Better Than a Poke in the Ass with a Sharp Stick

The blurb on the jacket tells me this novel is a fast-acting antidote to reality. True to its promise, the plot moves forward with the speed of a Fountain PowerBoat, never leaving the reader in its wake. The central unifier, a kidnapping gone awry, involves a computer programmer who leaves the Novell basement of Unix realtime and attempts to blend into corporate culture, thinking the 1950s ideal man is what he needs to emulate. He must complete the Junior Vice President of Strategic Planning family album with a picture perfect happy suburban family. Create an I Love Lucy composite. Knowing he is socially illiterate, he figures the only way to acquire a wife is by taking a woman hostage. As the individuals converge, their reactions complement and exemplify the contemporary illusions people have of an individual’s place and function in society.

The six characters in Lily James’ High Drama in Fabulous Toledo are given the chance, the ability, to re-invent themselves. The characters want to escape their mundane existence, to morph into the superlative people they daydream of being. By becoming their supposed ideal selves, the characters face the reality of what they truly are meant to be, finding — to use a time-worn cliché — that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

Ellen has always imagined herself moving away and becoming famous. She dreams of herself as the life of the party. Her true self, she fears, has allowed her to be eclipsed. Martin, Ellen’s fiancé, wants order and a rational, controlled universe — he has a vision of himself as the perfect citizen. Jay is a computer programmer who comes out of the basement with the help of Molly. Stef and Jane, the book’s two other characters, indulge themselves, each living their dream life in realtime, not waiting for it to occur. The characters collide as Ellen is kidnapped. By the end, however, Ellen winds up controlling the kidnappers, taking charge of her own fate and influencing the destiny of all the characters.

James’ densely packed prose propels the reader forward from the first paragraph to the last. Her imagery creates a superb background for the insane actions of the novel’s self-indulgent inhabitants who gallop across the plot like Sooners running for Oklahoma territory. I found myself re-reading descriptive passages, shaking my head in appreciation of her vivid narrative style. Here’s a small example, just a part of her explanation of childhood development:

Around the age of six he shifted from the Ptolemaic conception of the solar system to the Galilean. That is, he came to understand that the universe didn’t revolve around him, goddammit, that there was a great big Milky Way out there, with lots of stars, and that his planet body was just one of several, revolving around one of many, revolving around ten thousand billion of same and different, and he was very small. The forgotten and dark ages of eight, nine, and ten were followed by the enlightenment and romanticism of the pre-teen years.

High Drama in Fabulous Toledo is an engaging literary experience. Poignant moments slam into comic prose compelling the reader to go forward, into the soulful depths of James’ extreme characters. The other side of this fence is intellectual and should be experienced at all costs. Despite some vivid sexual references, I’ll leave this book out on the coffee table.

INTERVIEW WITH LILY JAMES, AUTHOR OF HIGH DRAMA IN FABULOUS TOLEDO

VALERIE MacEWAN: I must confess my ignorance. I’d never heard of postfeminism until I read the blurb for your book. Do you think it is necessary for a reader to have some sort of feel for, or definition of, postfeminism to appreciate this book? With that in mind, what is your definition of postfeminism?

LILY JAMES: I don’t think it’s necessary at all. In fact, I think that postfeminism has now been so accepted and integrated into our culture that it’s pretty much what most everyone is thinking now anyway. At The Postfeminist Playground [James’ past web project], we were identifying and naming and explaining a phenomenon that was already occurring, drawing attention to it and deconstructing it but certainly not starting it or creating it.

Postfeminism is the “so now what” that comes after feminism. Postfeminism is a lack of interest in chanting the old slogans, waving the old banners, crabbing over the old injustices. Young women today want to exploit and enjoy our freedom, not pout about what freedoms we don’t or didn’t have. If you want to see postfeminism, look at the movie Charlie’s Angels. Chicks kicking ass in lipstick and short skirts, who think of bras as a cool way to make your boobs look good, not as the shackles of the patriarchy. Postfeminists want to move on from feminism — that’s the simplest way I can define it. We’re tired of being told if we wear makeup and have fun we’re betraying our gender and pandering to men. We can go to college, get jobs, do anything we want. The time for crabbing and bitching is over.

The book is more about the general postmodern identity crisis we face, in the wake of the technological revolution, the end of feminism, et cetera. Men and women alike are searching for who they’re supposed to be. So you get Jay thinking he has to be a ‘50s dad, and you get Molly thinking she wants to be a cyborg superhero — confusion reigns. Ellen, who is more or less the central character, is definitely struggling with postfeminist issues. If I just get married and settle down, am I selling out? Do I have to be something fabulous, now that I can be something fabulous? Feminists can make you feel that if you’re getting married you might as well put on a prairie dress and start cooking pot pies. So, while there is postfeminism in the book, it’s not necessary to study up on it first!

Our real reason for creating the site was the inconsistency we saw in academia and the real world. Academics and “intellectuals” were yarfing about feminism and how mean men are and how sexist literature is, while people in the real world were losing interest in this kind of stuff. So we thought that by naming discussing it in “intellectual” terms, we could make some people mad. And we did. Oooo, we pissed some people off for real. If you’re interested, there is a Postfeminist Manifesto that I think I can find somewhere. Moving sucks. All our possessions are in storage.

I did some background work, as any reviewer should do, into you, as a writer, after I read the book. When I clicked on the link at the bottom of “The Ethical Spectacle” essay, I was sent to a pornography site which opened multiple windows of pornographic material. Without making a comment on the values/merits of pornography, the importance of free speech, and such, let me say that I wish I’d been forwarned that the link went to adult content. Do you think ICANN should have designated .xxx as a domain category so viewers could know the content of a site they are about to visit? Do you feel such a designation would increase or decrease traffic to your websites?

Oh my God this is such a nightmare. The Postfeminist Playground was a web zine, gloriously illustrated, masterfully edited [smiles] and we ran it hard for two years. Then we got interested in other things — two of us got married and pregnant, myself included, and it was just a lot of work to keep doing, etc. So we shut it down. We had worked our hits up to about 100,000 per month. We — dumb girls! — let the domain name lapse, because hey, who would want a domain name like pfplayground.com? Duh — a big fat stupid pornographer would!. So now there are links all over the net to this fucking porn site that people think is ours — oh, it is a pain in the ass. What should I do? I am ready to put a steak knife in my eye over this.

On a personal note: is there some kind of cookie, javascripting or whatever, that I got from your website that makes me receive pornographic solicitations via email now? Or is it just coincidence? I never got it before… just curious. I also can’t get those damn grouplotto people to leave me alone and God knows where they got my email. Ha.

Oh dear. I hope not. I’ve visitied that stupid-ass site a few times out of frustration or accidentally following a link there, and am currently not getting any porn mail. So maybe it’s not that.

The description of Jay, via Molly, is genius. Childhood explained in a most excellent fashion. It’s my favorite passage from the book. Do you have a section of which you are especially proud or that you feel is your strongest writing?

I like that part too! [smiles] I guess my favorite parts are chapter three in the tunnel, and chapter ten in Stef’s fantasy land, and the sex chapter, whichever that one is. I’m in the middle of moving around and I don’t actually have a copy of the manuscript handy.

When I was writing about these characters I really fell in love. The book was written over a span of about four years actually, starting when I was engaged with a short story about a girl who wanted to swallow her engagement ring, and finishing up last summer when I was revising between nursing my baby. I guess my favorite one is Martin, but I miss them all. I usually hate that sentimental crap that writers say about their characters being real and living in their heads, but with this story, for the first time, I really felt shitty writing the last chapters, like I was killing them. And I cried when Martin died. What a wuss I am. I guess I feel fondly about them because they’re so vulnerable with all their private fantasies exposed. And they don’t seem to mind.