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Items of interest concerning Hawthorne Books and its authors

The Rumpus Interview with Monica Drake, by Roxane Gay

24 Oct 2013|

Women age—hell, people age—but the issues women face while aging are complicated, and these complications are finely brought to bear in Monica Drake’s The Stud Book. The novel follows the friendships of four women of a certain age, all with different relationships to motherhood. Sarah suffers from fertility issues and is in a deep, bitter sorrow over several miscarriages. Georgie has a newborn and a husband who is strangely absenting himself from their lives, and she’s not sure how to hold onto her professional ambitions. Nyla is a bit of a hippie with a teenage daughter with whom she is struggling to communicate, as she also learns she may be expecting another child. Dulcet is the wild child—no children, no significant relationship, happy to use pharmaceuticals recreationally.

There are few novels this year that are as intelligently observed. This is not a perfect book, but it is very fucking smart, and that intelligence builds slowly but satisfyingly. Throughout, there is this elegant, sly commentary and what I really admire is how Drake doesn’t make a big show of calling attention to those moments where she’s being brilliant. Take early in the book. Georgie’s husband, Humble, is watching television in a bar:

He watched TV, all three of them, and waited for a girl to die.   Bourbon coated his tongue and burned its way down his throat. He watched the news. His guess? Dead local girl inside of fifteen minutes, almost to the weather report, halfway to sports. He would’ve laid that bet. The way you played the game was, watch TV with drinks ready. When you see a dead woman, pour a shot and throw it back. When you see a girl pulled out of the river, fake-looking TV-land strangle marks on her pale neck, chug a pint. When you see a glamour girl splayed-legged and face up, dusted blue, dressed just enough to please the FCC, shout “Skoal!” and clink glasses and bottoms up.

Then:

You could lay bets. With the TV off, you could bet how many minutes until the dead girl showed up, turn the TV on, and time it. Bet how many channels and flip through. You could bet how many channels until the dead girl, or how many channels, at any minute, are showing a dead girl.

This scene is so well done, and so much is familiar and uncomfortable about what’s happening in that moment. I had the opportunity to talk, via e-mail, with Monica Drake about her latest novel, the work that went into it, the dearth of substantive entertainment about women of a certain age, and more.

To read Roxane Gay’s entire interview with Monica Drake, go to The Rumpus.