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Friday: cool night, Crusie novella
Sep. 1st, 2023 11:25 amI got quite cool last night, which was wonderful. I opened windows, turned on a fan and slept well.
SPOILERS!
I read _Sizzle_, after looking at the wikipedia entry for Jennifer Crusie and very carefully identifying everything I already owned, and figuring out what was left that I did not own. I figured I’d read the last couple solo works that I had never read (or at least don’t remember reading), and then re-attempt _Wild Ride_.
Sizzle is really short, more a novella than a novel. It’s a really early work for her, also, altho even here, the heroine is Not Young. Most of the iconic Crusie elements are in place: the snappy dialogue with a woman the heroine who has known for a very long time; the frustrations of being a woman working among men / for men; the physical description of the man she is attracted to; the men currently (and formerly) in her love life not listening to her. In this outing, she’s marketing a new perfume for the company she works for, and it is somewhat surprising how much influence she has over the perfume itself (she wants a tingle added, and gets R&D to add it, and then dial it back when they overshoot) as a physical object in the world and also how it is presented. This isn’t marketing in the form of a particular campaign — this is marketing in the form of, how will this item be presented to the world from the beginning and going forward, and how will that interact with pre-existing products. This is product design.
She had a budget on her previous project that she overshot, however, it was a ludicrously successful campaign with elements that were very much her decision and which were extremely novel so she received credit for the success. Despite that insane degree of success, however, she is assigned — along with the rest of the company — a bean counter. The bean counter has an ambiguous role. He is _not_ the boss of any of the executives, however, all money has to be okayed by him before it is spent. Functionally, he is allowed to run the entire company via line item veto. I don’t doubt that there are companies who have done this. I _do_ doubt whether they survived this structure for any length of time. They battle it out over whether he can essentially veto her entire plan for marketing this product — a lot of which is reusing and reinterpreting elements of the previous, wildly successful plan, and thus honestly should not have been contentious if he _truly_ was not her boss. The other component of her plan involves product placement, and she _is_ cost conscious in that decision.
Meanwhile, they are also sleeping together and falling madly in love with each other after an initial, rocky start which the friend/partner/secretary initially dismisses as a minor issue but comes to realize is quite a serious issue. Specifically, he does not listen to her. He not only orders for her at a restaurant, but she speaks up — and is heard by the waiter! — saying she does not like certain things he is ordering, and requests things that he was going to leave out. Then he notes that she is not eating the things he put on her plate for her (Chinese restaurant, family style), and she says you don’t listen. And then there are a lot more instances of the same thing, including they are necking, her hair gets caught on a button and he yanks her head around painfully and she is yelling at him _and he does not notice_.
The friend/partner/secretary ultimately comes up with a solution that Our Heroine implements. It makes for a really entertaining, extended, light bondage sex scene and an even _more_ entertaining breakfast the next morning scene in which she completely blows through his expressed preferences. He’s an idiot, but eventually grasps the basic point, and getting through to him on the personal / intimate level results in him _finally_ pulling his head out of his ass on the work level.
None of this is ok, and Crusie absolutely knows this. It is very much Of Its Time. Most subsequent Crusie novels involve heroines who are/were in a relationship/married with someone very much like this. In a lot of cases, the heroine has to get _out_ of that relationship and notably, in _Crazy for You_ and _Getting Rid of Bradley_ nearly dies in the process. In other cases, the (soon to be)ex’s stupidity _does_ result in his death (_Tell Me Lies_).
_Fast Women_ may be the most carefully developed examination of the issues with this dynamic: a man who does not listen, a woman who works around that, their initial attraction and love for each other which is destroyed in the process of failing to work together. Very explicitly in _Fast Women_, she describes making their shared business successful by convincing him that her ideas were his ideas, a solution that collapses as her contempt and revulsion for him become increasingly difficult for her to hide and even he realizes she hates him and he cheats, divorces and patronizes her. In order for her to not repeat that error (she repeats a lot of it), she not only has to find someone who _does_ listen to her, she has to walk away for a while, and she also has to listen to him. But mostly, she has to walk away for a while, and be willing for that while to be forever if they cannot work together with integrity.
Reading Sizzle is this utterly bizarre experience of remembering the cultural fights about opening doors (and now we have TikToks in which members of a lesbian couple in which both present as masc fight over opening doors for each other and holding coats for each other and who is going to drive. Less cute than you think it is, kids.) and ordering food for another adult who you may not even know very well. _Bet Me_ has a psychologist character (in the tiny blonde role) who has a whole Thing about women who insist on paying for their own meal. Re(re)ading Crusie at this point in my life reminds me of how infuriating the world was when I was young, and also how infuriating it _still_ is, and how close to ground zero of infuriating Ohio continues to be.
I poked around a bit to try to figure out why I’d never read _Maybe This Time_, and found this, from 2010:
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1237#m9783
I have not yet dug through my blog to find out what I wrote about Crusie in the past (I’m sure there’s _something_). I was a little startled to see that the Liz Danger series was promised way back in 2010, as a 4 book series. Crusie’s remarks about losing her mojo at menopause and getting it back with collaborators was really interesting and inspiring.
I’m absolutely reworking the hypothetical monograph on reuse in commercial fiction to be jointly about JAK and Crusie. There’s so much about Crusie that is absolutely relevant to the project.
SPOILERS!
I read _Sizzle_, after looking at the wikipedia entry for Jennifer Crusie and very carefully identifying everything I already owned, and figuring out what was left that I did not own. I figured I’d read the last couple solo works that I had never read (or at least don’t remember reading), and then re-attempt _Wild Ride_.
Sizzle is really short, more a novella than a novel. It’s a really early work for her, also, altho even here, the heroine is Not Young. Most of the iconic Crusie elements are in place: the snappy dialogue with a woman the heroine who has known for a very long time; the frustrations of being a woman working among men / for men; the physical description of the man she is attracted to; the men currently (and formerly) in her love life not listening to her. In this outing, she’s marketing a new perfume for the company she works for, and it is somewhat surprising how much influence she has over the perfume itself (she wants a tingle added, and gets R&D to add it, and then dial it back when they overshoot) as a physical object in the world and also how it is presented. This isn’t marketing in the form of a particular campaign — this is marketing in the form of, how will this item be presented to the world from the beginning and going forward, and how will that interact with pre-existing products. This is product design.
She had a budget on her previous project that she overshot, however, it was a ludicrously successful campaign with elements that were very much her decision and which were extremely novel so she received credit for the success. Despite that insane degree of success, however, she is assigned — along with the rest of the company — a bean counter. The bean counter has an ambiguous role. He is _not_ the boss of any of the executives, however, all money has to be okayed by him before it is spent. Functionally, he is allowed to run the entire company via line item veto. I don’t doubt that there are companies who have done this. I _do_ doubt whether they survived this structure for any length of time. They battle it out over whether he can essentially veto her entire plan for marketing this product — a lot of which is reusing and reinterpreting elements of the previous, wildly successful plan, and thus honestly should not have been contentious if he _truly_ was not her boss. The other component of her plan involves product placement, and she _is_ cost conscious in that decision.
Meanwhile, they are also sleeping together and falling madly in love with each other after an initial, rocky start which the friend/partner/secretary initially dismisses as a minor issue but comes to realize is quite a serious issue. Specifically, he does not listen to her. He not only orders for her at a restaurant, but she speaks up — and is heard by the waiter! — saying she does not like certain things he is ordering, and requests things that he was going to leave out. Then he notes that she is not eating the things he put on her plate for her (Chinese restaurant, family style), and she says you don’t listen. And then there are a lot more instances of the same thing, including they are necking, her hair gets caught on a button and he yanks her head around painfully and she is yelling at him _and he does not notice_.
The friend/partner/secretary ultimately comes up with a solution that Our Heroine implements. It makes for a really entertaining, extended, light bondage sex scene and an even _more_ entertaining breakfast the next morning scene in which she completely blows through his expressed preferences. He’s an idiot, but eventually grasps the basic point, and getting through to him on the personal / intimate level results in him _finally_ pulling his head out of his ass on the work level.
None of this is ok, and Crusie absolutely knows this. It is very much Of Its Time. Most subsequent Crusie novels involve heroines who are/were in a relationship/married with someone very much like this. In a lot of cases, the heroine has to get _out_ of that relationship and notably, in _Crazy for You_ and _Getting Rid of Bradley_ nearly dies in the process. In other cases, the (soon to be)ex’s stupidity _does_ result in his death (_Tell Me Lies_).
_Fast Women_ may be the most carefully developed examination of the issues with this dynamic: a man who does not listen, a woman who works around that, their initial attraction and love for each other which is destroyed in the process of failing to work together. Very explicitly in _Fast Women_, she describes making their shared business successful by convincing him that her ideas were his ideas, a solution that collapses as her contempt and revulsion for him become increasingly difficult for her to hide and even he realizes she hates him and he cheats, divorces and patronizes her. In order for her to not repeat that error (she repeats a lot of it), she not only has to find someone who _does_ listen to her, she has to walk away for a while, and she also has to listen to him. But mostly, she has to walk away for a while, and be willing for that while to be forever if they cannot work together with integrity.
Reading Sizzle is this utterly bizarre experience of remembering the cultural fights about opening doors (and now we have TikToks in which members of a lesbian couple in which both present as masc fight over opening doors for each other and holding coats for each other and who is going to drive. Less cute than you think it is, kids.) and ordering food for another adult who you may not even know very well. _Bet Me_ has a psychologist character (in the tiny blonde role) who has a whole Thing about women who insist on paying for their own meal. Re(re)ading Crusie at this point in my life reminds me of how infuriating the world was when I was young, and also how infuriating it _still_ is, and how close to ground zero of infuriating Ohio continues to be.
I poked around a bit to try to figure out why I’d never read _Maybe This Time_, and found this, from 2010:
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1237#m9783
I have not yet dug through my blog to find out what I wrote about Crusie in the past (I’m sure there’s _something_). I was a little startled to see that the Liz Danger series was promised way back in 2010, as a 4 book series. Crusie’s remarks about losing her mojo at menopause and getting it back with collaborators was really interesting and inspiring.
I’m absolutely reworking the hypothetical monograph on reuse in commercial fiction to be jointly about JAK and Crusie. There’s so much about Crusie that is absolutely relevant to the project.