I wrote my second novel in the mid-1990s, a young mom in the crucible of chemo and recovery: swamped with pharmaceuticals, living in immune-compromised isolation, and immersed in the sort of books you read when you think you’re dying.
Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, a philosophical retelling of the Psyche and Eros myth, blew my mind and prompted a Bullfinch reading binge. A dark dramedy took shape in my head as I thought about how the complicated story of Psyche and her extended family might play if I dropped it into my world—a working class suburb in Houston, Texas—with full advantage of melodic Southern dialect and over-the-top Southern family dynamics.
With brilliant editing from Joan Drury, Sugarland was published in 1999 by Spinsters Ink, a feisty little feminist press based in Duluth, Minnesota, and later by Bertelsmann, the parent company of Random House, in Europe. It did well, won a few awards, and got good reviews. The German translation, Fast wei im Paradies, was a bestseller and generated hundreds of letters, which was trippy, even though I had no idea if they were fan or hate mail.
Best of all, Sugarland had a nice run with book clubs all over the United States; I was lucky enough to sit in on more than a hundred robust, wine-fueled discussions at bookstores, bars, and in readers’ homes—an eye-opening privilege I’ve not had with any other book. Even in 2001, when I was touring to promote my memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair, many book clubs I visited wanted to go back and rehash their previous year’s conversation about Sugarland. The story of Kit and Kiki turned out to be a vehicle for polarized, revealing conversations about how endemic sexism and misogyny haven’t changed that much over the past three thousand years, particularly when it comes to casual language and shaming qualifiers attached to sexual assault and domestic violence.
Lord, I wish this book would stop being so fucking relevant.
Kit and Kiki are caught up in the type of dreams and frustrations quickly understood by most young mothers. Kit’s husband Mel is a gentle salt-of-the-earth working man; Kiki’s husband Wayne is the golden son of a privileged family—a man whose good looks and charm mask a terrifying mean streak. The complex arc of the story arises from an incident revealed in succinct emotional and physical detail close to the beginning of the book: Kit is raped by Wayne. Later in the book, Wayne violently beats and rapes his wife, and the language purposely echoes the rape of Kit, which is less physically violent but no less monstrous. Both assaults are clearly about power, not sex.
The damage done to Kit as her children and her sister's children are sleeping on the floor just a few feet away takes her into Psyche’s perilous realm. She loses herself to shame and denial and methodically destroys her own life. In the midst of that desperate downward spiral, Kit has a comforting sexual encounter with Ander, her longtime friend and employer. Again, the language was carefully constructed to demonstrate the difference between the rape and this situation in which Kit is a willing participant.
From the Library Journal review (emphasis mine): “When both sisters become pregnant for the third time, suffering ensues: cataclysmic loss for Kiki and overwhelming guilt for Kit, unsure of her unborn child's paternity after a virtual assault by Wayne and a spontaneous tumble with her boss.”
Ponder with me the problematic false equivalence of “virtual assault” and “spontaneous tumble”—or the problematic notion that “virtual assault” is even a thing.
From Publisher's Weekly: “Meanwhile, Kit has two quickie flings, resulting in a pregnancy of questionable paternity. Readers with true equality of the sexes on their minds may object that Kiki's husband’s cheating is treated as an actionable offense while Kit's marital excursions are permitted the luxury of mitigating circumstances.”
Quickie.
Fling.
I physically cough-barked when I saw that. At least the “marital excursion” enjoyed the “luxury of mitigating circumstances.” Because getting raped is a luxury, you see. ‘Cause then you have a good excuse when you explain yourself to the satisfaction of—gah! Whatever. These are two reviews among many that had high praise for the book itself but proved the book’s point with semantic bet-hedging over whether it really counts as rape if a woman wasn’t adequately beaten before, during, or after she was forcibly penetrated. The assumption is that Kit—unhappy in her tepid marriage—was consciously or subconsciously asking for it. And what a feminazi I was for treating poor Wayne’s “cheating” as an “actionable offense”!
Note to anyone doing jury duty: IT IS.
When I visited book clubs, which were populated overwhelmingly by women readers, I was astounded to find that discussions often centered, at least in part, on what Kit could have and should have done to prevent the rape from happening.
And we wonder why 90% of sexual assaults go unreported.
When I told Joan Drury about these book club conversations, she said, “Now you know why this book is important. They’re having the conversation. They’re talking about it. That’s a victory.”
Two decades later, the #MeToo movement sparked some hope. Feminists of my daughter’s generation—girls who came of age with women gynecologists, harassment laws, and access (for the moment) to safe, legal abortion—are not shy about raining down internet outrage on someone like Rep. Todd Aiken (R-Missouri), who claimed in 2012 that rape could not result in pregnancy, because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”
Aiken promptly got shut down his own self, but let’s face it, no dumbass is an island. This was not one guy’s political faux pas; this is an agenda embraced by a lot of people to justify private judgements and public policies that degrade and harm women on several levels. And that’s why we have to keep the conversation going. Women need to go there—with each other, with our daughters, and with the people who represent us in Congress. It would be nice to think that the good fight fought by Joanie Drury and her sisters would be sufficient to secure safety, health, civil rights, equal pay, and mutual respect for future generations of women.
Note to my daughter: It wasn’t.
Apparently, it never will be. The good fight goes on, but I remain hopeful. Someday, we—the body female—will spread our wings and shut that whole thing down.
Sugarland is out of the vault, available in paperback and on all ebook platforms.
My second novel, published in 1999 by Spinsters Ink in the USA and Bertelsmann in Europe, is out of the vault, available in paperback and on all ebook platforms. I love the stunning cover illustration by Kapo Ng. All about womanhood and wings.
Flap Copy:
Childhood singing stars Kit and Kiki Smithers are all grown up, young mothers navigating the joys and frustrations of suburban life. When their small world is shattered by an insidious act of sexual violence, the two sisters call on memories of an old story their mother used to tell: a tale of goddesses, monsters, and a series of seemingly impossible tasks whereby a girl, betrayed and broken, finds her way out of the underworld into the light.Kudos:
"Heartbreaking, hilarious... poignantly authentic. This talented author brings pen and ink people to flesh and blood fulfillment."
SOUTHERN LIVING
In the wake of trauma and betrayal, two pregnant sisters spread their wings and discover an unimagined source of strength.
"Alternately wrenching and humorous... This is the stuff of book club discussion."
Publishers Weekly
"Bittersweet and priceless. Rodgers' multilayered Sugarland tells some not-so-sweet tales. "
Chicago Tribune
Coming to these books from the perspective of a seasoned writer, I found a whole new joy in the terse prose and a whole new dismay in the blatant sexism, racism, and homophobia. I expanded my hardboiled deep dive to include Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Val McDermid, and Elmore Leonard. (I was completely chuffed to discover among the acknowledgements that I’d had editors in common with both McDermid and Leonard.)
This was not the genre where I wanted to hang out long-term as a writer, but I couldn’t resist the challenges presented by this sort of procedural fiction: structural knots, moral ambiguity, gritty dialogue. It struck me as the perfect vehicle for sending up old school isms and skewering literary snootiness. Developing Smartie’s style for the Smack Wilder novels is the most fun I’ve ever had on paper.
Revisiting the manuscript in preparation for this 10th Anniversary Edition, I laughed out loud, and I hope readers will too. This gimlet-eyed view of the writing process and publishing industry is true, in spirit, to my experience as a writer, especially the portrayal of Smartie’s critique group, The Quilters.
My own critique group, The Midwives, five dedicated professional writers, met every other Friday evening in the suburbs of Houston. Colleen Thompson, our unofficial high priestess, is a successful romantic suspense novelist who wrote The Salt Maiden, The Off Season, Fatal Error, and many others. Barbara Taylor Sissel has written several crime-centered family dramas including Evidence of Life, Faultlines, and Tell No One. Thieme Bittick, who wrote as TJ Bennett, is the author of fantasy novels The Legacy, The Promise, and Dark Angel. Wanda Dion had been successfully published as a YA author and was looking to spread her wings in a darker direction.
Being in The Midwives was one of the greatest experiences of my personal and professional life. These fabulously funny, intelligent, well read, compassionate, and talented women worked hard and upheld high craft standards. There was no jealousy or competitiveness, because we all understood that book writers don’t compete with each other; they compete with television, Facebook, and other time-sucks that prevent people from reading. What I learned from them about writing, publishing, mothering, and life could fill another book.
We always began with half an hour of lively conversation, during which we allowed one snack and one snack only: Chex Mix. Long before I joined the group, they’d decided that fussing over hostess duties was not a good use of a writer’s time. We all showed up with five hard copies of our weekly pages and read in a round robin: each author would read her ten pages aloud without interruption while the rest of us took notes, then we’d discuss for fifteen or twenty minutes. We were staunchly supportive of each other’s work, but no punches were pulled. No gratuitous praise was offered in the spirit of “being nice,” because we all knew that it’s not nice to be lied to and sent out bare-assed into an unforgiving publishing ethos. When The Midwives told me, “This is working,” I knew it was solid. When something wasn’t working, I could rely on them to speak the truth in a loving, helpful context.
Colleen, whose husband was a fireman, was especially sharp when it came to all things first responder. Like me, she’s a research fiend, and we shared a few rollicking research road trips, driving through a herd of buffalo in Yellowstone Park, trudging across the West Texas desert to view the Marfa Lights, and wandering the eerie murals in an old resort where Nazi brass had been housed as prisoners of war. These are adventures I couldn’t have shared with anyone but other than a fellow writer nerd—someone who really gets the wealth of inspiration that happens when you smell the inside of a toolbox or examine the texture of a taco shell.
After seven intensely productive, joyful years, Bobbi moved to the Hill Country, I relocated to the beach in Washington State, and the critique group drifted apart. We remain lifelong friends, and that powerful critique model informs the work I do now, mentoring and nurturing small groups of writers at Westport Lighthouse Writers Retreat. We Midwives celebrated each other’s successes and cried for each other’s heartaches. We believed in each other’s talent and forgave each other’s foibles, because, at the end of the day, we were five women who loved each other.
The greatest blessing I could hope for any writer is to find such a tribe.
