Venus of Chalk

Susan Stinson

Description

In Susan Stinson's shimmering novel, three friends drive from Massachusetts to Texas to unload an old bus, and in the process become the selves they were meant to be.

Carline's life is settled and happy: she has a great home with her partner, Lillian, and a job she loves as the editor of a respected pamphlet series, The Modern Homemaker. But after an unpleasant harassment experience in her home town, when her aunt calls from Texas she surprises herself as much as anyone and says yes to the opportunity to accompany two friends across the country in an old bus. Stinson's always sensual and humorous writing tingles on the page and nothing is quite what's expected as Carline sews her way across the country and makes notes for her new pamphlet, "How to Ride a Bus."

Venus of Chalk was a finalist for the Lambda Literary and Benjamin Franklin awards, and a Top 10 Publishing Triangle lesbian book of the year.

Prologue

In the middle of Maryland, I shoved the bus window open as far as it would go, knelt on the seat and stuck my head and shoulders out the window. Wind crackled in my ears and nested in my hair. I held my mouth in an O, inhaling rings of fast-moving air until I had to laugh, giddy with mist and speed.

I was in a valley far from home, passing white barns and big houses as I leaned into emptiness, heavy breasts bouncing in my high compression nylon/lycra motion control bra, one of two passengers on a corroded city bus with loud exhaust and soft brakes rattling south to Texas to be sold for salvage. As we left behind a sign that said, “Pick your own pumpkins,” I tried to think of recipes. Instead, pressed into the sharp edge of the window frame, I looked down past the shivering flank of the bus to the jittery road streaming beneath me, and grabbed hard onto another kind of joy: Lilian.

Lilian, in a crinoline and a beaded body suit, is reading aloud to our friends. Jen, Sarah, everyone is here. We’ve already had homemade crackers, Waldorf salad and wine. We’ve all been sitting in the living room, eating and flirting in a neighborly way, talking about pellet versus wood burning stoves and the threat of Wal-Mart coming to town. It’s a party in honor of Emily Dickinson’s birthday. Lilian is reading:

If your Nerve deny you –
Go above your Nerve –
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve–

I’m lingering in the kitchen, putting a cherry pie in the oven. I set the timer and watch through the doorway. Lilian’s big thighs are visible under the audacious slip she’s wearing as a skirt. I made it for her.

Technically, crinoline refers to petticoats stiffened with horsehair thread, but, for Lilian, I didn’t even use starch. Her slip is all soft fullness: three yards of blue tulle, nylon thread. I wrapped her bare waist with the tape measure and marked the correct quarter inch with my thumb. The slip had to fit tightly, or it would sag under its own weight. I folded a strip of organza between two layers of cotton, and sewed three rows of stitches to guide me in attaching the translucent skirts. I felt tender as I gathered and pinned the tulle, which made a tiny ruffle along the inside of the waistband that only she would feel. The balls of my fingers became pricked and tender from bunching the fabric, but then hummed with vibration as I fed my work under the nee- dle of the Singer. I loved the motorized stitches streaming over bumps of gathered tulle.

She’s finishing the Dickinson:

If your Soul seesaw Lift the Flesh door –

She has asked my permission to read the piece she’s been working on about me. I looked it over last night at the kitchen table, and felt distinctly nervous. “What does this have to do with Emily Dickinson?”

Lilian chewed on a fingernail. “Adrienne Rich called Dickinson ‘Vesuvius at home.’ She has that in common with you.”

I didn’t try to deny my volcanic qualities, but fiddled with my earrings, thinking about times I’d seen her pause in writing to reach under her t-shirt and take both breasts in her hands. She would hold them for a moment or two, then pick up her Dr. Grip pen and go on. Picturing that, I said, “Okay.”

Sujets

• Literary
• LGBTQ+
• Literature
• General officer
• Lesbian
• General
• Romance
• LGBT
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Small Beer Press
• Date de parution: 06 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781618732057
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PRAISE FOR SUSAN STINSON AND VENUS OF CHALK
“Venus of Chalk satisfies like that first long breath after a good cry; like a thorough spring cleaning; like a warm, clothing-optional hug. If they ever conduct a census of fictional characters, the category of unapologetic fat woman will be nearly empty—a criminal lack—but for Carline, who courageously pursues her sense of self across continents, back to childhood, and into the mysteries of her own body. We can all benefit from her travel tips.”
Marilyn Wann, author, FAT!SO ?
“Susan Stinson is at her best in Venus of Chalk. In characteristically gracious Stinson-style, she gives voice to detail with incredible delicacy and finesse, even in the most pedestrian moments. By so doing, she exposes the contours of an otherwise unseen and elusive world. Venus of Chalk is an engaging journey of discovery brimming with imagery and adventure, passion and politics. This book is going places—hop on board for a great ride!”
Sondra Solovay, Esq., author, Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination
“This neatly-stitched tale of a latter-day home economist’s ‘glaring departures from sensible living’ is a religious experience. Under Susan Stinson’s microscopic needlework, the fabric of the phenomenal world shimmers with sublime beauty. A can of baking soda, a traffic pylon, a city bus—these things will never look the same again. Stinson lavishes the same minute reverence on her human subjects, discovering rich, sacramental meaning in their most banal small talk. This book unravels what you think you know about women and men, the freakish and the normal, shame and salvation—then mends it anew into a most surprising story.”
Alison Bechdel, creator, Dykes To Watch Out For
“Carline is brave, strong and beautiful, just like Susan Stinson's writing. As a reader, I was fascinated by Carline's journey; as a writer I was dazzled by the language in which it was told.”
Lesléa Newman, author, Heather Has Two Mommies
Venus of Chalk
a novel
Susan Stinson
Small Beer Press Easthampton, MA
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.
Venus of Chalk copyright © 2004 by Susan Stinson (susanstinson. net). All rights reserved. First published by Firebrand Books. First Small Beer Press edition published in 2022.
Sections of the novel have been previously published in modified forms in the following:
“Bus Trips,” blithe .com /bhq5 .1 /5 .1 .04 .html, Blithe House Quarterly, Aldo Alvarez, Tisa Bryant and Jarrett Walker, editors. Winter 2001 / Volume 5, Number 1.
“Visiting,” p 124 – 132, The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica, Rose Collis, editor. Carroll &Graf, New York, NY: 2000. First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable &Robinson Ltd, London: 2000.
“Heat,” p 42-44, Diva, Gillian Rodgerson, editor. January 2000 issue, London, UK.
“Crease,” p 52-55, Diva, Gillian Rodgerson, editor. December 2002 issue, London, UK
“Crease,” p 343-346, Groundswell: The Diva Book of Short Stories 2, Helen Sandler, editor. Diva Books, London: 2002.
“Lake,” lodestarquarterly .com, Lodestar Quarterly , Patrick Ryan and Aaron Jason, editors. Winter 2003 Issue 8.
Small Beer Press
150 Pleasant Street #306
Easthampton, MA 01027
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Distributed to the trade by Consortium.
To my parents, Bill and Mollie Stinson, in honor of practical, rock-solid love
PROLOGUE
In the middle of Maryland, I shoved the bus window open as far as it would go, knelt on the seat and stuck my head and shoulders out the window. Wind crackled in my ears and nested in my hair. I held my mouth in an O, inhaling rings of fast-moving air until I had to laugh, giddy with mist and speed.
I was in a valley far from home, passing white barns and big houses as I leaned into emptiness, heavy breasts bouncing in my high compression nylon/lycra motion control bra, one of two passengers on a corroded city bus with loud exhaust and soft brakes rattling south to Texas to be sold for salvage. As we left behind a sign that said, “Pick your own pumpkins,” I tried to think of recipes. Instead, pressed into the sharp edge of the window frame, I looked down past the shivering flank of the bus to the jittery road streaming beneath me, and grabbed hard onto another kind of joy: Lilian.
Lilian, in a crinoline and a beaded body suit, is reading aloud to our friends. Jen, Sarah, everyone is here. We’ve already had homemade crackers, waldorf salad and wine. We’ve all been sitting in the living room, eating and flirting in a neighborly way, talking about pellet versus wood burning stoves and the threat of Wal-Mart coming to town. It’s a party in honor of Emily Dickinson’s birthday. Lilian is reading:
If your Nerve deny you –
Go above your Nerve –
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve –
I’m lingering in the kitchen, putting a cherry pie in the oven. I set the timer and watch through the doorway. Lilian’s big thighs are visible under the audacious slip she’s wearing as a skirt. I made it for her.
Technically, crinoline refers to petticoats stiffened with horsehair thread, but, for Lilian, I didn’t even use starch. Her slip is all soft fullness: three yards of blue tulle, nylon thread. I wrapped her bare waist with the tape measure and marked the correct quarter inch with my thumb. The slip had to fit tightly, or it would sag under its own weight. I folded a strip of organza between two layers of cotton, and sewed three rows of stitches to guide me in attaching the translucent skirts. I felt tender as I gathered and pinned the tulle, which made a tiny ruffle along the inside of the waistband that only she would feel. The balls of my fingers became pricked and tender from bunching the fabric, but then hummed with vibration as I fed my work under the needle of the Singer. I loved the motorized stitches streaming over bumps of gathered tulle.
She’s finishing the Dickinson:
If your Soul seesaw
Lift the Flesh door –
She has asked my permission to read the piece she’s been working on about me. I looked it over last night at the kitchen table, and felt distinctly nervous. “What does this have to do with Emily Dickinson?”
Lilian chewed on a fingernail. “Adrienne Rich called Dickinson ‘Vesuvius at home.’ She has that in common with you.”
I didn’t try to deny my volcanic qualities, but fiddled with my earrings, thinking about times I’d seen her pause in writing to reach under her t-shirt and take both breasts in her hands. She would hold them for a moment or two, then pick up her Dr. Grip pen and go on. Picturing that, I said, “Okay.”
Everything Lilian writes matters, even if it makes me want to fill the sink with water and put my head under until it is over. She offered to change my name, but I chose notoriety. That may surprise those who know me, but I am more proud of my lover than afraid of anything, even the truth. So now she lifts the page and reads:
When compelled by a persuasive idea at a meeting, Carline fingers her belly. Once I volunteered for the finance committee of a food bank about to go bankrupt just so I could watch across the table for that gesture, strangely invisible to others. She loves to chair and take notes, both; refuses to do one without the other. She’s not always popular, but she’s effective. When she shows me a brochure she has written, she puts it down and opens to the middle, smoothing the pages back, creasing the binding to give me the heart of it before she’ll let me wander. She built our bed.
I used to try to get Carline to show a little flesh at the monthly tea dance on a Sunday afternoon. I bought her a camisole to wear under the double-breasted butterscotch jacket she uses for big presentations, but she never wanted to flaunt anything, not even for a staid bunch of lesbians still doing the macarena. I gave her a rhinestone evening bag, but she said it wasn’t practical enough to be her serious purse.
People see me, but Carline gets missed. She puts on one of her pantsuits in a durable fabric, and becomes a fat lady waiting for a bus, a woman whose inner life is of interest only to the truly adventurous. Of course, my friends, I count you among them. I tried to get her to be Elvis one Halloween, could imagine the shrieks of delight if she greased her hair, wore a leather jacket and baggy trousers, offering her hips in performance. I knew she had the concentration to pull it off, but she rolled her eyes, mildly offended, and went as Marie Curie, instead.
I’ve been asked what I see in her. It’s a question beneath the dignity of an answer, but in this company, I will say that Carline is present in the sweetness of her body, in its pain and its raunch. She would never speak of this, but sometimes she falls backwards off the edge of the bed until her shoulders rest on the floor. Her heels try to hook the far rim of the mattress while her hips hold their ground. She’s stretched, belly suspended above the warm split where I press with one hand, using the other to keep a thigh on the bed. She gives up noise, modest apartment cries that open to bigger rooms. She groans. Her neck bends at a difficult angle, but she takes more weight on her shoulders, arches her back. Four fingers in, I watch the underside of her belly ripple, curving lewdly, fat with abandon. I kiss the crease at its base.
Lilian puts the sheet of paper down. Our friends are hushed, gathering breath to praise and tease. Before I can recover, Lil takes my hand and pulls me into the room. “Your turn, Carline. Tell us about your trip.”
Without letting myself stop to think, I begin:
In the middle of Maryland, I shoved the bus window open as far as it would go, knelt on the seat and stuck my head and shoulders out the window…
PART 1
BUS TIP
Avoid sharing personal revelations with your traveling companions, as tempted by tedium as you may