“Virgin,” the first story in the collection, begins with the line, “Jake hadn’t meant to stare at her breasts, but there they were, absurdly beautiful, almost glowing above the plunging neckline of the faded blue dress.” These breasts belong to Rachel, a woman who is not Jake’s wife, a woman who has gone through a double mastectomy. Lawson zeroes in on moments when desire is odd or inappropriate. I mean, it’s fun… It just feels so… physical… I expected a spiritual element.” “I guess that’s it, then,” Sheila says to her husband Jake in “Virgin,” after finally having sex for the first time, months after their wedding night.
When it does, it’s either much worse than expected, a repetition of a past trauma, or just a plain letdown.
Throughout these stories, Lawson repeatedly returns to the same questions: How is desire created, and why do we desire what we desire? A few learn how to masturbate to images in stolen library books. Others wonder if they are being cheated on, and, instead, end up being cheaters. Some try to overcome past sexual traumas. Instead, the characters in these stories spend prodigious thought and energy contemplating and anticipating sex. In spite of the fact that the characters attend Christian colleges, are homeschooled, and attend weekly church services, thoughts of God or discussions of theology are largely absent.
Unlike other writers who focus on American Christianity - Marilynne Robinson, Flannery O’Connor, Hanna Pylväinen, etc. - Lawson does not use faith and doubt as the main source of motivation for her characters. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.Īt first, the Southern evangelical setting of April Ayers Lawson’s debut collection of short stories, Virgin and Other Stories, might seem a strange fit with the questions of sex and desire that are ubiquitous throughout the book.
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