ON STRIPPING

Oh, sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. It means everything to everyone. Gender as sex. Violence as sex. Beauty as sex. Words as sex. Nudity as sex. This all got started in my mind because I went to a couple of strip clubs in Houston with my brothers on Wednesday night. Well, actually it started way before that, obviously, but this particular train of thought started when I went to the strip clubs this week.

I would never think, “Hey, I’m going to go to a strip club tonight!” but I’ve always been easily influenced by these brothers of mine. My dad dubbed them The Vandals after seeing the 1979 SNL skit (Season 5, Episode 1 if you have Netflix or Hulu). The Vandal (Al Franken) has just TP’d and shit-bagged the centurion’s (Steve Martin) camp. His parents (Bill Murray and Jane Curtain) ask the Vandal why he does these terrible things, “After all we’ve done for you!” Franken repeatedly replies “idunno” in an adolescent grumble. That was the chorus of my youth. When a girl scrambled out of the ground floor window of my brothers’ room while my father banged on the bedroom door; when the car ended up in a cornfield. “Idunno.”

The thing about my brothers is—despite all their misdemeanors—they remain totally endearing. They’re nearly Irish twins, born within 16 months and devoted to each other in a way that is completely adorable. They’re five and four years older than I am, respectively. I’ve been trying to keep up with them since I was a toddler. And I still can’t. They can drink so much, without ever getting a hangover! A trait I considered admirable for so many reasons. It’s just birth order, I guess, that sort of looking-up-to. All of that is to say, when they suggested going to a strip club, of course I said, “Yes!” 

Ostensibly it was a bit of a walk down memory lane. My older brother was in Houston on business on September 10, 2001. He was stranded here for ten days after 9/11 and has a misty concept of Houston being the home of the hottest strippers in the world. Like reheating the soufflé, I say. We drove (far!) to some place out near the airport because that was the halcyon strip club of his reminiscence. Turned out it was, um, not the place. We went in anyway.

 At first I had that weird feeling that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing there. Why is it carpeted? Is that really sanitary? Is it like a cabaret—them on the stage, us in our seats? Or is it more of a contrived cocktail party, with mingling? Who are these people? Are they happy?

That’s not unusual, though. I tend to have that feeling a lot. I wonder what the hell I am doing somewhere, even in supposedly “normal” situations, then slip easily into observation mode. I figure I’ll be able to write about it all at some point. What is that layer of glaucous silicone painted over their breasts? That woman’s tummy looks like she just had a baby…I wonder how long ago she delivered? We didn’t last long at that place because…well, basically because it was kind of skanky and my brothers were in the mood for something a little more upscale.

We went to the next place, closer to the center of town, lots of nice cars out front, behind a discreet eight-foot wall, etc. This one was much nicer. The dancers were more interactive, hanging out in their teddies with men in button-down shirts and khakis or cowboy-type guys in what I consider cowboy dress-up (black) or the three lesbians at the table to our left. My brothers thought it was hilarious to tell the fawning waitresses and dancers that I was USA-Today-Bestseller-Megan-Mulry. I even gave away a few bookmarks. (I’m always marketing, Beth!) 

Anyway! This is about…well, I don’t know. Sex for sale, I guess. Because let’s face it. Sex sells. Like any commodity, if people want it, people will find a way to get it. Whatever IT is. That’s the main reason I am such a political anomaly. I am a true believer in the free market (even though no such thing exists). I guess I am a deep believer in freedom in general, but it is very VERY messy. Freedom is so fucking messy and all these religions and governments and organizations are so desperate to keep order. They try so hard, and (when I am feeling generous) I think their hearts are in the right place. They are trying to eradicate hunger and disease; they are trying to enrich people’s lives with moral tools that will lead to a tolerable happiness. Or something.

But I am not always feeling generous. Usually I think they are just trying to be controlling twats. I think “they” are trying to tell me what to do and how to do it. Alas, I am perverse to the point of self-destructive and “they” should know that about me. I don’t know if it’s part of humanity or just part of my personal psych profile, but I gravitate to what I am not “supposed” to like, do, think, try, etc. I like the edge. So this strip club idea felt sort of edgy to me. I’d only been to a strip club once before, in South Florida, which always felt sort of amateurish to my mind. Here was a chance to step up to the big time. Big city. High class. Ba-dah-bing.

I should have remembered from that other visit. Strip clubs are not sexy for me. A few days ago I was reading Olivia Cunning’s rock star erotica, Backstage Pass, and let me tell you what: That shit is fucking sexy. That book made me squirm on the airplane and reduce the size of the font on my Kindle app so the nice lady in the seat next to mine wouldn’t catch a glance of any of those sex words and take my mom off her prayer list.

There wasn’t even the hint of a squirm at the strip clubs.

So I learned something about myself as I stared at those supposedly sexy ladies: naked dancers are not my aphrodisiac. Stories are. Words turn me on so much more than visual stimulation. But enough about me, back to the strippers.

I’ve been ruminating about the objectification factor. Are these strippers being victimized? Are they culturally looked down upon? Was I looking down on them? Well. I was objectifying them because I was storifying them, but I do that to everyone in my life, so I don’t think I was making them into a science experiment of human behavior any more than I usually do with all humans. This feeling was reiterated when a twitter friend in Japan mentioned she had gone to her first Maid Café. I had no idea what that was so we exchanged a few tweets about it. (More background info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid_café )

(The ear cleaning option? Just ew.)

That idea of a really choreographed type of interaction got me thinking more about this objectification idea. Seems like some people really like the whole construct thing. It’s all orchestrated. If I pay for admission to the strip club (or Disney World for that matter), those people actually are there for my entertainment. Even though I love to drive around and sing along with Pink when I’m feeling belittled, the truth is we are all here for one another’s entertainment. Denying that would be like getting upset when I find out my friends and family talk about me behind my back: Grow up. People talk about you. Get over it.

When I realized I was asking one stripper all sorts of questions about what goes on in the VIP room, and what was the most she ever made in one night, and what does she average for a dance—and on and on like I was licking the tip of my metaphorical pencil and had a god-damned “scoop” sign on my head—she went along with it for awhile. I think she even enjoyed talking about how she got into the business: “That’s my mom over there,” she said as she gestured to an attractive waitress about my age. “This place is like my second home.” I think she knew I would like the homey angle.

And there it is. Who really objectified whom? My brother who smiled and slipped a bill into her boy-shorts (no g-strings allowed in Houston, my friends)? Or I who took her story and shoved it into this story? Or she who steered a conversation filled with all sorts of information that may or may not have even been true? We were all on.

That led to a whole other murky-thinking-time about the nature of contrivance. I contrive all the livelong day. I make up people. I make up places. I make up stories. I decide who lives and who dies. When you open one of my books you will be part of that shared hallucination. (Come on in!) We make these little social contracts endlessly in our lives. When people enter a Japanese Maid Café or a Houston strip joint, they are making a little social contract. They are playing along.

Sometimes I think I’m really bad at playing along, especially in person…with other people. I blurt and feel awkward. And then money is added to the mix and I’m even more befuddled. The morning after the strip-club outing, I even had the brief thought I should drive back to that second strip club and pay that nice second-generation stripper for the time she spent talking to me. Did I totally waste her time while she was working? What was I thinking? I started to feel like a total douche after-the-fact. Was it worse that I thought I was treating her like a “person” by not paying her for her time, or was it worse that I had not paid her for her time?

What if we just handed cash to people after a regular (non-strip-club) conversation? “Hey, I really enjoyed talking to you; here’s five bucks.” I guess that’s where my blurry ideas about love-of-free-markets and go-pay-for-sex-if-you-feel-like-it and why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along run into a small snafu. Where along the interaction continuum do I go from authentic to contrived? From person to customer? From being to being on?

I never know.

 ###

BONUS #1

Fun with Etymology:

Strip-tease – 1. A kind of entertainment in which a female (occas. a male) performer undresses gradually in a tantalizingly erotic fashion before an audience, usu. to music; an instance of this. (1936) (OED)

Also love this OED example, which makes it sound so plummy, so quintessentially Graham Greene:

1978   G. Greene Human Factor ii. iii. 75,   I thought dinner in the Café Grill and afterwards a spot of strip-tease.

BONUS #2

Oh my god! Did you notice that I didn’t use the words degrading or feminist one single time? Without even trying? That’s progress, I tell you, serious progress.

BONUS #3

Lastly, just so you know, I had a whole paragraph in there about the “real” meaning of human connection and intimacy that began, “Was it Kierkegaard or Maisey Yates who said…” but I deleted it because it was just too incongruous.

That’s What Love Can Do

I should be doing about a million things on my to-do list, but I just had to write a quick blog to set down some of the incredible things that have happened over the past week. Last Wednesday I flew out to Kansas City for the 30^th Annual Romantic Times annual convention. It has a reputation for being (as Eloise would say) rawther wild. What an adventure!

First off, I ended up finding a roommate through some mutual friends on Twitter. I know this sounds like some sort of weird online dating (we did share a bed one night), but I am starting to deeply believe that you can get a very good read on someone in 140 well-chosen characters. In any case, my roommate Sasha is a romance reader and blogger (http://caribbeanaccentbookreviews.com) who had never been to a romance conference before. She was not only there to solidify her contacts for work, but she was meeting tons of her favorite authors for the first time. She was wildly enthusiastic.

This turned out to be such a boon. After three years (I know! Can you believe it? I started writing A Royal Pain on June 1, 2010), it’s easy to begin to feel a bit jaded. It’s hard not compare where I am to where other writers are. So much has happened in the past three years: the publishing industry is barely recognizable; everyone is doing something different; there is no longer one right way. Everything is possible! This can be exhilarating or terrifying, depending on my mood.

Initially, RT was a business convention for me. I had meetings with my editor and spent time with my publicist and lots of other publishers and editors and agents who were also there. I felt like I had to be “on” or that I had to “project my brand” all the time. (I have no idea what that really means, so I put a martini glass clip art on a neon pink business card and hoped that conveyed sparkle and wit.)

Anyway, the thing about rooming with Sasha was I (mostly) forgot about sales numbers and marketing plans and platforms and remembered how much I adore romance novels. I love to read romance novels. I really never have a bad time when I read romance novels. (Okay, there was that one time that I was really expecting a lot of sex-on-the-page because a book was listed as erotica and I didn’t get any *pun groan* until the final chapter, but even then, I loved the time I spent reading and sending nasty emails to the close friend who’d recommended it and getting her replies, “Just wait! Just wait!”). Anyway, it’s so good to be reminded of this sort of gratitude because it applies to everything.

I’m not happy when I have to fight our version of the Death Star Battle every time I ask my six-year-old son to clean up his Legos (the equivalent of doing a third round of revisions on a 300-page manuscript), but if I can do something else that day to remind myself that the only  important thing I really have to do for my son is make sure he knows I love him, then it’s a great day. The RT Convention put me right there in the all-I-have-to-do-is-remember-why-I-love-it space.

Meeting readers, especially the readers who are lovingly referred to as “In The Wild” readers, was such a life-changing experience for me. I have been incredibly grateful for all of the love and support I’ve received from family and friends (seriously grateful!), but there was always that little voice in my head that said, “Well, she just read my book because she knows me…or she knows my aunt…or she knows my mother-in-law…” And I know that’s a stupid self-defeating inner monologue, but, well, there it is. So, when someone—some random stranger, some “In The Wild” reader—comes up to me in person and says, “Hey! I loved your book!” There’s something magical that happens. It’s like the universe is this incredibly connected wonderful place, and people will find what they want to find in it. And connect!

I’ve written before about how my characters tend to be polarizing and how that’s supposed to be a good thing. I think it is. I believe that it is. They’re strong and different and all that. But it still hurts a teensy bit when I read a review that says Bronte is a stupid bitch (@monicakaye’s emphatic Twitter hashtags aside), because it’s painful in a different way. A reader, Landra, came up to me at RT and told me how much she loved my book because she loves to swear and she could totally relate to Bronte’s bitch factor. It made Landra feel better as a person to read a character like herself. Her mother had tried to drill into her that no one was ever going to fall in love with her if she was so tough and had such a potty mouth. Then, she looked me in the eye and held up her engagement ring with the most wonderful glowing smile: “I’m getting married in August and my fiancé loves that I swear and that I’m a bitch!”

Honestly, I don’t care if I ever sell another book (well, of course I do! because I want a house in France, duh!), but in the grand scheme of things, that smile of Landra’s will keep me afloat for years and years. Because that’s what romance novels do. They make us find things within ourselves that are loveable. Even the things that other people try to tell us are unacceptable or that we should try to change. I just finished Colleen Hoover’s Slammed (because a reader at RT looked me in the eye and said, “You have to read this book!”) and there was a line in there that says it all:

“This thing about you that you think is your flaw – it’s the reason I’m falling in love with you.”

Friend or Faux

I remember in some sociology class in college the professor did this typically sociological thing when he used these Venn diagram circles to designate varying levels of intimacy. It was more of a target I think, not overlapping circles really. Anyway, at the center of the circle was the immediate family. The blood. Mother. Father. Siblings. The next circle was also bloody, but thinner. Cousins. In-laws. Then the friendship circle, people we meet and become friends with; then community people (co-workers, etc); then acquaintances; then radiating on out to strangers.

Because it was college—and the nature of friendship is unrealistic in the extreme when you have seventeen hours a day to smoke cigarettes and talk about that bootleg U2 cassette that you scored from the weird guy down the hall—the professor elaborated on the extended friendship circles. One example, which has always stuck with me, was the one about the movies. A close friend is someone you call and say, “Hey, want to go to the movies?” And if there isn’t a movie you can both agree on, you say, “No worries, let’s meet at the bar down on 2^nd Avenue instead.” A friend further from the center would not trump that movie on that night, so maybe you’d say, “I’ll see you next week at the rodeo.” A not-close-friend who wasn’t able to make it wouldn’t warrant any future plan whatsoever, “Okay then.” All good.

But, let’s face it. Like the classification of animals, there is the occasional platypus. Is it a mammal? Is it a reptile? Poor monotremes…they just don’t quite fit. I have many platypi in my life. In fact, I am one. I have many varied and internally-conflicting interests. I used to fret about it. What if my super-WASP-y Republican friend with the 74 Lilly Pulitzer dresses met my activist Democrat friend who vacations in a yurt? But that’s the funny thing. They’re all friends with me, so the shared kook is already part of the equation. I am the common denominator. It was a relief. During those post-college years, I still thought of people in those idiotic circles. “Oh, she’s really sweet and was my roommate and owns a design store in Westchester.” “Oh, he’s really sarcastic and used to work with me at Boston Magazine.” But guess what? Now they are neighbors, no thanks to me. We’re all grown ups. So, I finally got the real-life crossover sorted. (Mostly.)

Then Social Media went and happened. Add a great big new wrinkle to the whole understanding-my-friendships, why don’t you, universe? So I dipped my toe into Facebook about five years ago. I “friended” all my friends: the childhood friends, the 98 first and second cousins, the usual. Then I became this freakishly avid reader of romance novels and I started friending the authors of those books. They were imaginary. I remember when Julia Quinn “accepted” my friend request and I was all aflutter. I knew she wasn’t ever coming over to dinner, but you know, we were “friends.” I guess the air-quotations say it all. *finger quotation* FRIENDS *finger quotation*

Here come the platypi. Is it live or is it Memorex? Fish or fowl? Friend or faux?

During my strange and wonderful travels in social media—particularly on Twitter which lends itself to totally inappropriate revelations of an intimate, sordid, personal nature—some of the air-quotation friends gradually became honest-to-goodness call-in-the-middle-of-the-night-because-I-am-freaking-out friends. As with all of the good friends I’ve made as an adult, these friends share a passion. On Twitter, that shared passion is usually books and a shared passion is powerful friend glue. But it’s not the be-all-and-end-all.

There’s that inexplicable “thing” that allows me to trust another human being to be my friend. The sound of their voice. The look in their eye. For me personally, that is not something that can be entirely based on social media alone. Don’t get me wrong! I trust many people I’ve never met in person, but they are not my friends. How could they be? I haven’t sniffed them. (I’m only half-joking about that.) Needless to say, the meaning of the word friend in society at large has been muddied by the omnipresence of air-quotation-friends. Facebook friends.

Exhibit A: When I first read Miranda Neville’s Never Resist Temptation I held it up to my husband and said, “THIS! This is what I am talking about! Smart! Sexy as hell! Witty! Clever without being toplofty! THIS!” At that point in time, Miranda was an imaginary author, a remote personage. I sent her a gushy fan email. She replied. We started laughing about the same things on Twitter. She was becoming a person. Then, when I met Miranda at RWA in New York City, I was still all fan-girl quivery and crazy. (I’m pretty sure I still like that book way more than she does and it continues to unnerve her). Anyway, it was like *click* because the minute she opened her mouth with that lovely British accent and ordered a second glass of wine I was like this:

(And Miranda was probably like Steve Carrell in the background.) I knew we were going to become friends. And then it happened with a few other people. I read Anne Calhoun’s Liberating Lacey and sent her a fan email and now she is my Friend. Capital F. Ditto Mira Lyn Kelly. The list goes on. These are people I’ve met in real life. We’ve hugged. We’ve looked into one another’s eyes and agreed that we have a shared something. (I’ve sniffed.) In any case.

Here’s where it gets tricky. This little platypus blog all got started because I was watching a conversation on Twitter between some people who were saying how it’s a little odd when a Goodreads review says something like, “By the way, I am friends with the author.” There’s no right answer here. If the person writing the review wants to feel like they are showing a modicum of public disclosure (“Hey, I know this person in Real Life and she’s a real dynamo, but my feelings about the book are such-and-such regardless of our friendship…”) I totally respect that. If the person writing the review sounds like a douche (“Nicholas Sparks and I were at his villa in Montserrat sharing a robust Barolo while he read passages aloud, and I loved this book…”) Then, well, I don’t. (That said, I would probably “like” that Sparks review because it would have made me laugh—which is always worth a thumbs-up—but “liking” is a whole different story.)

There’s a bunch of other stuff I could address about the nature of friendship and its innumerable gray areas. Some seem obvious, like, you can’t pay someone to be your friend. But. Even that. My agent is my friend and she gets 15% of everything I earn. (I’d give her more, but that’s the going rate.) My husband is my friend and, in the end, he’ll get 100%. So, I don’t know much about anything, really, except if someone takes the time to read a book and slap a review up there, they’re braver than I am. 

PS Here is a review that factored into my thoughts on this essay:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/577430301

My friend Janet wrote it about my novella, Bound to Be a Bride. Janet and I met and became friends in much the same way I became friends with Miranda Neville: over time. I think Janet is ever-mindful of the ramifications of sock-puppetry and felt the need to say “knows me” so she wouldn’t be accused of “hiding” that fact. Or something.

When Bad Reviews Make Me Feel Good

I try not to look at my reviews, really I do. I want to either (a) have the strength not to look in the first place, or (b) have the strength not to care. However, since I don’t possess those strengths at all times, occasionally I fall back on one of my default coping strategies: misery loves company. So, I took a little stroll around Goodreads, checked in on some of my favorite books, and took a gander at their greatest detractors. 

I really do feel better!

 

ALIENIST

What it lacks in is an actual story.

 

ANGLE OF REPOSE

I have no idea why I hated this book so much.

 

ANNA KARENINA

Infuriatingly boring.

 

AWAKENING

I’d like to give this book ZERO stars, but it’s not an option. This is hands down the worst book that I’ve ever read. I will never say that again in a review, because this one wins that prize.

 

BLOOD MERIDIAN

It very nearly put me off reading anything ever again.

 

CRIME & PUNISHMENT

Okay, I know I’m supposed to appreciate this book, but all I can do is hate, hate, hate it.

 

DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY

First of all, I’ve never liked Chicago.

 

DUKE AND I

This book was quite boring.

 

ENGLISH PATIENT

One of my least favorite novels of all time.

 

FLOWERS FROM THE STORM

It was torture to read these tortured characters.

 

GOD OF SMALL THINGS

This is, without a doubt, the single worst book ever written.

 

HONEY IS BITTER

On the bright side, it made me realize that even I could write a book that was good enough to be published by someone.

 

LORD OF SCOUNDRELS

Absolutely the worst romance novel ever!

 

ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY

Some people just shouldn’t write memoirs.

 

MY ANTONIA

Everytime I see this book in stores, it makes me cringe. I absolutely loathe it.

 

ORLANDO

This book was like the song that wouldn’t end- it just goes on and on.

 

POSSESSION

One of the worst examples of self-indulgence by a writer it has ever been my misfortune to read.

 

POST-BIRTHDAY WORLD

But when I wasn’t curling my lip in disgust, I was banging my head against the wall in frustration and boredom.

 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

This book is quite possibly the most insipid novel I have ever read in my life.

 

REMAINS OF THE DAY

I’ve had more fun reading the encyclopedia.

 

SKYE O’MALLEY

One of the most horrible books I’ve ever read in my life.

 

SUN ALSO RISES

Wow, this book was a dud.

 

WHITNEY, MY LOVE

What a horrible book!

 

WOLF HALL

What a disappointment this book turned out to be. which is a shame because it was very expensive!

In Which I Let Loose on “Control”

Yesterday, I went fan-girl crazy over a book called Control by Charlotte Stein. I have so many deadlines pressing down on me and this was absolutely not the time for me to spend an entire day reading a Slutty Little Bookworm manifesto. But I couldn’t stop. There was so much I adored about this book, but as is almost always the case with my reading pleasure, it came down to the language. Stein has voice, people. And I love it.

When I feel this happy about a book, I tend to get all effusive and I’ve already done that over on Twitter, probably embarrassing Ms. Stein with my enthusiasm. I also make A-B-C gratitude lists. (This might be a pastime I picked up in a 12-stop program in a former life; I can’t remember.) In any case, I highly recommend it, this alphabetizing of things you love.

So here is my Gratitude List for Control by Charlotte Stein, with excerpts from the book in italics:

A – Anywhere (It pours through me, and pours through him, and all I can think is this: I would find you anywhere.)

B – Books. Books. Books. Books in the bookstore alcove that Gabe has penciled in. Books piled all over Maddie’s messy apartment. Books under Gabe’s bed. Books the cousin made Gabe read in his youth. Just…books.

C – Cousins

D – Dirty Clothes (‘These are my – you know. Dirty clothes.’ Of course I’ve got no idea what that means. But I’d certainly like to subscribe to its newsletter. Just where does one find these so called dirty clothes, and what activities might one partake of while wearing them?)

E – Erection (‘Really? I thought my erection had turned invisible.’ It warms my heart, to hear him snark. Thank God no irrevocable psychological damage has taken place. Go us!)

F – French Movies (It’s all romance and tragedy and sex, people foofing around in French until you just want to drink coffee and have tortured affairs with the entire world.)

G – Grey Gardens (I think of Gabe’s comment about Grey Gardens again, as I go. Maybe his parents aren’t dead and I’m going to find them somewhere, dressed in their swimming costumes and carrying raccoons.)

H – Humiliation (I need to know how much humiliation you want, in order to get you to that place of shuddery, red-faced excitement, without the uncomfortable self-doubt and awkwardness, afterwards.)

I – I do too (I guess the I do, too was much more pathetic than I gave it credit for. I guess I’m much more pathetic than I gave me credit for.)

J – Jeannette. (I can believe that I adore Jeanette, in that moment. And I’m so happy, to have her as some sort of friend. I’m happy to be the dirty sidekick, to her semi-pure and half-decent heroine.)

K – Knickers (He’s still wearing the pink knickers.)

L – Licking (‘Here, let me make it better,’ I say, and he stops rubbing the injured party. He drops his hand, without me having to tell him to. Then I bend at the waist, and poke out my tongue. ‘Is this the good part of BDSM?’ he
asks, when I lick. Just a little.)

M – Maddie. Madison. Dear Ms Morris.

N – Nancy.

O – Opening the bathroom door.

P – Plastic covered furniture.

Q – Quickly (I had to find places quickly, because by then I really  … I  … well.)

R – Right angles (I like right angles, I tell him, and his tongue touches his upper teeth.)

S – Slutty Little Bookworm

T – Toys. Toy drawers and Toy museums.

U – Under Gabe’s bed (‘They’re not mine.’ I love him for trying to deny it – it just makes the whole thing so much less awful, somehow. So much more like a game. Now I get to force him to confess.)

V – Vegas (‘If you liked it too much, then what did I do?’ ‘You ran away to Las Vegas and married it.’)

W – Wicked words.

X – Hmmm, I can’t think of anything X-rated…LOLOLOL.

Y – Youth (The way my dad used to chase me around and around it, just in fun – because I was still little and not yet unwieldy, and confusing. How I used to long to go back there, back to that first home where everything was good and happy.)

Z – ZOMFG about this whole damn book. Not that I even know what ZOMFG really means, but I think the Z is supposed to give a little extra oomph. Or as Gabe would say, “mmph.” (And I kiss him hard enough to force this noise out of him: mmph.)

Online Book Club Tonight!

The first online Book Club for A ROYAL PAIN is tonight at 7:00 pm ET. Please stop by! This is your chance to ask all those burning questions…about Bronte, Max, love gone wrong, the steamy scenes, the happy ending, etc. To participate, just click on the link below and it will link you to the Book Club chat. See you then!

Sourcebooks | Chat Now! | Chat Now!

The Childhood of Others

After seventeen years of love and marriage (and other less romantic interludes), coming home to my husband’s birthplace almost feels like coming home to my own. The 1917 Dutch Colonial farmhouse has been in my husband’s family since the 1920s when his grandparents bought it shortly after they were married. They raised their two children, my father-in-law and his sister, in this house. The two children rode a horse to the local one-room schoolhouse in the 1940s.

Eventually, my father-in-law went to the University of Illinois, but his academic career was cut short by family obligations that required him to take over the farm after his junior year. His father had died while my father-in-law was in high school. After his departure from the U of I, he moved back into this house. He married shortly thereafter and raised his own three sons—my husband and brothers-in-law—in the same house in which he had grown up.

My father-in-law was a character. He was dynamic and wiry and sometimes impatient. He loved children and animals and anything else that celebrated nature’s insistent fecundity. He was a farmer in every sense of the word: he loved things that grew. He had an earthy sense of humor paired with an unshakeable view of right and wrong. He often said, “Damn it, Judy!” to his wife of forty-plus years in a way that always made everyone laugh. (Though, maybe not Judy.) He was incredibly athletic and his hand-eye coordination was legendary. He was a great juggler, basketball player, and all-round catcher-of-things-thrown-unexpectedly-at-him. He died seven years ago.

I am sitting at his desk right now. The lower left hand drawer was just the right size for my husband in his infancy. Apparently, when the 23- and 20-year-old husband and wife returned home from the Urbana hospital with their firstborn, that was my husband’s crib. Just like this desk, the entire house has a steady, comforting sense of loving practicality. It is no-nonsense. There are myriad objects that are thirty, fifty, or nearly a hundred years old: things that were made properly. Story goes that when the house was first built, they let the structure sit empty for a full year before applying the plaster walls. “So they wouldn’t crack,” my husband told me.

It feels good to be in this office surrounded by enduring physical evidence of other people’s lives. My husband’s philosophy textbooks (see John Cage mention below); a 1943 read-aloud edition of Jane Eyre that shows loving use around the greyish-green edges of the Frits Eichenberg woodcut on the cover; Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book (1950). Feminine Psychology by Karen Horney, MD *cue: adolescent-pun snicker* (1967), which I opened to page 118:

“We might ask in conclusion, how can analytical insights contribute to diminish the distrust between the sexes? There is no uniform answer to this problem. The fear of the power of the affects and the difficulty in controlling them in a love relationship, the resulting conflict between surrender and self-preservation, between the I and the Thou, is an entirely comprehensible, unmitigatable, and as it were, normal phenomenon. The same thing applies in essence to our readiness for distrust, which stems from unresolved childhood conflicts.” (from a lecture entitled, “The Distrust Between the Sexes,” given in 1930.)

That last rests on my favorite shelf of the small library: a selection curated by my mother-in-law that would make a splendid sociological time capsule upon which one might tack the engraved plaque, “Evolution of the American Woman, circa 1970″. Horney is tucked happily between The Complete Scarsdale Diet, Born to Win, How to Live with Another Person, Open Marriage, and Eating is Okay. I love the combination of intellect and improvement.

It is a pale, cool day here in central Illinois. The wind is picking up and the temperature is dropping outside the north-facing window to my right. I miss my family of origin on the alternating years I am here in Illinois on Thanksgiving, but I relish the solidity, comfort, and substantiation of my husband’s life before I knew him.

The back door just swung open and a gaggle of cousins piled in. “Happy Thanksgiving! Anyone home?” How many years has that cry been heard through this house, I wonder.

November 22, 2012. De Land, Illinois.

PS I have been particularly interested in book dedications and acknowledgements lately and loved these two in particular that I happened upon in this room:

From Jane Eyre, Second Edition:

Author’s Preface

A preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words of both acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.

My thanks are due in three quarters.

To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions.

To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant.

To my Publishers, for their tact, their energy, their practical sense, and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended author.

The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e. to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.

Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class, a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre”: in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong: whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions: I would remind them of simple truths.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them; they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that not only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinize and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulcher, and reveal charnel relics: but, hate as it will, it is indebted to him.

Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil: probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.

There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the Levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.

Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterize his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius, that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud, does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally; I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him—if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger—I have dedicated this second edition of “Jane Eyre.”

-Currer Bell

[Charlotte Brontë]

Dec. 21^st, 1847.

 

From Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage 

To whom it may concern

Around the Blog-O-Sphere

I know it’s been a while and I know this is sort of cheating, but I’ll be writing lots of blogs on other blogs for the next few weeks leading up to the publication date of A ROYAL PAIN, so I figured I could send my teeming fans (*waves to Mom*) over to those other blogs to see what I’ve been up to. (If you are a grammarian [or a psychiatrist], please have fun parsing that sentence.) Here’s where I have been the past few weeks:

Romance at Random – Ruthie’s Reality - In which Ruthie Knox and I share our secret obsessions about royal fairy tales, ginger princes, and second kisses.

Romance Magicians – Author Interview – In which I shoot the breeze with Lisa Dunick about writing, publishing, social media, and swearing.

Harlequin Junkies – Vintage Harlequins and The Art of Forgiveness - In which I go nuts on one of the first Harlequin Presents ever published.

Enjoy your travels around the blog-o-sphere!

Vintage Harlequins

Managed to make a crazy-self-imposed deadline last week and decided to treat myself to a little Vintage Harlequin reading to soothe my overwrought brain. Sara, AKA Harlequin Junkie leant me two of hers. Love’s Tangled Web by Mary Lyons and A Question of Pride by Michelle Reid. Both of these authors are sort of Harl-of-Famers, so I pretty much knew what I as in for. The cover of Mary Lyons was far more appealing…a brick country house in the background, a dark and stormy hero clutching a desperately…wanting heroine. The other cover had a pregnant woman in pale blue overalls who looked like some dude was offering to help carry her groceries. So yeah, I went with Mary Lyons.

Look, there’s always a premise, we have to weave these silly webs to paint these silly characters into these silly corners so then we can watch them squirm and writhe and suffer and then, SIGH, find true love. So I am totally okay with all sorts of preposterous premises. But. There are certain weird moments when I am no longer okay with the preposterousness. If the hero is engaged to your sister…and you are not twins…and you can put a wig on and pretend to be the older sister…and he doesn’t pick up on it…and then actually marries you in a ceremony that you believe to be a fake-rehearsal until your sister comes back the next day. And then—GASP…NO!—it’s a real wedding and a real husband and your douchebag father has already spent all the money the fake-real-husband already gave him as a modern dowry bailout type of thing? Then I am losing it. Because, yes, the fake-real-husband knew it was you all the time…you silly git. He loved you all the time. But he could never tell you because…because…oh no reason. I wanted to shake this book and rattle its bones and say there is so much good in you! Stop trying to be so full of MAYHEM and INSANITY! Why couldn’t they just meet in the same way? Look, her father was a financially irresponsible fool, let’s go with that. Get that rich, rescue-the-family-home-and-marry-me-in-the-bargain plot to kick it off, then get him all controlling and bad-ass in bed, dragging her down to Sardinia or wherever. Also, look, as Annie Hall would say, “He totally opened her up sexually.” (Cue Wallace Shawn).

So, despite all that, I am supremely forgiving when it comes to this stuff. I am here to be forgiving. I am not here to be snarky and petty and nit-picky. I have a soon-to-be 13-year-old daughter for that. When it comes to romance novels, I want to give in! And I did. I loved the part in Sardinia. And I thought of a whole separate blog about how Sardinia and Corsica (and basically anywhere where the sun shines) were weather-porn for the original British reader. Because seriously, I lived there and after a while the weather actually hurts. After one particularly cruel stretch of gray in the late 90s I remember betting houses like Ladbrokes offering odds on when the sun would next shine. That is the meaning of “wanting”….when you haven’t seen the sun shine in 87 days, you feel it…deep in your…core…or wherever. Anyway, that was all thanks to Mary Lyons—and that pushy, non-communicative alpha-hero—that I thought of all that. And I am grateful for all that.

Michelle Reid, on the other hand, gave it to me straight. She forgot to take her birth control pills. We’ve all been there. I buy it. I was hook-line-and-sinker with the no-strings-attached secretary-boss love affair and then how the heroine shot-that-all-seven-ways-to-Sunday-when-I-got-pregnant-but-look-I’m-havin’-your-baby-so-let’s-just-move-the-plot-along. Which she did. Beautifully. A wonderful secondary plot with the mother. A vicious, angry, seriously malicious hero who just BEGGED for redemption in the most delicious way. It was just all A BIT OF ALL RIGHT! And I didn’t care that forgetting to take her pill made her TSTL or that him almost smacking her across the face was…not okay. It just didn’t matter because there was emotional honesty and tidbits of really beautiful oh-god-I-love-him-so-much-and-will-he-ever-love-me-as-much-as-I-love-him vibrating realness that just made that all fine with me.

Does any of that make sense? Maybe. Maybe not. But there you have it. That’s what happens to me when I read a vintage Harl. I FEEL. And I like it.

The Recent Pleasantness

Last week, first thing Monday morning, I got an email from the fabulous Heather Moore at Sourcebooks letting me know that A Royal Pain had received a starred, boxed review in Publishers Weekly. I was pretty stoked. But then it turns out that that’s really a thing. I was getting calls. People were really happy for me.

It was weird.

Now that publication is approaching and people are starting to review the book, I no longer feel each reader’s response so acutely. When I first started letting people read my unpublished manuscript I had to sort of shut my eyes most of the way and hit “Send” while holding my breath. And then wait for a week or two, or longer, while they read it and came back to me with their feedback. Those early readers are the foundation of my dreams. People like Emma Petersen. Mira Lyn Kelly. Brenda Phipps. I just don’t think they will ever really know what it meant for me that they actually took the time to read my stupid book. (Because I had to refer to it as ‘my stupid book’ back then, because I had no idea if it would ever amount to anything.)

During the summer of 2011, after meeting in person for the first time at RWA, Miranda Neville offered to read an early version of A Royal Pain. Honestly, when she said, “Sure, I’d love to read your book.” the first thing that popped into my mind was, “Why?” I am not trying to be cute or self-effacing here, but it really feels miraculous when you tell someone about a book you are working on and they say, “May I read it?” At least it felt like a miracle to me. I was talking to another writer who just signed with an agent and I suspect is about to sign with a publisher about this early-reader-gratitude phenomenon. There’s something about the people who liked you back in the day, back when you were nobody. Of course none of us are nobody, but you know what I mean. Those people become part of our personal mythology.

Don’t get me wrong! I LOVE YOU PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEWER, WHOEVER YOU ARE! But getting the boxey-starry goodness last week was sort of like someone coming up to my five-year-old and exclaiming, “Oh my god! You had a baby!”

The Publishers Weekly review also had one unintended consequence. My husband has gotten it into his head to read my book. He’s liking it, even though it’s not “his thing.” As we left the house on Friday afternoon, after I accused him of being a bandwagon-jumper-onner, he turned to me with a dramatic flair and cried, “What do you mean? I have loved you since you were boxed and starred!”

PS Here’s a link to the review: 

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4022-6997-4 (978-1-4022-6997-4)

PPS Here’s a picture of the review:

PPPS Here’s the review:

* A Royal Pain

Megan Mulry. Sourcebooks Landmark, $14.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4022-6997-4

Mulry debuts with a delightful love story between Bronte Talbott and her modern-day duke. Bronte loves everything pop culture, including—perhaps especially—“royal gazing,” mostly because it annoys her intellectual father. After a disastrous relationship with “Mr. Texas,” for whom Bronte moved from her beloved New York to Chicago, advertising exec Bronte meets Max Heyworth, a “lovely young gentleman from England” and doctorial student in economics at the University of Chicago. It’s not long into their whirlwind romance before Max wants to marry Bronte. Only two problems stand in their way: Bronte doesn’t know that Max, who lives like a pauper, is actually the 19th duke of Northrop, and Bronte has some serious issues to work through, not the least of which being, once she does find out, deciding whether she even wants the life of a duchess. This delectable story, a little reminiscent of the movie The Prince and Me, is all about second chances and every girl’s secret fantasy of marrying the perfect guy. Mulry creates a completely fleshed-out character in Bronte, with her insecurity issues and her envious good luck. She and the other characters make this charming book worth reading again and again. Agent: Allison Hunter, Inkwell Management. (Nov.)