by Jean Roberta
As various people have said, anything that anyone wears is a costume. There have been strenuous debates about whether dress codes should be enforced in schools, universities, places of worship, offices, restaurants or nightclubs. (An imaginary sign sent to me by a friend reads: “Men: no shirt, no service. Women: no shirt, free drinks.”) Freedom to wear whatever one wants seems like a very 1960s thing, much like sexual freedom, and the social conflicts that started then haven’t been resolved to this day.
As a university instructor, I am more willing to accept freedom of dress for my students than for myself. On campus, I wear clothing I consider classic (which now includes pants or trousers for women, but not jeans, IMO). I do this because I don’t want my appearance to distract anyone from the learning process.
On the other side of a generation gap or two, millennial students wear a dazzling variety of clothing styles, partly because they come from a dazzling variety of cultures. There are young women in hajibs, tunics and loose pants, and young women in leggings that look like body paint, with tops that show cleavage. A few young men wear suits to class, but most wear a range of casual clothes, including ripped and torn pants, and some items that look gang-related (but what would I know?). I won’t even discuss tattoos, piercings, hairstyles, or makeup. However young adults look in the hallways or the classroom, I don’t care. It’s none of my business. I have the right and the responsibility to enforce rules of grammar on my own students (no one else), and those rules are complicated enough. I don’t need or want to enforce a dress code.
The problem with freedom of dress, though, is that everything that everyone wears carries symbolic baggage. Clothes are never just arrangements of fabric (or leather, metal, wood, or plastic). Wearers of controversial fashions can be accused of transmitting messages they never intended. Clothing styles of the past can be misunderstood as being either more or less radical than they were at the time.
A book I reviewed several months ago (Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution by Jo B. Paoletti) describes the drastic changes of fashion that took place in the 1960s and early 1970s, led by innovative designers, who were mostly gay men (although this was never openly mentioned at the time), and their consumers, mostly the post-war Baby Boom generation.
Some of the responses to contemporary fashions (short skirts on females, long hair on males) by those in authority were so over-the-top that they need to be explained. Why did macho defenders of the armed forces (no matter what war they were fighting at the time) and even some school administrators despise “long” hair on young men? Why do school administrations still police girls’ clothing more than boys’ clothing? When girls are sent home from school to “change,” what are they supposed to change into? (And the ambiguity of either changing clothing or changing oneself seems deliberate.)
I learned as a teenager in that era that I could be suspected of wallowing in sex, drugs and rock-and-roll just because I wanted to look fashionable. Pants on girls were considered both sexy and rebellious because they showed the division between girls’ legs, AND they were considered “casual dress” until the invention of the pantsuit for women, which was intended to fix that problem by providing a modest alternative to skirts and dresses for school , the workplace and some churches.
Does anyone remember any more why parents and teachers frothed at the mouth when teenagers first started wearing jeans? (Consider the gang members in West Side Story: definitely not the role models that any middle-class parent wanted their son or daughter to imitate.) Denim pants, also called dungarees and levis (a brand name), were originally worn by working men in strenuous jobs who needed to wear durable fabric. Jeans on anyone else were interpreted as rebellion against authority and white-collar respectability.
On girls, jeans could also be interpreted as rejection of a ladylike code of conduct, a sign that the girl was sexually available. This must have been especially confusing for the aging dykes of my generation, who wanted to dress like boys in their youth, and who wore jeans as soon as they could get away with it. (The character of Anybodys in West Side Story is a good example.) Getting propositioned by males was exactly what they didn’t want.
When describing characters in my stories, I try to avoid specific descriptions of their clothing if I’m not sure how certain visual cues are likely to be read. Is cleavage still considered an invitation, or does that depend on the status of the person revealing it? Are tight pants on men more appealing to other men or to women? Does any item of clothing really shock anyone in 2016?
So I usually keep descriptions of clothing to a minimum in my stories, which is kind of a shame for several reasons. I loved to sew when I was a teenager, and I’m still interested in how clothes are made. I can imagine getting carried away with a detailed description of the ensemble of a lady or a gentleman in a historical piece, and this passage would seem sexier to me than to most readers.
I tried to practise restraint when writing a flasher for the old subscription website, “Ruthie’s Club,” for one of their flasher festivals. For this one, every flasher had to include a stiletto of some kind. Later, this piece became the title story in my own collection of reprints, Each Has a Point (2011, published by another dead press).
Each Has a Point
She was slim, smooth and glittering, like a jewelled blade. Even a glance from her dark eyes from across the room made him feel casually pierced, like an insect to be displayed by a collector.
“Lady,” he addressed her, feeling a need to protect himself with his usual sarcasm. “You look the part.”
The music was slow and stately. She acknowledged him accordingly, with a smile and a graceful nod of her head. She called him by his real name. “Gavin, sir.” She paused for effect. “We all wear costumes. At all times.”
He looked her up and down, letting her know that her tight scarlet bodice and her voluminous black skirt hid nothing. “Except when we are naked, my lady.”
“Even then.”
His clear blue eyes and tousled sandy-blond hair made him look boyishly innocent, but she could see predatory intent in the set of his jaw. He looked at her raven-black wig, coiled atop her head in an artful arrangement of braids. “No doubt you carry a hidden stiletto in your hair so that even without clothes, you would not be defenseless.”
“No doubt.” She smirked.
Gavin and Sarah had both performed in community theatre for so many years that they would hardly have known what to say to each other out of their current roles. And this production was big: an independent vampire movie named “Pierced.”
Sarah’s sly, ageless beauty had caused her to be typecast as the villainess. Gavin was the male lead. He distrusted her intelligence and determination. She despised his ego.
“And you’re probably standing on stiletto heels, the better to walk on some poor fool.”
She raised her rustling skirt and petticoats enough to show her ankles and the shiny black shoes below. Her patent-leather pumps were completely wrong for the sixteenth century, but they enhanced her vampire persona. She appeared to be standing weightlessly on needles, as though she could really fly.
“The dance has begun, Sarah,” he pointed out.
“Then we shall join it.”
He grasped her small waist with one hand, and began guiding her about the floor. She wobbled only slightly, but he loved feeling her unsteadiness.
“Someone, some day,” he whispered to her flushed cheek and exposed ear, “will penetrate your armour. He’ll find an opening, and go in hard and deep. You will surrender at last.” He let her feel the hardness in his codpiece.
“Why do you think I’m armed, sir? Do you think me unfamiliar with the cruelty of men?”
“You need a man with the cruelty to bring you relief, lady. And the selfishness to protect you from all others.” He lowered his tone. “You have a cunt, if not a heart. Can you honestly say you don’t want me there?”
“I will not lie,” she sighed. “Gavin, I’ve wanted you for years. And afterwards, I want to stick my blade in you. It would finish off the scene beautifully.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Showing posts with label historical fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical fiction. Show all posts
Friday, November 4, 2016
Friday, September 9, 2016
Back in the Day
by Jean Roberta
What are the chances? In March 2016, the prolific Sarah Schulman got a big novel published. In October 2016, the slightly-less prolific but also well-known novelist and science writer Lucy Jane Bledsoe will have a work of historical fiction published, based on the life of her aunt, after whom she was named. Both books are set in the 1950s, and both are at least partly set in Greenwich Village when it was really “bohemian.” Both authors are major lesbian writers who were born in the postwar America they describe, and both writers discuss their personal connections to their subject-matter. I was lucky enough to get review copies of both books from The Gay & Lesbian Review.
The Cosmopolitans (New York: the Feminist Press)
This thick paperback by Sarah Schulman is loosely based on a nineteenth-century French novel, Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac, and it occupies the same social space as James Baldwin’s Another Country (1962), which broke new ground by showing black and white, gay and straight characters interacting as approximate equals. Schulman’s two major characters, Bette and Earl, are social outsiders who live in exile from their original families and who have little in common aside from being tenants in the same building. Bette was disowned by her family in the 1920s after being jilted by a dishonest lover, and Earl, as a man-loving actor and a “Negro” from the South, can’t find a safe space anywhere. Their friendship (“for life,” as Bette points out to an interloper) is a type of relationship rarely seen in current fiction, now that “community” no longer refers to physical space. The purity of this bond shines against the grit of working-class urban life.
Despite the grit, the late-fifties arrival of television advertising, in the form of an ad-woman who dresses like Jayne Mansfield and speaks in snappy one-liners, introduces a note of social satire. Bette is dazzled but not fooled by this character, who inspires her to manipulate new circumstances to secure what she wants, which is simply the return of her friendship with Earl. To get him back in her life, Bette must arrange the breakup of his disastrous affair with a naïve young wannabe actress from Bette’s well-heeled family who can’t understand why Earl “loses” sexual interest in her, or why he would be desperate enough to regard her as a social life-raft.
As the author explains in an afterword on style, this novel was influenced by the “kitchen-sink” realism of the 1950s, yet the dialogue sometimes suggests vintage Hollywood and grand opera. (Schulman has explained that this novel was originally conceived as a play, and it has an “intermission.”) Characters express their emotional truth with startling eloquence, much as the author does in her non-fiction on moral issues. The reader is reminded that art, “realistic” or otherwise, is usually better-organized than life, which is why both fiction and advertising can hold our attention.
A Thin Bright Line (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press)
This novel takes place in some of the same territory, but its realist style has a harder edge. This is a fictional reconstruction of the last decade in the life of the author’s lesbian aunt, for whom she was named: Lucybelle Bledsoe from small-town Arkansas. In a lengthy postscript, the author outlines her methods of discovering as much evidence as she could about a remarkable science editor and possible novelist (although her novel was never found) who died in a house fire at age forty-three, in 1966.
The possibility that the original Lucy Bledsoe was murdered is troubling and not completely beyond reason, considering contemporary government policy regarding “homosexuals” (not to mention women with access to classified information) as security risks in the “Cold War” of the United States vs. the Soviet Union. However, the author Lucy Bledsoe has chosen to accept the official verdict, that the fire was an accident, and that the only smokescreen might have come from a smoldering cigarette. This approach allows her to focus on her aunt’s life rather than her death. It seems likely that the original Lucy Bledsoe would prefer to be remembered that way.
The result is a tightly-plotted, suspenseful novel which would be absorbing even if all the characters were completely fictional. This is the stuff of the lesbian paperbacks of yesteryear, complete with coded conversations, blackmail, and love that is all the sweeter because it comes with such a high price. There are convincing cameo appearances by actual writers of the time, including Valerie Taylor and Lorraine Hansberry, and references to Lucy’s idols: fiction-writer Willa Cather and science-writer Rachel Carson.
The story is told in a no-nonsense third-person voice, but Lucy’s personality comes through in her words and her actions. She appears thin and pale, straightforward and logical, with diverse skills: she earned a Masters Degree in Literature from Columbia University, dropped out of a Ph.D. program, and spent much of her working life editing reports by geologists and other scientists.
As an independent person and a closeted member of an outlawed community, the original Lucy Bledsoe has no qualms about spending time in Chicago with an appealing black ("colored," "negro") woman who runs her own taxi company (thanks to her training as a mechanic during the War) and who loves to take photos. However, when Lucy shows up at a bar in Stella’s neighborhood, looking for her, the presence of a white woman attracts a degree of attention that makes Stella uncomfortable. Police harassment is a fact of life that makes it necessary for Stella to pay regular bribes just to stay in business.
Aside from de facto segregation, does Stella have any other reason for running hot-and-cold with Lucy? Well, yes, and to make things more complicated, there is a spy in Lucy’s workplace who gets paid to report on her. Fun times.
The thin bright line of the title is a glow on the horizon which promises future discoveries about the nature of the earth, as well as a future in which lesbians like her niece could live openly, without fear. The semi-transparent brilliance of ice is a kind of motif in this novel, in which Lucy’s work on a project in the Arctic foreshadows the author’s repeated trips to Antarctica, and her use of that continent as a setting for fiction.
In both novels, a dazzlingly clear light is shone into dark corners. Queer life in the pre-Stonewall era has rarely been presented this movingly or well.
What are the chances? In March 2016, the prolific Sarah Schulman got a big novel published. In October 2016, the slightly-less prolific but also well-known novelist and science writer Lucy Jane Bledsoe will have a work of historical fiction published, based on the life of her aunt, after whom she was named. Both books are set in the 1950s, and both are at least partly set in Greenwich Village when it was really “bohemian.” Both authors are major lesbian writers who were born in the postwar America they describe, and both writers discuss their personal connections to their subject-matter. I was lucky enough to get review copies of both books from The Gay & Lesbian Review.
The Cosmopolitans (New York: the Feminist Press)
This thick paperback by Sarah Schulman is loosely based on a nineteenth-century French novel, Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac, and it occupies the same social space as James Baldwin’s Another Country (1962), which broke new ground by showing black and white, gay and straight characters interacting as approximate equals. Schulman’s two major characters, Bette and Earl, are social outsiders who live in exile from their original families and who have little in common aside from being tenants in the same building. Bette was disowned by her family in the 1920s after being jilted by a dishonest lover, and Earl, as a man-loving actor and a “Negro” from the South, can’t find a safe space anywhere. Their friendship (“for life,” as Bette points out to an interloper) is a type of relationship rarely seen in current fiction, now that “community” no longer refers to physical space. The purity of this bond shines against the grit of working-class urban life.
Despite the grit, the late-fifties arrival of television advertising, in the form of an ad-woman who dresses like Jayne Mansfield and speaks in snappy one-liners, introduces a note of social satire. Bette is dazzled but not fooled by this character, who inspires her to manipulate new circumstances to secure what she wants, which is simply the return of her friendship with Earl. To get him back in her life, Bette must arrange the breakup of his disastrous affair with a naïve young wannabe actress from Bette’s well-heeled family who can’t understand why Earl “loses” sexual interest in her, or why he would be desperate enough to regard her as a social life-raft.
As the author explains in an afterword on style, this novel was influenced by the “kitchen-sink” realism of the 1950s, yet the dialogue sometimes suggests vintage Hollywood and grand opera. (Schulman has explained that this novel was originally conceived as a play, and it has an “intermission.”) Characters express their emotional truth with startling eloquence, much as the author does in her non-fiction on moral issues. The reader is reminded that art, “realistic” or otherwise, is usually better-organized than life, which is why both fiction and advertising can hold our attention.
A Thin Bright Line (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press)
This novel takes place in some of the same territory, but its realist style has a harder edge. This is a fictional reconstruction of the last decade in the life of the author’s lesbian aunt, for whom she was named: Lucybelle Bledsoe from small-town Arkansas. In a lengthy postscript, the author outlines her methods of discovering as much evidence as she could about a remarkable science editor and possible novelist (although her novel was never found) who died in a house fire at age forty-three, in 1966.
The possibility that the original Lucy Bledsoe was murdered is troubling and not completely beyond reason, considering contemporary government policy regarding “homosexuals” (not to mention women with access to classified information) as security risks in the “Cold War” of the United States vs. the Soviet Union. However, the author Lucy Bledsoe has chosen to accept the official verdict, that the fire was an accident, and that the only smokescreen might have come from a smoldering cigarette. This approach allows her to focus on her aunt’s life rather than her death. It seems likely that the original Lucy Bledsoe would prefer to be remembered that way.
The result is a tightly-plotted, suspenseful novel which would be absorbing even if all the characters were completely fictional. This is the stuff of the lesbian paperbacks of yesteryear, complete with coded conversations, blackmail, and love that is all the sweeter because it comes with such a high price. There are convincing cameo appearances by actual writers of the time, including Valerie Taylor and Lorraine Hansberry, and references to Lucy’s idols: fiction-writer Willa Cather and science-writer Rachel Carson.
The story is told in a no-nonsense third-person voice, but Lucy’s personality comes through in her words and her actions. She appears thin and pale, straightforward and logical, with diverse skills: she earned a Masters Degree in Literature from Columbia University, dropped out of a Ph.D. program, and spent much of her working life editing reports by geologists and other scientists.
As an independent person and a closeted member of an outlawed community, the original Lucy Bledsoe has no qualms about spending time in Chicago with an appealing black ("colored," "negro") woman who runs her own taxi company (thanks to her training as a mechanic during the War) and who loves to take photos. However, when Lucy shows up at a bar in Stella’s neighborhood, looking for her, the presence of a white woman attracts a degree of attention that makes Stella uncomfortable. Police harassment is a fact of life that makes it necessary for Stella to pay regular bribes just to stay in business.
Aside from de facto segregation, does Stella have any other reason for running hot-and-cold with Lucy? Well, yes, and to make things more complicated, there is a spy in Lucy’s workplace who gets paid to report on her. Fun times.
The thin bright line of the title is a glow on the horizon which promises future discoveries about the nature of the earth, as well as a future in which lesbians like her niece could live openly, without fear. The semi-transparent brilliance of ice is a kind of motif in this novel, in which Lucy’s work on a project in the Arctic foreshadows the author’s repeated trips to Antarctica, and her use of that continent as a setting for fiction.
In both novels, a dazzlingly clear light is shone into dark corners. Queer life in the pre-Stonewall era has rarely been presented this movingly or well.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Conquest of All Kinds
by Jean Roberta
I sometimes claim that I would rather read slowly, for pleasure, instead of inhaling a book within a few hours, to meet a deadline. However, binge-reading is like binge-watching a favourite TV serial: it’s a way to become totally immersed in the author’s imaginary world.
To do justice to the two books I've read recently, I'll discuss each one in a separate post.
Games of Rome (Dominus: Book 2) by J.P. Kenwood (self-published?)
One of my recent reads is a blood-and-sandals epic, second volume in a series set in first-century Rome and surrounding area. (A handy map is provided.) I’m sure I would have understood things better if I had read Volume 1 first, but Volume 2 is fairly self-explanatory. It begins with the suspicious death of Lucius Petronius Celsus, which produces rage and grief in the central character, Gaius Fabius Rufus.
As the author explains in an introductory note, high-ranking men in that culture usually had three names: a first (personal) name, a family name, and a kind of nickname based on a personal characteristic. Gaius Fabius, a general, is called “Rufus” because he has red hair. Women, on the other hand, each have one name based on their father’s family name. For example, Lucius’ daughter is named Petronia. Gaius’ wife Marcia comes from the illustrious clan of the Marcii.
Our hero Gaius, the “Lucky Lion of the Fourth” (so-called because he has won several wars of conquest, and the lion is his family’s symbol) has more sex than any man you have ever met. How he finds time to win wars is a mystery.
Gaius has a stable of male slaves (literally – they live in the stables) who are mostly for pleasure but partly for work (e.g. milking the goats and serving at dinner), while his wife, Marcia, has her own collection of female slaves, all of whom are accessible to Gaius. One of them is pregnant with his child at the beginning of the novel, and this is important, because Gaius is in line to succeed to the throne after Emperor Trajan dies. In seven years of marriage, Marcia has not conceived a child, and the reader is led to suspect this is because 1) their marriage was not a love-match, and Gaius prefers sex with others, or 2) he simply has no time for Marcia, even though he finds her attractive. Gaius and Marcia have agreed to raise the child of Zoe the slave as their own. Marcia announces her supposedly fake pregnancy at a state dinner, which makes Gaius nervous (how can she maintain the charade for nine months?) until he realizes that she isn’t kidding.
While Gaius grieves over the death of his old friend-with-benefits, Lucius, and wonders how to find the real killer, he must grapple with his increasing attraction to a newly-acquired heathen slave, a captive of war from “Dacia,” the rugged region of the Carpathian Mountains. If Allerix the handsome youth turns out to be a prince of his tribe, Gaius must (by law) hand him over to the Emperor for a gruesome death in the arena. And what to do about Celtic-speaking Bryax, Lucius’ favourite pleasure-slave from Caledonia (known to us as Scotland), who almost died when Lucius’ spiteful widow had him castrated?
As you might have guessed by now, this series is an m/m erotic romance. The male bodies are lovingly described, often naked, sometimes hairy and sometimes oiled. Male characters, especially Gaius, constantly utter phrases such as “by Jupiter’s purple prick!”
Here is a scene from the fateful state banquet, where all the guests recline on couches to dine, and attendance by the nobility is mandatory:
“Would you care for rhinoceros, Commander Fabius?” the pretty palace slave asked as he offered the tray, batting his dark blond lashes.
Gaius shielded his nose with the back of his hand. “Get that vile flesh away from my face.”
“It’s surprisingly delicious, Gaius,” Marcia commented, before selecting another dark red, bitesized piece of meat from the pile carefully arranged high on a silver platter. “It tastes like ox, but a bit sweeter.”
As he studied his wife’s fetching profile, Gaius pursed his mouth in disgust while watching her chew the tough morsel. He waved his hand in front of his face and grumbled, “That might taste sweet, but it smells like ox shit. I am, however, pleased to see your appetite has returned with a vengeance.” Marcia wolfed down the gamey meat and snatched another warm slice of roasted rhino before the slave departed to serve Matidia, Marciana, and Pliny, who were lying on the next couch.
“Thanks to healing Hygeia!” Marcia exclaimed and popped the bite into her mouth. As she munched, she mumbled, “Thanks to all the gods for my quick recovery after that debacle at the amphitheater.”
[Spoiler: Marcia’s pregnancy is part of the reason she vomited after watching a young boy, a captive of war, being torn apart by dogs in the amphitheatre. I’m not pregnant, but I probably would have reacted the same way.]
The book combines sex scenes in vivid, luxurious settings with much historical detail, political intrigue, and suspense in fewer than 200 pages. If I didn’t have to read it, it would be a guilty pleasure. My only complaint is that the macho swagger and sexual appetite of the male characters are often over-the-top, and the dialogue leans toward excess. But after all, we are in ancient Rome. The author is revealed in a bio at the end as a woman with a husband, to whom she is grateful.
Later, I will post my comments about Backcast, A Novel, by Ann McMan, an epic of 368 pages from Bywater Books.
--------------
I sometimes claim that I would rather read slowly, for pleasure, instead of inhaling a book within a few hours, to meet a deadline. However, binge-reading is like binge-watching a favourite TV serial: it’s a way to become totally immersed in the author’s imaginary world.
To do justice to the two books I've read recently, I'll discuss each one in a separate post.
Games of Rome (Dominus: Book 2) by J.P. Kenwood (self-published?)
One of my recent reads is a blood-and-sandals epic, second volume in a series set in first-century Rome and surrounding area. (A handy map is provided.) I’m sure I would have understood things better if I had read Volume 1 first, but Volume 2 is fairly self-explanatory. It begins with the suspicious death of Lucius Petronius Celsus, which produces rage and grief in the central character, Gaius Fabius Rufus.
As the author explains in an introductory note, high-ranking men in that culture usually had three names: a first (personal) name, a family name, and a kind of nickname based on a personal characteristic. Gaius Fabius, a general, is called “Rufus” because he has red hair. Women, on the other hand, each have one name based on their father’s family name. For example, Lucius’ daughter is named Petronia. Gaius’ wife Marcia comes from the illustrious clan of the Marcii.
Our hero Gaius, the “Lucky Lion of the Fourth” (so-called because he has won several wars of conquest, and the lion is his family’s symbol) has more sex than any man you have ever met. How he finds time to win wars is a mystery.
Gaius has a stable of male slaves (literally – they live in the stables) who are mostly for pleasure but partly for work (e.g. milking the goats and serving at dinner), while his wife, Marcia, has her own collection of female slaves, all of whom are accessible to Gaius. One of them is pregnant with his child at the beginning of the novel, and this is important, because Gaius is in line to succeed to the throne after Emperor Trajan dies. In seven years of marriage, Marcia has not conceived a child, and the reader is led to suspect this is because 1) their marriage was not a love-match, and Gaius prefers sex with others, or 2) he simply has no time for Marcia, even though he finds her attractive. Gaius and Marcia have agreed to raise the child of Zoe the slave as their own. Marcia announces her supposedly fake pregnancy at a state dinner, which makes Gaius nervous (how can she maintain the charade for nine months?) until he realizes that she isn’t kidding.
While Gaius grieves over the death of his old friend-with-benefits, Lucius, and wonders how to find the real killer, he must grapple with his increasing attraction to a newly-acquired heathen slave, a captive of war from “Dacia,” the rugged region of the Carpathian Mountains. If Allerix the handsome youth turns out to be a prince of his tribe, Gaius must (by law) hand him over to the Emperor for a gruesome death in the arena. And what to do about Celtic-speaking Bryax, Lucius’ favourite pleasure-slave from Caledonia (known to us as Scotland), who almost died when Lucius’ spiteful widow had him castrated?
As you might have guessed by now, this series is an m/m erotic romance. The male bodies are lovingly described, often naked, sometimes hairy and sometimes oiled. Male characters, especially Gaius, constantly utter phrases such as “by Jupiter’s purple prick!”
Here is a scene from the fateful state banquet, where all the guests recline on couches to dine, and attendance by the nobility is mandatory:
“Would you care for rhinoceros, Commander Fabius?” the pretty palace slave asked as he offered the tray, batting his dark blond lashes.
Gaius shielded his nose with the back of his hand. “Get that vile flesh away from my face.”
“It’s surprisingly delicious, Gaius,” Marcia commented, before selecting another dark red, bitesized piece of meat from the pile carefully arranged high on a silver platter. “It tastes like ox, but a bit sweeter.”
As he studied his wife’s fetching profile, Gaius pursed his mouth in disgust while watching her chew the tough morsel. He waved his hand in front of his face and grumbled, “That might taste sweet, but it smells like ox shit. I am, however, pleased to see your appetite has returned with a vengeance.” Marcia wolfed down the gamey meat and snatched another warm slice of roasted rhino before the slave departed to serve Matidia, Marciana, and Pliny, who were lying on the next couch.
“Thanks to healing Hygeia!” Marcia exclaimed and popped the bite into her mouth. As she munched, she mumbled, “Thanks to all the gods for my quick recovery after that debacle at the amphitheater.”
[Spoiler: Marcia’s pregnancy is part of the reason she vomited after watching a young boy, a captive of war, being torn apart by dogs in the amphitheatre. I’m not pregnant, but I probably would have reacted the same way.]
The book combines sex scenes in vivid, luxurious settings with much historical detail, political intrigue, and suspense in fewer than 200 pages. If I didn’t have to read it, it would be a guilty pleasure. My only complaint is that the macho swagger and sexual appetite of the male characters are often over-the-top, and the dialogue leans toward excess. But after all, we are in ancient Rome. The author is revealed in a bio at the end as a woman with a husband, to whom she is grateful.
Later, I will post my comments about Backcast, A Novel, by Ann McMan, an epic of 368 pages from Bywater Books.
--------------
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Preserve or Rebuild?
by Jean Roberta
Like Sacchi and Lisabet (and possibly others here), I’ve been writing erotica for long enough to notice that some of my earlier work could benefit from some revision.
Actually, some of my earlier work now looks like historical fiction, and when/if I give it a makeover, I’ll have to decide whether to bring it up to date or to preserve its period flavour.
Here is the opening scene from my out-of-print novel, Prairie Gothic, completed in 1998 and e-published in 2002:
The ugly concrete building in the warehouse district looked deserted, and it wore no sign of any kind. If Kelly hadn't seen glimmers of light from between the shutters at the windows and heard the bass thump of recorded music, she would have thought the address in the newspaper was a misprint.
In her second year of university, the fresh-faced young woman was developing a taste for research. She was learning that you could find out whatever you wanted to know if you looked in the right places. On this breezy spring night, the place she wanted to check out was the Den, more often called the club or the bar by the regulars. It was the only gay bar in town.
As Kelly pulled open the heavy front door, a blast of music hit her in the face, carrying the smell of beer and cigarettes. A spasm of anxiety made her breathe faster, and she wondered again how smart it was for her to come here alone. Bars didn't attract her as a rule. Booze and guys usually lost their appeal for her by the end of an evening, and hanging out with a horde of increasingly drunk and loud fellow students seemed like a waste of time to her.
However, the girl craved adventure. She hoped that this bar would be more like a decadent jazz club in Berlin in the 1930s than any of the hangouts she knew. She believed that she could best explore this exotic milieu without the burden of anyone else's fears or desires.
Kelly noticed the huge area in the wall of the entranceway where the plaster had been kicked in during a famous fight. Two months later, it had been badly fixed by a hung-over dyke who claimed to be a drywaller by trade. Since she had donated her time and was currently dating a woman on the board that ran the bar, no one complained openly about the look of the wall.
A very tall, very thin young man asked Kelly for ID, but he looked friendly. Besides, she told herself, she could never be intimidated by a man wearing lipstick and mascara, even if he did apply them better than she could.
The interior of the bar was so dark and smoky that it took a minute for the young woman to notice the eyes watching her. A young man in tight leather pants turned from the cigarette machine to look over the newcomer. Once his cool gaze had skimmed over her breasts, his narrow hips swivelled back toward the faded jeans of a much older, heavy-set man who stood beside him like a guard dog protecting his turf. Both men radiated a sensuality that Kelly had rarely noticed in males, and she felt strangely miffed by their indifference to her. She remembered wishing that guys would leave her alone. In this place, she thought, they just might.
A squarely-built woman with sand-coloured hair turning to grey watched Kelly without turning her head. She took in the young woman's short, shiny brown hair, her dark-framed glasses, the big shirt that couldn't hide her small, perky breasts, and the girlish hips under loose black pants. Pat, the older dyke, took another drag on her cigarette. Her blue eyes sparkled.
Kelly felt conspicuously tall, as she usually did in a new place. As she strode toward the bar, she noticed an adjoining room where two women of about her own age were playing pool. One was a graceful, fine-boned native woman with waist-length hair that twitched behind her like a tail. The other was a plump, joking blonde whose laughter sounded like gunfire. A slim girl with red hair watched the game and gave advice to the players. Feeling very alone, Kelly thought of approaching this group and asking to join their game, even though her pool-playing was far from impressive.
"Kelly!" squealed the tenor voice of a short boy with a lively face and mouse-coloured hair that fell in his eyes. "It's Neil." Kelly didn't need to be told who he was. The sight of her classmate looked to her like a sign from the Goddess.
Following Neil to his table, Kelly felt both disappointed and hopeful. She had come here to meet women, not men, but she hoped that little Neil, the class clown, could serve as her guide to this culture, like Beatrice guiding Dante through the underworld.
This scene was loosely based on my first venture into the local gay bar in 1982. So much has changed since then! Now, LGBT watering-holes are clearly marked with signs, and the regulars don’t feel like outlaws – unless they are smokers, in which case they have to practise their perverse habit outdoors, regardless of the weather.
I’m unreasonably fond of this novel, especially because it captures a moment in time that will never come again. If I don’t bring it up to date, though, I’ll have to play up its retro qualities. I don’t want to leave it mouldering in my "Documents."
So when my year-long break from teaching starts on July 1, I’ll have a look at all my orphan pieces, including this one, and decide what to do with them.
------------------------
Like Sacchi and Lisabet (and possibly others here), I’ve been writing erotica for long enough to notice that some of my earlier work could benefit from some revision.
Actually, some of my earlier work now looks like historical fiction, and when/if I give it a makeover, I’ll have to decide whether to bring it up to date or to preserve its period flavour.
Here is the opening scene from my out-of-print novel, Prairie Gothic, completed in 1998 and e-published in 2002:
The ugly concrete building in the warehouse district looked deserted, and it wore no sign of any kind. If Kelly hadn't seen glimmers of light from between the shutters at the windows and heard the bass thump of recorded music, she would have thought the address in the newspaper was a misprint.
In her second year of university, the fresh-faced young woman was developing a taste for research. She was learning that you could find out whatever you wanted to know if you looked in the right places. On this breezy spring night, the place she wanted to check out was the Den, more often called the club or the bar by the regulars. It was the only gay bar in town.
As Kelly pulled open the heavy front door, a blast of music hit her in the face, carrying the smell of beer and cigarettes. A spasm of anxiety made her breathe faster, and she wondered again how smart it was for her to come here alone. Bars didn't attract her as a rule. Booze and guys usually lost their appeal for her by the end of an evening, and hanging out with a horde of increasingly drunk and loud fellow students seemed like a waste of time to her.
However, the girl craved adventure. She hoped that this bar would be more like a decadent jazz club in Berlin in the 1930s than any of the hangouts she knew. She believed that she could best explore this exotic milieu without the burden of anyone else's fears or desires.
Kelly noticed the huge area in the wall of the entranceway where the plaster had been kicked in during a famous fight. Two months later, it had been badly fixed by a hung-over dyke who claimed to be a drywaller by trade. Since she had donated her time and was currently dating a woman on the board that ran the bar, no one complained openly about the look of the wall.
A very tall, very thin young man asked Kelly for ID, but he looked friendly. Besides, she told herself, she could never be intimidated by a man wearing lipstick and mascara, even if he did apply them better than she could.
The interior of the bar was so dark and smoky that it took a minute for the young woman to notice the eyes watching her. A young man in tight leather pants turned from the cigarette machine to look over the newcomer. Once his cool gaze had skimmed over her breasts, his narrow hips swivelled back toward the faded jeans of a much older, heavy-set man who stood beside him like a guard dog protecting his turf. Both men radiated a sensuality that Kelly had rarely noticed in males, and she felt strangely miffed by their indifference to her. She remembered wishing that guys would leave her alone. In this place, she thought, they just might.
A squarely-built woman with sand-coloured hair turning to grey watched Kelly without turning her head. She took in the young woman's short, shiny brown hair, her dark-framed glasses, the big shirt that couldn't hide her small, perky breasts, and the girlish hips under loose black pants. Pat, the older dyke, took another drag on her cigarette. Her blue eyes sparkled.
Kelly felt conspicuously tall, as she usually did in a new place. As she strode toward the bar, she noticed an adjoining room where two women of about her own age were playing pool. One was a graceful, fine-boned native woman with waist-length hair that twitched behind her like a tail. The other was a plump, joking blonde whose laughter sounded like gunfire. A slim girl with red hair watched the game and gave advice to the players. Feeling very alone, Kelly thought of approaching this group and asking to join their game, even though her pool-playing was far from impressive.
"Kelly!" squealed the tenor voice of a short boy with a lively face and mouse-coloured hair that fell in his eyes. "It's Neil." Kelly didn't need to be told who he was. The sight of her classmate looked to her like a sign from the Goddess.
Following Neil to his table, Kelly felt both disappointed and hopeful. She had come here to meet women, not men, but she hoped that little Neil, the class clown, could serve as her guide to this culture, like Beatrice guiding Dante through the underworld.
This scene was loosely based on my first venture into the local gay bar in 1982. So much has changed since then! Now, LGBT watering-holes are clearly marked with signs, and the regulars don’t feel like outlaws – unless they are smokers, in which case they have to practise their perverse habit outdoors, regardless of the weather.
I’m unreasonably fond of this novel, especially because it captures a moment in time that will never come again. If I don’t bring it up to date, though, I’ll have to play up its retro qualities. I don’t want to leave it mouldering in my "Documents."
So when my year-long break from teaching starts on July 1, I’ll have a look at all my orphan pieces, including this one, and decide what to do with them.
------------------------
Friday, August 28, 2015
Reconnecting
by Jean Roberta
“Naughty” suggests childish misbehaviour. (The word was often used in the reality-TV series, Nanny 911, in which trained British nannies helped rescue American parents who felt their children were out of control. This program aired on Fox TV, 2004-2009.)
The appeal of “naughtiness” in sex scenes, IMO, is that a naughty adult is redeemable. The word suggests childishness or a temporary lapse in responsibility or consideration for others, but not a serious character flaw. A “naughty” person who confesses and accepts punishment is assumed to have been “corrected,” and is therefore as lovable as s/he was before offending someone else.
(Here is the cover of Spank, an anthology in which I have a story.)
In my most recent story (“A Garden in Winter,” still under an editor’s consideration), Lady Elinor rules the castle since her husband, Sir Lionel, left with a small band of warriors to join the Crusades. Having read too many romances, the lady assumed her lord would be absolutely faithful to her, wherever he went, no matter how long he stayed there. Before he departed, he promised to keep his troth. He wasn’t considering his physical needs, or the temptations to be found in the lands of the Saracens.
A local wizard, Sir Theobald, has spirited Sir Lionel back to his own castle, at Lady Elinor’s behest, within a magic circle.
Sir Theobald and his (ahem) dear friend Robin Goodthigh have sought sanctuary after their castle was attacked, and Sir Theobald has not been able to summon enough power to banish the invaders. The wizard’s plan is to raise collective power by means of sex magic. For that purpose, he has asked Margaret, Lady Elinor’s (ahem) maid, to bring two more people into the circle to make a balanced group of six: three men and three women. All are skyclad (naked).
Lady Elinor was delighted to see her husband within the circle, as dirty and bewildered as he was, but she was aghast when he seemed to think she was some available wench that he met on his travels. In this scene, the wizard helps her get even.
Margaret explains:
In a moment, I thought, we will all descend to our hands and knees like four-legged beasts, and reconfigure the circle by entering each other’s mouths, cunts, and back passages with fingers, cocks and whatever else would serve (half-melted candles?). The image in my mind aroused me so much that I could have reached a paroxysm without touching myself at all, but in the spirit of mutual consideration, I refrained. My cunt felt very wet.
“My lord, you have acted unspeakably with women who do not deserve to be spoken of. Is this not true?” The lady wiped her eyes, and wiped her wet fingers on her hips.
“It is, my lady,” groaned Sir Lionel. He reached for her, but she stepped away from him. He scratched his beard, and looked deeply ashamed of his bedraggled state. “My love for you never changes,” he claimed, “but as a man, I have a lower nature which demands its due when I am in lawless places. My dearest, you cannot fathom my depravity, but you could save me from it. You may use me as you will.”
Stephen and Joan stared at our lord, who seemed so eager to abase himself.
“Lady,” said Sir Theobald, “he speaks truly.” Our lady still looked offended, but a gleam of joy appeared in her eyes.
“Father Pureblood,” suggested Stephen, “recommends whippings for adulterers.” He twitched with merriment.
“But who among us ought to lay on the stripes?” asked Robin.
“The one who is willing,” replied Sir Theobald.
“The one who was betrayed,” said Lady Elinor.
Sir Theobald pointed with his index finger to a heap of clothing, outside the salt circle, and a length of leather arose from his robe and floated through the air until he grasped it. “Anything may become an instrument of correction,” said the wizard. He held the strip of leather in both hands, stretched and twisted it. One end became a plaited handle, while the other split into half a dozen tails to form a flogger.
Sir Lionel knelt at his lady’s small white feet, bent his head and kissed her toes. “I so wished to be your hero, my dearest love,” he told her, “but I have disappointed you, and I am heartily sorry.”
“My lady, will you accept a gift?” asked the wizard. He sent the new flogger drifting through the air to her. When it nudged her hand like a cat that wants to be stroked, she grasped the handle.
“You are a rutting hog in the form of a man,” sneered Lady Elinor, and for a moment it seemed as if she were addressing all three men among us, including young Stephen, who clearly compensated for his physical innocence with fantasies and self-love. Sir Lionel remained in a crouch, his back fully exposed.
The expression on our lady’s face was truly frightening. She drew back her arm, and brought down the lashes on her lord’s buttocks. His skin was stretched so taut that all his bones were visible, and I was afraid she would leave her mark on him for life. Fortunately, Sir Wizard hadn’t armed her with a deadly weapon.
The lady struck again, closer to Sir Lionel’s backbone and ribs. Red marks appeared on his skin, and he groaned softly.
“My trust in you is gone! Do you understand?” screamed the lady, bringing the lashes down again and again. Her question didn’t seem to need an answer.
On the sixth stroke, Robin emitted the yawp of a dragon who has been unexpectedly awakened. [Note: Sir Theobald has been giving Robin a hand job.] I saw that his cock had gushed liquid like a fountain. His thighs and the floor beneath him were drenched with the slippery essence of life. “Beg pardon, Sir,” he muttered to Sir Theobald.
Our wiseman could not keep from smiling, and I was so amused that a loud laugh burst from me before I could stop it. “What a sorry lot is here,” remarked Theobald, glancing at each of us in turn. “Perhaps a good whipping all round is needed.”
-------------------------------------
However, Lady Elinor isn’t finished. After flogging her lord, she says she wants to ravish him as though he were a maiden in a conquered village. The wizard helps her by creating a small metal dildo for her to wear, nothing too huge, and Sir Lionel (who is discovering his submissive side) finds it irresistible. After that, the wizard reminds Lady Elinor that hypocrisy is not attractive in a ruler, and he invites Margaret to show Sir Lionel how she “serves” Lady Elinor at night, when they share a bed.
Sir Lionel is so moved by watching their “games” that he dismisses Margaret and takes her place to pleasure his wife. Both the lord and the lady are satisfied, and both forgive each other fully.
Margaret feels heartbroken when she sees her lady wrapped in her husband’s arms. Margaret realizes that Lady Elinor never felt a fraction of the love for her maid that she felt for her husband.
However, a jolly woman in the circle has been waiting patiently for Margaret to notice her. Apparently, Margaret’s naughtiness was not her devotion to her mistress, but her shortsighted inability to see what was going on around her. As she finds out, all’s well that ends well.
“Naughty” suggests childish misbehaviour. (The word was often used in the reality-TV series, Nanny 911, in which trained British nannies helped rescue American parents who felt their children were out of control. This program aired on Fox TV, 2004-2009.)
The appeal of “naughtiness” in sex scenes, IMO, is that a naughty adult is redeemable. The word suggests childishness or a temporary lapse in responsibility or consideration for others, but not a serious character flaw. A “naughty” person who confesses and accepts punishment is assumed to have been “corrected,” and is therefore as lovable as s/he was before offending someone else.
(Here is the cover of Spank, an anthology in which I have a story.)
In my most recent story (“A Garden in Winter,” still under an editor’s consideration), Lady Elinor rules the castle since her husband, Sir Lionel, left with a small band of warriors to join the Crusades. Having read too many romances, the lady assumed her lord would be absolutely faithful to her, wherever he went, no matter how long he stayed there. Before he departed, he promised to keep his troth. He wasn’t considering his physical needs, or the temptations to be found in the lands of the Saracens.
A local wizard, Sir Theobald, has spirited Sir Lionel back to his own castle, at Lady Elinor’s behest, within a magic circle.
Sir Theobald and his (ahem) dear friend Robin Goodthigh have sought sanctuary after their castle was attacked, and Sir Theobald has not been able to summon enough power to banish the invaders. The wizard’s plan is to raise collective power by means of sex magic. For that purpose, he has asked Margaret, Lady Elinor’s (ahem) maid, to bring two more people into the circle to make a balanced group of six: three men and three women. All are skyclad (naked).
Lady Elinor was delighted to see her husband within the circle, as dirty and bewildered as he was, but she was aghast when he seemed to think she was some available wench that he met on his travels. In this scene, the wizard helps her get even.
Margaret explains:
In a moment, I thought, we will all descend to our hands and knees like four-legged beasts, and reconfigure the circle by entering each other’s mouths, cunts, and back passages with fingers, cocks and whatever else would serve (half-melted candles?). The image in my mind aroused me so much that I could have reached a paroxysm without touching myself at all, but in the spirit of mutual consideration, I refrained. My cunt felt very wet.
“My lord, you have acted unspeakably with women who do not deserve to be spoken of. Is this not true?” The lady wiped her eyes, and wiped her wet fingers on her hips.
“It is, my lady,” groaned Sir Lionel. He reached for her, but she stepped away from him. He scratched his beard, and looked deeply ashamed of his bedraggled state. “My love for you never changes,” he claimed, “but as a man, I have a lower nature which demands its due when I am in lawless places. My dearest, you cannot fathom my depravity, but you could save me from it. You may use me as you will.”
Stephen and Joan stared at our lord, who seemed so eager to abase himself.
“Lady,” said Sir Theobald, “he speaks truly.” Our lady still looked offended, but a gleam of joy appeared in her eyes.
“Father Pureblood,” suggested Stephen, “recommends whippings for adulterers.” He twitched with merriment.
“But who among us ought to lay on the stripes?” asked Robin.
“The one who is willing,” replied Sir Theobald.
“The one who was betrayed,” said Lady Elinor.
Sir Theobald pointed with his index finger to a heap of clothing, outside the salt circle, and a length of leather arose from his robe and floated through the air until he grasped it. “Anything may become an instrument of correction,” said the wizard. He held the strip of leather in both hands, stretched and twisted it. One end became a plaited handle, while the other split into half a dozen tails to form a flogger.
Sir Lionel knelt at his lady’s small white feet, bent his head and kissed her toes. “I so wished to be your hero, my dearest love,” he told her, “but I have disappointed you, and I am heartily sorry.”
“My lady, will you accept a gift?” asked the wizard. He sent the new flogger drifting through the air to her. When it nudged her hand like a cat that wants to be stroked, she grasped the handle.
“You are a rutting hog in the form of a man,” sneered Lady Elinor, and for a moment it seemed as if she were addressing all three men among us, including young Stephen, who clearly compensated for his physical innocence with fantasies and self-love. Sir Lionel remained in a crouch, his back fully exposed.
The expression on our lady’s face was truly frightening. She drew back her arm, and brought down the lashes on her lord’s buttocks. His skin was stretched so taut that all his bones were visible, and I was afraid she would leave her mark on him for life. Fortunately, Sir Wizard hadn’t armed her with a deadly weapon.
The lady struck again, closer to Sir Lionel’s backbone and ribs. Red marks appeared on his skin, and he groaned softly.
“My trust in you is gone! Do you understand?” screamed the lady, bringing the lashes down again and again. Her question didn’t seem to need an answer.
On the sixth stroke, Robin emitted the yawp of a dragon who has been unexpectedly awakened. [Note: Sir Theobald has been giving Robin a hand job.] I saw that his cock had gushed liquid like a fountain. His thighs and the floor beneath him were drenched with the slippery essence of life. “Beg pardon, Sir,” he muttered to Sir Theobald.
Our wiseman could not keep from smiling, and I was so amused that a loud laugh burst from me before I could stop it. “What a sorry lot is here,” remarked Theobald, glancing at each of us in turn. “Perhaps a good whipping all round is needed.”
-------------------------------------
However, Lady Elinor isn’t finished. After flogging her lord, she says she wants to ravish him as though he were a maiden in a conquered village. The wizard helps her by creating a small metal dildo for her to wear, nothing too huge, and Sir Lionel (who is discovering his submissive side) finds it irresistible. After that, the wizard reminds Lady Elinor that hypocrisy is not attractive in a ruler, and he invites Margaret to show Sir Lionel how she “serves” Lady Elinor at night, when they share a bed.
Sir Lionel is so moved by watching their “games” that he dismisses Margaret and takes her place to pleasure his wife. Both the lord and the lady are satisfied, and both forgive each other fully.
Margaret feels heartbroken when she sees her lady wrapped in her husband’s arms. Margaret realizes that Lady Elinor never felt a fraction of the love for her maid that she felt for her husband.
However, a jolly woman in the circle has been waiting patiently for Margaret to notice her. Apparently, Margaret’s naughtiness was not her devotion to her mistress, but her shortsighted inability to see what was going on around her. As she finds out, all’s well that ends well.
Monday, April 13, 2015
In Love with the Past
By
Lisabet Sarai
Ever
since I began reading (which was not long after I got out of
diapers), I've loved historical fiction. As a child, I couldn't get
enough of ancient Egypt or imperial Rome. Give me a tale set in
medieval France or colonial America, Moorish Spain or Druidic
Britain, and I would disappear into that other world for hours or
even days. My mother would despair of getting me to do my chores or
persuading me to go outside and play. The historical realms that I
visited seemed far more real than my family's three bedroom ranch
house or our grassy back yard.
I
still enjoy a well-crafted tale centered in another time and place.
In fact, I think I appreciate historical fiction more deeply now that
I understand how difficult it is to write it well. A successful
historical novel should transport you back to the past. You should
see the sights, smell the smells, experience the sensual delights and
the painful inconveniences of the time in which it occurs. (No matter
how romantic the Age of Chivalry might sound, I’d never want to
live in those dark and uncomfortable times!)
Of
course, you've also got to get the details right. However obscure the
period that you've chosen, there's bound to be some reader who will
be an expert on that time, that dreaded critic who will throw the
book at you (literally!) when your characters in twelfth century
England drink tea, or your Aztec prince wears robes of silk. I
remember long rants on one list I belong to, because a well-known
romance author mentioned a spinning wheel in a period before they'd
been invented. (The ranter was an individual with extensive knowledge
about textiles.)
Immersive
description and obsessive accuracy are not enough, though. To write
convincingly about another historical period, you need to have a
sense of how people thought, what they believed, how they behaved—the
unspoken rules and assumptions of their society. I've read some
so-called Regency erotic romance set in eighteenth century Europe in
which the characters acted, and interacted, in ways that were far too
modern to be believable (particularly in the area of sexual
expression). These books were entertaining, but they didn't really
deliver on the promise of a genuine historical experience.
The
best historicals that I've read also capture the cadences and
vocabulary of speech in the period. The most engaging historical
romance that I've read in a very long time is Erastes' homoerotic
Regency novel, Standish. I could almost believe that the story really
had been penned by an author of the period, rather than a modern
writer. Another writer who excels at capturing the linguistic tone of
a historical period is Louisa Burton. The stories in her Tales of the
Hidden Grotto series range freely through history, from pre-Roman
times to the modern day. Each segment does an exceptional job
anchoring the reader in a particular time and place.
Most
of my own work thus far is contemporary, though I have taken a few
stabs at history — with great trepidation! Incognito has a
subplot, revealed in a secret journal, that takes place in Victorian
Boston. I had a wonderful time doing research for this, particularly
in the area of costume. I had actually lived in the historic district
of Beacon Hill for a year, so it was relatively easy to bring the
setting to life. Walking the streets of Boston, I found the past was
palpable.
Monsoon
Fever is set on a tea plantation in British India just a few
years after the first World War. This was much more difficult to pull
off, even though the time period is more recent. I've never visited
Assam and even if I could discover what was going on in Europe or
America during the 'teens, extrapolating to a remote colonial outpost
required considerable imagination to fill in the factual gaps.
(Fortunately,
imagination is not something I’m usually lacking. My husband
accuses me of routinely making things up when I don’t know the
answer, and I have to admit, he has some reason for this claim.)
My
bawdy story Shortest Night is set in Elizabethan London,
during William Shakespeare's time, and indeed the plot is a riff on
the cross-dressing comedies of errors Shakespeare did so well. In
fact, the Bard himself has a bit part in that tale. London and the
theater also figure in “Opening Night”, the alternative history
story I wrote for Sacchi’s anthology Time Well Bent,
in which I imagine what would have happened if William Gilbert (of
Gilbert and Sullivan fame) had been seduced by his star actor during
the debut of the infamous operetta “Ruddigore”.
My
most recent attempt at historical erotic fiction takes place much
closer to the present. Challenge to Him is set in Newport,
Rhode Island during the Gilded Age, sometime before 1910. I’ll
never forget visiting the Newport mansions (now museums) and
marveling at their near-obscene opulence. My hero is one of the
newly-wealthy industrialist class who built those mansions, while the
heroine is an intellectual and labor activist from (yes, Sachi!)
Amherst, Massachusetts.
Here’s
an excerpt from that novella, which describes the first meeting
between the hero Andrew MacIntyre and the heroine, Olivia Alcott,
outside a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.
“We’d
rather starve quick than starve slow. A living wage or we just say
no.”
Olivia
Alcott chanted along with the mill girls as they marched in a circle
in front of the rambling brick factory buildings. A semicircle of
police and spectators fanned out in front of the strikers, but no one
made a move to hinder them. Behind her, the normally clattering
machinery lay quiet. When the workers paused for breath, Olivia heard
the muted rush of the falls.
Itchy
sweat gathered under her arms and at the base of her neck, where
random strands of her hair had come loose from the pins that secured
it. It was several hours past noon, and the summer sun battered them
all. Like the women with whom she marched, Olivia wore a drab,
ankle-length shirtwaist and heavy, laced boots, though her clothing
was of finer fabric and in better repair. A red scarf knotted at her
throat added a spark of colour—and soaked up some of her
perspiration. She was desperately thirsty, but they’d agreed not to
take a break until three o’clock. She certainly wasn’t going to
be the one who gave up early.
She
glanced around at her companions. They ranged in age from fourteen to
fifty-five, though most were younger than her twenty-six years. Their
lean, wiry bodies showed the effects of their twelve hours of
back-breaking labour per day, six days a week. Even the young women
had lined faces and streaks of grey in their hair, and the older ones
looked frail, almost skeletal.
In
the cool of the morning, when they’d started the strike, there’d
been a holiday atmosphere. Liberated from work, they’d laughed,
joked with one another and sung old Québécois songs. Now each
woman’s face was a grim, dusty mask. Each was determined not to
surrender to fatigue or discomfort. They had made a commitment to one
another. No one was willing to betray that commitment—certainly not
Olivia.
Doubts
assailed her, though, as her back ached and the blisters on her feet
stung. Had she done the right thing, coming here and stirring up
these women’s aspirations? Would it do any good? Greed ruled the
modern world. Profit was all that mattered. Human beings were
expendable, just cogs in the great industrial machine that was
America. If one component failed, it could be replaced. Meanwhile,
the masters of the new century grew ever richer.
She
could have been at home, reading in her father’s shady garden with
a glass of iced lemon at her side, or walking with her sister under
the spreading elms of the Common. Indeed, if the strike failed, she
could return to her safe and comfortable life in Amherst—become a
teacher like her parents, or an author like her brother Will.
These
women around her, though, didn’t have those options. For them, this
was a matter of survival.
“Mademoiselle
Olivia!” A skinny girl raced up the street that led to the
riverside mill, stirring clouds of dust. “Il vient!
He is coming!”
The
sputtering
racket
of
an
internal
combustion
engine
drowned
out
the
girl’s
excited
voice.
The
crowd
parted
like
the
Red
Sea
for
a
boxy
vehicle
of
shiny
black,
with
silvery
headlamps
like
extruded
eyes.
The
noisy
Studebaker
rolled
to
a
stop
in
front
of
the
strikers,
who
stopped
in
their
tracks
like
everyone
else
to
stare
at
it.
The
door creaked open. A tall man unfolded himself from the somewhat
cramped interior, snatched off his hat and goggles and tossed them
into the vehicle. He strode towards the massed strikers, his fists
clenched at his sides.
“Where
is she? Where’s your damned leader?”
The
newspapers generally described Andrew MacIntyre as handsome. The
epithet did not do him justice. As he stormed towards her, Olivia was
struck with a sense of physical power and keen intelligence. He had
wavy red-gold hair, a high forehead, a square chin, a determined
mouth. His eyes were hazel, deep set under brows darker than his
hair. Those eyes drilled into her, fierce and compelling. The women
around her shrank backwards in alarm. Olivia steeled herself, holding
her ground and fighting the urge to grovel at his feet. Instead of
retreating, she took a step forward, holding out her hand.
“Mr
Andrew MacIntyre, I presume?” She marvelled at the steadiness of
her voice, the cool neutral tone.
“Damned
right. And you are…?”
“Olivia
Alcott.” She pulled herself up to her full height and forced
herself to meet his gaze. She saw anger simmering there, but behind
his irritation there was something else, something that intrigued and
thrilled her. Something that she might be able to use to further her
goals. Olivia Alcott recognised lust when she saw it.
He
towered over her by at least a head. Though his body was hidden by
his loose touring coat, his decisive, economical movements suggested
he was lean and athletic. For a moment he hesitated, staring at her
proffered hand. When he finally accepted it, his firm grip confirmed
her impression of strength. His palm felt warm and dry against hers.
She suddenly wished that she were not so sticky and dishevelled. When
he released her, a momentary lightness swept through her, as though
she might float away.
“And
can I assume that you are the instigator and cause of this illegal
strike, Miss Alcott?” He seemed flustered, less confident than she
would have expected. Her spirits rose.
“Instigator?
Perhaps. But not the cause.” Sweat trickled from her hairline, down
into her eyes. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.
“Here.”
He surprised her by offering a crisp handkerchief of fine linen, of a
white so pure it almost seemed to shine with its own light. The
initials ‘AM’ were embroidered in the corner, in golden thread. A
faint scent of lavender reached her nostrils.
“Why,
thank you!” The square of cloth was far more effective than her
hand. When she’d mopped the perspiration from her face, she held
out the swatch of now-damp fabric. “Here you are.”
He
waved dismissively. “Keep it. I’ve got dozens more. Let’s get
back to the matter at hand.”
“How
much did this handkerchief cost, Mr MacIntyre?”
“I
have no idea. My secretary handles my personal expenses.”
“It’s
imported linen, I suspect. Belgian, perhaps?”
“Maybe.
I don’t know. Look, Miss Alcott…”
“And
the monogram looks like real gold. Is it?”
“Honestly,
what does that have to do with anything?”
Olivia
tucked the handkerchief into her bodice, noting that MacIntyre’s
eyes followed the movement. Indeed he didn’t try to hide his survey
of her figure, rude as it was. Another tremor of strangeness
fluttered in her belly.
“I’m
no expert—I don’t have anything so fine myself—but I’d
estimate that each of the dozens of handkerchiefs like this that you
possess costs at least ten dollars.”
“Ah—really
I don’t know—perhaps. Something in that vicinity.”
“That’s
about two weeks of salary for one of these women who work here in
your factory.”
“What?
What are you talking about?”
“The
cause of the strike, Mr MacIntyre. You asked about the cause of the
strike. These poor women—your employees, sir, to whom you have a
certain responsibility—generally make five dollars a week. They’d
have to work for two weeks—twelve days, twelve hours per day—to
afford one of your handkerchiefs. Do you think this is just?”
“Well,
they should be grateful they have jobs.” MacIntyre leaned closer,
his manner and his voice menacing. “And if you don’t stop your
meddling, they won’t. I’ll fire every single one of them in a
minute. There are plenty of people who’d be happy for steady work,
for a reputable company that’s not about to go bust and put them
out on the street.”
“Won’t
you consider raising their salaries, Mr MacIntyre?” Olivia
countered, inserting a bit of sweetness into her own voice. She laid
her hand on his upper arm and felt his muscles shift under her
fingers. “An additional dollar a week would make a big difference
to them.”
“I’m
running a business here, Miss Alcott, not a charity.” He pulled
away from her grasp and shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts,
then stepped past her to speak to the assembled workers.
“Go
back to your machines, ladies. Don’t listen to this—this
rabble-rouser. She’s only here to make trouble. You know that
MacIntyre Textiles has always taken good care of you…”
“Oh,
really, Monsieur?” Lisette Beauchamps pushed her way through the
clot of ragged women to confront him. “Did you care when my
daughter got the brown lung? Poor petite wheezing and coughing
so hard that she couldn’t walk, let alone work? And no money for a
doctor or medicine? Or when Maria Clermont’s hand got tangled in
the spinning machine? After they cut it off at the wrist, the fever
took her. Left her four children all alone, les pauvres.
Now they work here too, in this hellhole that killed their mother.”
“Oui!”
“C’est
vrai!”
The
women besieged Andrew MacIntyre, crowding around him, blurting out
their sad stories in broken English. For a moment, Olivia almost felt
sorry for him.
“Silence!”
His voice drowned out their pleas and complaints. The babble died
away. He raised his fist as though to batter the closest of the
supplicants. Then he let it fall to his side. “The next person who
makes a sound will be arrested and thrown in jail.” Despite his
rough words, though, he appeared uncertain.
*
* * *
I
should mention that this book includes quite a lot of BDSM. I have no
idea how much of that is historically accurate!
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Past is a Foreign Country
There have been so many good posts on this subject so far!
Despite the risks, I love writing historical fiction and the necessary fact-checking spadework. What I don’t love (or can’t bring myself to write) is heterosexual romance set in a time when women had no rights, but which implies that this is really not a problem as long as the Hero and Heroine are in love. Since I wouldn’t want to make an unbreakable commitment to a man who would have the legal right to “correct” me through beatings (and confinement and starvation, all the standard methods of torture), rape me over and over, get me pregnant without my consent, and prevent me from initiating any action, I wouldn’t wish that on any woman – even an imaginary one.
And to anyone who claims that Good Men have never done these things to women, I would ask: then why have laws and social customs allowed such drastic inequality? And under such circumstances, what is “good” and who defines it?
Cultures that deprived most women of the rights of citizenship generally did the same to men of the “lower orders,” however these were defined. And anyone who was defined as a lunatic or an outlaw could expect even worse treatment. Feh.
Yet there have been interesting loopholes and inconsistencies in every social system. However you define historical “progress,” it is never a smooth highway to nirvana.
Visiting the past is like visiting a locale that seems exotic because it is different from where you live. Having to learn what your characters ate, what their houses or dwelling-places were like, how they spoke, what they wore, how they travelled, what they did for entertainment, how they earned money, and how they worshipped their Deity(ies) and then work all that information into a story without interrupting the plot with long info-dumps is not only an interesting writing challenge. Becoming aware of the texture of a past era, like visiting another country, is a way of becoming aware of the texture of your own everyday life. This is guaranteed to help the writing, regardless of when or where the story takes place.
Changing technology and passing fashions enable all writers – if we survive long enough – to recognize our own early work as “historical.” Consider a one-act play I wrote in high school in the late 1960s. Two girls (one painfully shy, bookish, self-conscious, and one aggressive, determined to survive in the teenage jungle) compete for the attention of an easy-going boy who is mildly attracted to Shy Girl but bewildered by the intensity of both girls. There is a portable record-player and stack of vinyl records in an empty classroom. The boy puts on a record and dances with Shy Girl until Sassy Girl (in fashionable psychedelic-print miniskirt) pulls him away. Shy Girl has bangs (fringe) that almost cover her eyes.
My motive for looking up this piece, typed on paper that has yellowed over the years, was to decide whether I could make it “relevant” (1960s term) to current times. I was dismayed. OMG! (Not a 1960s expression.)
The vinyl records (usually with scratches on them that altered the sound), the classroom with blackboard and chalk (no computers, no cell phones, no i-whatevers), the clothing, the hairstyles, the assumption by all three young characters that they are living in a culture so “advanced” that their old-fogey parents and teachers have no grasp of the current zeitgeist – I would have to update all the physical details and several of the unspoken premises to bring this dinosaur back to life. And I probably wouldn’t succeed.
On the other hand, if I ever want to write a longer play, story or novel set in the 1960s, I have a primary document which could be adapted to my current plan.
Historical fiction that works always has to involve sleight-of-hand because some of the assumptions of yesteryear don’t seem to travel well into the present. For example, the basic plot of Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, circa 1890s, about sexual exploitation and its aftermath, is still gripping enough to have inspired more than one movie and a television mini-series when the novel was a century old. But who remembers
the theological debates in the novel?
On that note, I know that one of the conflicts that divided my mother’s family during her childhood in the 1920s was between Baptist and Methodist theology. (My mom, then little Jane, was taken to church by her Methodist aunt while her father, a Baptist convert, thundered about the evils of alcohol, dancing and card-playing. And Jane’s mother wrung her hands but went to church with her husband.) Do I care? Not really.
The question of whether my scandalous party behaviour (dancing and drinking wine) could send me to Hell has never kept me awake at night. Yet if I ever write a realistic piece about the flavour of little Jane’s upbringing, I will have to find a way to make this conflict interesting to the reader or viewer.
Any piece set in English-speaking culture before approximately 1450 AD either requires subtitles or “archaic” language that a current audience can still understand. The writer has to function as an interpreter who can make the past intelligible to his or her contemporaries. It really isn’t that different from what we all strive to do: show the story in our minds to our readers, and hope they understand.
---------------
Despite the risks, I love writing historical fiction and the necessary fact-checking spadework. What I don’t love (or can’t bring myself to write) is heterosexual romance set in a time when women had no rights, but which implies that this is really not a problem as long as the Hero and Heroine are in love. Since I wouldn’t want to make an unbreakable commitment to a man who would have the legal right to “correct” me through beatings (and confinement and starvation, all the standard methods of torture), rape me over and over, get me pregnant without my consent, and prevent me from initiating any action, I wouldn’t wish that on any woman – even an imaginary one.
And to anyone who claims that Good Men have never done these things to women, I would ask: then why have laws and social customs allowed such drastic inequality? And under such circumstances, what is “good” and who defines it?
Cultures that deprived most women of the rights of citizenship generally did the same to men of the “lower orders,” however these were defined. And anyone who was defined as a lunatic or an outlaw could expect even worse treatment. Feh.
Yet there have been interesting loopholes and inconsistencies in every social system. However you define historical “progress,” it is never a smooth highway to nirvana.
Visiting the past is like visiting a locale that seems exotic because it is different from where you live. Having to learn what your characters ate, what their houses or dwelling-places were like, how they spoke, what they wore, how they travelled, what they did for entertainment, how they earned money, and how they worshipped their Deity(ies) and then work all that information into a story without interrupting the plot with long info-dumps is not only an interesting writing challenge. Becoming aware of the texture of a past era, like visiting another country, is a way of becoming aware of the texture of your own everyday life. This is guaranteed to help the writing, regardless of when or where the story takes place.
Changing technology and passing fashions enable all writers – if we survive long enough – to recognize our own early work as “historical.” Consider a one-act play I wrote in high school in the late 1960s. Two girls (one painfully shy, bookish, self-conscious, and one aggressive, determined to survive in the teenage jungle) compete for the attention of an easy-going boy who is mildly attracted to Shy Girl but bewildered by the intensity of both girls. There is a portable record-player and stack of vinyl records in an empty classroom. The boy puts on a record and dances with Shy Girl until Sassy Girl (in fashionable psychedelic-print miniskirt) pulls him away. Shy Girl has bangs (fringe) that almost cover her eyes.
My motive for looking up this piece, typed on paper that has yellowed over the years, was to decide whether I could make it “relevant” (1960s term) to current times. I was dismayed. OMG! (Not a 1960s expression.)
The vinyl records (usually with scratches on them that altered the sound), the classroom with blackboard and chalk (no computers, no cell phones, no i-whatevers), the clothing, the hairstyles, the assumption by all three young characters that they are living in a culture so “advanced” that their old-fogey parents and teachers have no grasp of the current zeitgeist – I would have to update all the physical details and several of the unspoken premises to bring this dinosaur back to life. And I probably wouldn’t succeed.
On the other hand, if I ever want to write a longer play, story or novel set in the 1960s, I have a primary document which could be adapted to my current plan.
Historical fiction that works always has to involve sleight-of-hand because some of the assumptions of yesteryear don’t seem to travel well into the present. For example, the basic plot of Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, circa 1890s, about sexual exploitation and its aftermath, is still gripping enough to have inspired more than one movie and a television mini-series when the novel was a century old. But who remembers
the theological debates in the novel?
On that note, I know that one of the conflicts that divided my mother’s family during her childhood in the 1920s was between Baptist and Methodist theology. (My mom, then little Jane, was taken to church by her Methodist aunt while her father, a Baptist convert, thundered about the evils of alcohol, dancing and card-playing. And Jane’s mother wrung her hands but went to church with her husband.) Do I care? Not really.
The question of whether my scandalous party behaviour (dancing and drinking wine) could send me to Hell has never kept me awake at night. Yet if I ever write a realistic piece about the flavour of little Jane’s upbringing, I will have to find a way to make this conflict interesting to the reader or viewer.
Any piece set in English-speaking culture before approximately 1450 AD either requires subtitles or “archaic” language that a current audience can still understand. The writer has to function as an interpreter who can make the past intelligible to his or her contemporaries. It really isn’t that different from what we all strive to do: show the story in our minds to our readers, and hope they understand.
---------------
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Grounded in the Here and Now
by Kristina Wright
While I can appreciate the research that goes into historical fiction, I have no desire to write it. I have written my share of college research papers and there is something particularly rewarding about research, the quest for information to satisfy a particular thesis. And yet, the feeling of success doesn't translate when I contemplate writing historically based fiction.
I suppose it has something to do with limits. Writing from a historical perspective requires an author to respect the conventions of the era-- and so often that meant women were limited in what they could do, say and be. Yes, yes, historical fiction doesn't have to be historically accurate-- I've read enough of it to know that-- but I find it annoying when an author plays fast and loose with the rules of sex, relationships and social conventions while towing the line with regard to everything from the vernacular to the underwear.
To ignore the expectations of a woman's role in a particular era is to rewrite history and while I enjoy alternate history, I find myself rebelling against a fictional historical account that could never happen. (I should probably point out that I'm not a big science fiction, either. I don't think that's a coincidence.) I like my fiction grounded in reality and the "good old days" of history were rarely good for the women. And so, while I will lose myself in a book or film set in an era where I would've been considered little more than property, I don't find myself drawn to writing it.
There are some historical time frames, however, that don't appeal to me at all-- to read or to write. The Oscar nominated Lincoln was filmed practically in my backyard, yet I have no particular desire to see it. I know the story, I know the history, I know that many, many people died in the fight to overturn the status quo. I respect the history behind the film, but as far as finding it entertaining? No. Of course, I know I'm in the minority.
I think writing contemporary fiction appeals to me because it allows me to have a voice. I don't have to assume the voice of a woman with fewer choices and limited roles, I don't have to struggle against the constraints of an era to craft a story, I don't have to break the rules and create what amounts to an historical fantasy in order to tell the story I want to tell. I can still spend as much time researching a contemporary setting as an historical one-- I certainly don't know everything there is to know about living in the world I live now and often find myself writing something and wondering, "How does that work?" So, the research is still there, regardless of setting. But I feel less encumbered by the weight of the truth when I'm writing about the here and now.
Something I haven't yet written, but find incredibly appealing, is time travel. To take my modern sensibilities and drop them into a past era? Ah-- now that's historical fiction I might enjoy! Of course, it is still historical fantasy, right? But then, at least, I could break the rules without muddying the historical genre.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Lips Like Cherries
by Kathleen Bradean
Steven Saylor writes a wonderful detective series set in
ancient Rome. His hero Gordianus the Finder treads carefully through politics
and intrigue in pursuit of truth. Years ago at the Saints and Sinners Literary
Festival, Steven talked about the pitfalls of writing historical fiction. This is
recall, so forgive me if I have the story wrong, but he mentioned that in one
of his stories, he compared the lips of Gordianus’ lover to cherries, which
prompted a reader to inform him that his story was clearly set several years
before cherries were introduced to the Romans. Horrors! Steven mentioned that in the reprint he
changed the comparison to pomegranates. But his point was that no matter how
much research you do, there’s someone out there whose entire life revolves
around fruit in ancient Rome, chariot wheels, or armor, and if you make an
error on their obsession, they will hunt you down and mock you.
Put me off writing historicals.
Oh, I can see someone
complaining that a character couldn’t have walked from Bath to London in two
days during the Regency period or when a sycophantic courtier says that a Ming
Dynasty emperor has the wisdom of Solomon, but I’m not going to drag a writer to
the public pillory for cherry lips. I’ll forgive a lot when reading a ripping
yarn.
But my concern, both as a reader and a writer, is how can we
ever know we got it right? I’m not as concerned about details of cherries and
chariot wheels as I am about how we assume people felt about issues. The things we ‘know’ about the past are
often a lot of nonsense. For example, the way we’ve been taught to view the
Victorians. We think of them a puritanical zealots who
covered the arms and legs of their furniture to stop lustful thoughts. Sure,
maybe someone did that, but some people in this current time believe that the
Grand Canyon was created during Noah’s Flood. I wouldn't want someone two hundred years from now thinking I believed that about the Grand Canyon. Maybe the reason we know about the furniture modesty thing was that someone thought it was so stupid that they wrote about it assuming the audience would get how absurd it was, not that they'd take it as a widespread practice.
What we forget about the Victorians, if we ever knew it, was that they were incredibly forward thinking people. Women’s suffrage, the Humane Society, public sanitation, spiritualism, vegetarianism, public police forces, free-love communes… You name it, they got into it. The best part was that they stopped looking to their rulers to fix problems, rolled up their sleeves, applied scientific methods, and got it done with their committees and teas and societies at the public level. Yeah, some things didn’t work out so well, but at least they tried to make life better for everyone. Bunch of radicals!
What we forget about the Victorians, if we ever knew it, was that they were incredibly forward thinking people. Women’s suffrage, the Humane Society, public sanitation, spiritualism, vegetarianism, public police forces, free-love communes… You name it, they got into it. The best part was that they stopped looking to their rulers to fix problems, rolled up their sleeves, applied scientific methods, and got it done with their committees and teas and societies at the public level. Yeah, some things didn’t work out so well, but at least they tried to make life better for everyone. Bunch of radicals!
So I’m afraid when I read that people didn't know about sex when they probably watched their livestock or neighbors or parents getting it on all the time that we’re not
giving our predecessors much credit for common sense. I think plenty people
knew the earth was a sphere long before it became the official doctrine. I
think most cultures fostered explorers who traveled as well as homebodies who
made sure they had a hearth to return to. I don’t believe in the noble savage
or that anyone ever properly revered the earth. There were no real saints and
everyone was (is) capable of savagery as well as deep compassion, often applied
simultaneously, because humans are weird that way. I think a lot of people paid
(pay) lip service to the local religion but did (do) what they damn well pleased,
because no matter what era, continent, race or religion people were born to,
people are, and always were, people. My favorite historical novels have a way
of pointing that out.
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