A few days ago, Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl halftime show. When he appeared, a billboard above the stadium lit up with the words

The only thing more powerful than hate is love

Love.

Love is having a moment. A big beautiful moment. You see love in Minneapolis as neighbors protect neighbors, and communities band together to resist the illegal, paramilitary seizures of residents on the street, at work, and in their homes. And Minnesota’s response to this violent siege by our federal government? It is love. It is harboring the vulnerable, feeding the fearful, protecting the oppressed and the hunted among us. It is forming human chains around schools; it is singing outside hotel windows. It is peaceful. And it is effective. The tide is turning. Love is truly stronger than hate.

It is no coincidence that at this fraught and violent time, we as a country have become mad-obsessed with a Canadian series based on Canadian novels about love between closeted hockey players. From coast to coast, people are gathering at home and in bars to watch and rewatch and rewatch again. Heated Rivalry club nights, skate nights, raves, hot yoga and SoulCycle classes are sold out across the country. Why this, and why now?

Love.

In six episodes, Heated Rivalry painstakingly captures how two men who at first can only express themselves sexually to each other, who for self-protection bury all other feelings, slowly learn to love without shame. They shed their masks, shed the self-hatred that their culture and their chosen profession have instilled in them, and find a way to each other. As in Minneapolis, the contrast with our political reality is stark. We have a government that is intent on stripping the rights of many, including the rights of queer and trans people. Watching this show is an escape from that. It is a funny, sexy and moving love story—and an exhilarating reinforcement of our belief in equality for all.

But my assignment was to write about my new novel here. It is also about love.

I was ashamed when I could not find a better title for it than Heart the Lover. This came from a card game that the characters play early on, and it kept echoing throughout the book. But Heart the Lover made it sound so unabashedly about love. That was in the fall of 2024. I didn’t know then about the great heartlessness that was ahead.

Love is our natural state, our greatest gift as humans. We must never underestimate our capacity to love. In the face of love, we lose our selfishness. We sacrifice. We become vulnerable. And that is the great irony of love: our strength is in our vulnerability, a fearless transparency. We have a government that wants us, needs us, to forget that impulse. We mustn’t. And we must recognize and honor it wherever we can find it, in a courageous city or a Canadian TV show.

Love is the story. It is always the story. It will always be the story.