing with the writing the entire time and felt this piece connected well with universal grief experiences while also highlighting singular pains of someone in the LGBTQ+ community (specifically, someone who is trans) who, it seemed in this narrative, was robbed of so much because their loved one's family had always rejected them and not acknowledged them/the relationship in a healthy, positive way.

I have a huge hang up regarding the plot device of the road trip and the museum scheme. That was too far-fetched for me to suspend much of my disbelief. Also, I'm told that, in the past, the MC has needed to work multiple jobs but somehow in this present time they can just up and travel the country for two weeks with no consequences or having to take time off? And all they care about is checking in to make sure their dishwasher is okay??? Things are not computing on what should be a practical front but isn't.

Other things I was bothered by: Theo was too convenient, and I felt I didn't really get to know our MC aside from what their identity was wrapped up in their relationship with B. I realize this is a very limited scope on their person, and it's even more limited because they're going through a particularly tough situation that isolates their emotions/focus. But there were still flashbacks and memories that could have been better utilized to give us a more robust MC instead of giving this impression that they only really started living once B entered their life.

[Amy Biggart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. It has a lot to say about the way queer partnership is disrespected by both institutions and often individual families. This wasn't as sad as I was expecting, and it definitely didn't stick any sort of landing. But, it was thought-provoking and talked a lot about the art world and how both queer people and queer artists often find mentorship. Definitely would recommend it to anyone who finds the premise engaging — it's very short.

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

B, expert museum diorama designer & artist, has had a freak accident at home and ends up in the hospital. Because Jules, their partner, is not any legally recognized form of “family”, they are not allowed in to see B. When B passes away, Jules is permitted to attend the funeral and the family is convinced to give Jules 2/3 of B’s ashes. But what to do with them? What follows is a quietly humorous look back at B’s and Jules’ lives before they met, interspersed with Jules’ journey - along with their new friend, Theo - to bury B...in all the museum exhibits they ever helped curate. It’s a tender look at queer love, personhood, the foster care system, mental health, dissociative episodes, familial rejection, and the quest through grief for closure.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

An odd book to make me feel more connected to that 17 yr old me, driving around on backroads at midnight with her best friend, screaming Andrea Gibson poems out the open window, and trying to figure out how to mesh all the parts of myself into one person. Is it the desperate togetherness of a small/suburban queer community? Or the prose? Or the grief? Or the utter dependency of self on that person? The starkness of spaces where you’re seen and where you aren’t? Or the mental illness? I can’t figure it out. But I do. Even if I still haven’t figured out the meshing part.

[artie · Rating 4 out of 5]

as soon as i found out the title was from a david wojnarowicz quote i knew i would like this book! very queer, sad but not too sad, and short enough to finish in a couple sittings. definitely has first published work energy, makes me excited to hopefully read a longer work by this author <3

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best way I can describe this book is like a parable about grief. I could probably read it three separate times and pick up on details I missed the first read through. So thoughtfully written and detailed packed. Every single character had so much depth, even the ones who were only briefly involved

[Keelin Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid exploration of grief.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a nice change to learn about Queer grief and the hoops they have to jump through that I would have taken for granted. Overall, the story fell flat for me because there was no emotional connection to the characters. One redeeming fact, it was short.

[Liz Barr · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I was the most alone a person can be. I hadn’t even started my rock collection yet.”

RE Katz has such a way with words, perfectly capturing childhood loneliness, queer family, and the unique type of humor that is born out of trauma.

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful book about queer grief, art, found family, the specific ways that queer people show up and comfort and understand each other, lineage, ancestors. It's beautifully written on the sentence level, full of paragraphs that just stopped me in my tracks. It's also very real and straightforward, not flowery. It's absurd and silly and whimsical at times, even though it's a book about grief. It's one of those books that feels so distinctly queer to me that I can just relax while reading it. Sometimes I come across books where it feels like the author is writing from inside my world, even if the characters are experiencing things I haven't experienced. This book was like that.

It reminded me a lot of SMALL BEAUY, one of my favorite novels ever, and I loved it for a lot of the same reasons. It's about a particular queer experience of grief, but it also articulates a very particular expense of queer joy. The narrator, Jules, and her partner who has just died, B, are both so vivid on the page, even though the book is only 150 pages. The whole thing is just so quietly gorgeous.

[Bob Lopez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. 2.5? I found the first half a lot more interesting than the second half. B on their deathbed in the hospital, Jules not allowed to visit, conflict between Jules and B's family, that stuff of the book combined with the flashbacks of B and Jules's early relationship really flowed well. After B's passing, and after their cremation, when Jules is trying to break into the various museums to scatter some of their ashes in specific exhibits--that part dragged. I don't know why, it was a clever/fun/romantic/sentimental expression of grief and a keen insight into a relationship others didn't either understand or care to understand. But I found the faux caper-ishness about it little wearying, relied too much on coincidence (oh! the intern left the key in the lock of the door Jules wants to get into! Oh! Jules knows someone who knows someone that will let them into the Museum after dark!? How perfect! Oh, no! They got caught--but, wait! That's Jeff, B's old boss--he wants to help!). It was fine, but what was w/ the moon landing stuff?

[Ailey | Bisexual Bookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books don’t so much unfold as unravel—like a tangled thread tugged gently through grief, memory, and love until what’s left is soft, frayed, and quietly shimmering. That’s how And Then the Gray Heaven felt to me: not plot-driven, but mood-bound, elliptical, and achingly tender. At its heart is Jules, a sharp, dissociative narrator grieving the loss of their beloved partner B, whose death in a freak accident cracks open the bureaucratic cruelty and emotional fragility of queer mourning under capitalism.

Jules is a beautifully unsteady voice—cynical yet earnest, shaped by Florida’s humid neglect, foster care trauma, and the long shadow of childhood dissociation. Their grief doesn’t look like clean stages but like swimming in murky water: sometimes soothing, sometimes drowning. Katz’s prose mirrors this emotional ebb and flow, moving between cutting observational humor and surreal beauty. The writing is lyrical without feeling indulgent, fragmented without losing clarity, and always reaching toward something—someone—just out of reach.

This is a novel about queer love as resistance, about what it means to remember and be remembered when systems would rather forget you. It reframes burial not as an end but a beginning—an act of love and reclamation. Jules’s road trip with Theo to return B’s ashes to museums becomes a queer odyssey, a gesture of devotion against the erasure that often haunts trans and nonbinary death. Through it all, art becomes a thread of continuity and protest, a way to insist: we were here.

While the plot sometimes drifted and didn’t always stick with me, the language did—glittering, splintered, and full of ache. And Then the Gray Heaven may not leave you with clear answers, but it will leave you with a feeling: of something quietly sacred breaking open and blooming in the wreckage.

📖 Read this if you love: tender meditations on queer grief, poetic character-driven narratives, stories that center chosen family and the politics of memory, or the works of Ocean Vuong.

🔑 Key Themes: Queer Grief and Love, Chosen Family and Care Networks, The Bureaucratization of Death, Memory and Artistic Legacy, Trans Erasure and Reclamation.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Death (moderate), Grief (severe), Drug Abuse (minor), Child Abuse (minor), Adult-Minor Relationship (minor), Transphobia (minor), Mental Illness (minor), Suicide (minor).

[Yasmin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt like this could have been something else with more time, but it felt self indulgent and rushed to me, especially at the end. I really enjoyed the writing style and the poetic charge of it. There was a good balance of humor in it as well. However…..certain things felt incomplete, and the structure threw me off, since it began with more about Jules and later became entirely about people talking about B. Jules as a character Faded in the back, and the (far-fetched) plot of the museum road trip came in. Sometimes it felt like more of a day dream than a novel: Theo fell flat for me, lacking depth and just being too “good” to believe. The last third of the book was drudgery for me. People just talking about someone else, especially when we never meet that someone, is difficult to make work I think. I would have liked to learn more about the characters that were there, including their ugly sides. I also think it was very reductive at times to gloss over “bad” things B’s family did to them. Why did they kick them out??? Why am I getting a pages-long masturbatory list of albums and their meaning to this missing character and not learning more about their (complex) relationship with their parents. I understand queering family, but I think making anyone into the black-and-white bad guy takes me out of reality. Could have been good… I looked at about 30 other books at the bookstore before settling on this one, so you can imagine how invested I was.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books I read in one sitting. Holy cow.

I cried. I laughed. I sat with how achingly this book described grief.

The "buddy roadtrip" trope is one I adore, and the adventures of Jules and their friends did not disappoint. And Then The Gray Heaven is suffused with love. Sometimes the love is messy, or takes a while to show through, or is mottled by trauma. Other times the love is bright and queer and wonderful. But there is so much love in this book.

There is so much I adore about this book, and I'm so glad I grabbed it at my library. The characters were complex, even in such a short period of time. Queerness was explored beautifully.

I really have no idea how to put this book into words–R.E. Katz wrote an earth-shaking, stunning work of art.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I've mentioned before, I'm just not a huge fan of "stream of consciousness" narration. I almost wish this book was longer, so we got the chance to really delve into B and Jules' relationship, the issues with their families, and the grief of Jules. This was a concise book, but it comes with a lack of a deep connection to the characters. It was funny at times, and the capers of breaking into the museums to bury B's ashes was a really cool idea. I'm not sure I understand the significance of the moon landing stuff and Mr. Nguyen. But, overall, a good read.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did. The characters are solid, and the plot is fantastic...but the prose style and thought processes of Jules are just so loopy and all over the map that I was constantly put off throughout the reading experience. I simply couldn't invest in this story, as the style constantly irritated me away from the substance.

[Anwen Hayward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really adored this one. I think the final 10% was perhaps a little too fast paced, and it did begin to feel like a different book entirely once the road trip aspect took centre stage, but the rest of it was such a beautiful exploration and excavation of queer grief that I can forgive it its weak points. I know I'll be thinking about this one for a long, long time.

[Alisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deceptively plainly-written yet shadowy-deep, heart-expanding story of love and loss and the echoes of grief. RE Katz is a non-binary author who writes characters whose genders blend and stretch and are so stinkin' HUMAN it makes you ache to read about them.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful depiction of grief, and it really touched me as a queer person coming into my own and dealing with loss at the same time. Thank you RE Katz for bringing this story to life. I won’t stop thinking about Jules and B for a long time.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful yet deeply sad tale of queer grief, and grieving, where you just sit in the grief. IN IT!

[Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, great great. I loved this book. It is a sad and wonderful tale of queer love and queer families.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artist’s statement, conspiracy, road trip, and museum heist — all folded into a poetic novella.

[milo · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a sweet little depressing little book and it whelmed me

[Leila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most honest piece of queer literature I have maybe ever read. Must read for young queer people struggling to be seen/heard

[smoonf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing weird melancholic writing