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.
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