Pride and Prejudice and Fetishes

Pride and Prejudice:Hidden Lusts is the newest rewrite of a classic, from the pen of Mitzi Szereto. While other re-imaginings walk the line between genres and audiences, this book does not. It may seem obvious to some, but I want it to be understood at the forefront: this is erotica. It's a book more suited to between the bed sheets than between Tolstoy and Bradbury. Allow me to illustrate:

"A lively and sociable young woman, she had no trouble in keeping them all amused, often taking them three at a time, since she saw no point in possessing three openings if they could not all be applied to at once. Wearing only her short stays, she took to the bed with a trio of gentleman, one lying beneath her, another on top, and still another positioned at her face, their eager members conveniently located within their opening of choice."

As illustrated by the excerpt, this is not the soft-core porn that one would expect to be associated with Austen. There’s anal sex, S&M, a range of fetishes and a whole lot of blow jobs. Which is fine if that’s your thing. But I think this book is appealing to the wrong crowd without knowing it. Instead of a demure, loosely bound woman on the cover there should be a girl bending over baring her ass with a Regency era gown on. That would set the correct expectation.

There. Now diehard fans of the classic Austen work will know what to expect and perhaps arrive at the page better prepared. And here is where the kernel of discontent is found. The great divide between readers on whether this is the brilliant retelling of a classic or full-on explicit abuse of well-loved characters. It is my personal opinion that Austen would not be rolling over in her grave over Szereto's novel. In fact, she might laugh a little.

Szereto fleshed out her character's sexual proclivities in a manner which complimented their appearance in the original work. But it is there the similarities between the works end. While the original touches on societal, educational and feminist issues in a way that is very tongue-in-cheek, this version is mostly tongue-in-ass.

My advice: if you are a regular reader of erotica, you will love the dirty, witty jaunt through a classic. If you are a lover of classics, read some hard-core erotica as homework first or brace yourself. If you don't want to watch Austen's characters get sodomized (and like it) than don't pick up Pride and Prejudice:Hidden Lusts. This book is meant for the more adventurous spirit.

Mitzi Szereto Interview

Mitzi Szereto discusses her latest erotic novel Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts, sci-fi erotica and why she left the U.S. for the U.K.

What would you tell fans of the original who are curious about Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts?

I would tell them that if they’re expecting just another sexed-up version of Jane Austen, they’re in for a big surprise. Oh, there’s definitely plenty of sex to be found, but the book offers far more than that. It’s historical parody as well as satire – and Jane Austen was definitely a satirist, so I’m definitely being true to her spirit. With characters such as Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Caroline Bingley, you can’t tell me Austen wasn’t poking fun at society. Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts is also a romance, in that there are those in my version who love greatly and with passion (and not necessarily the ones you expect either). It’s pretty much got it all: Regency prose, sexual mayhem, and a whole lot of fun. In a nutshell, if you want a book that’s different and doesn’t fit the mold, this is definitely it!

How is reinventing classics such as Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts and In Sleeping Beauty's Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales different than creating your own setting and characters?

To be honest, I do a lot of creating, despite these works being “pre-existing.” Taking plots and characters and making something new out of them is just as much work as creating something from scratch. For me, it was important to do justice to the original works, in that I wanted them to still be recognizable to the reader, yet be something fresh and new as well. It’s not as easy as some might think. In fact, it can be even more difficult, especially when you’re dealing with material that’s very well-known to people. In the case of Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts, I wanted to turn readers’ expectations completely topsy-turvy and give them something they never expected or imagined. Same too, for In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed.

The character's sexual proclivities matched Austen's original presentation very well. Were they strongly inspired by Austen's view or did their erotic personalities change as you wrote them?

They were definitely inspired by Austen’s view. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, were she alive today, she’d have taken her characters a bit further in this realm – although perhaps not as far as I have! There seems to be this assumption by hardcore Jane-ites and literary purists that Jane Austen was some po-faced virginal spinster who’s probably turning in her grave at my “sacrilegious” re-interpretation of her work. I find this interesting, if not downright laughable. Have these people actually read Pride and Prejudice? There are some obvious references in Austen’s novel of sexual hijinks.

First of all, it’s alluded to that Mr. Bennet has strayed outside the marital bed. Then we have Lydia Bennet, who’s a serial flirt, which results in her running off with Mr. Wickham, with it likewise being alluded to that activities of a sexual nature are transpiring between them. I should also add that Mr. Wickham is technically a pedophile. Lydia Bennet is fifteen years old in the original novel. And before her he was involved in a situation of compromise with Mr. Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, who was also extremely young and, unlike Lydia, extremely innocent.

Yes, I realize that in Jane Austen’s day girls were married at a younger age, but let’s get real: an adult man with a girl of fifteen is very dodgy stuff. You’ll note that none of the other male characters in Austen’s novel had a habit of chasing after little girls, just Mr. Wickham. So Austen was definitely dropping us hints, but writing in a way that was considered “suitable” for a lady of her time and position.

Do you think Austen's world was as exciting as you illustrate, or is it a good-natured jab at Victorian era repression?

Well, technically it’s the Regency period, which came before the Victorians. Having said that, I think the Victorians’ repression vanished the moment the bedroom door shut, if you know what I mean! I suspect Austen’s world (at least for the ladies) was really quite dull. It seems there was little to do but visit people, have them visit you, and sit around at home waiting for yet more visiting to take place. Austen was rather unusual for women of that time and status, in that she aspired to do more than simply land a husband. In fact, she never married. It’s my opinion that she put a lot of herself into the character of Elizabeth Bennet.

Why did you decide to write erotica?

I didn’t actually set out to write erotica; it just happened. I thought I’d give it a go after having some difficulties with other fictional works I’d been trying to sell. By difficulties I mean getting close to placing the work with publishers or agents, then having it all fall apart. A chance meeting at a party in San Francisco with an aspiring writer of, if you can believe it, sci-fi erotica, may have planted the seed. This fellow pretty much took me hostage and made me read some of his work, which he conveniently had stored in the boot of his car. Well, I barely managed a couple of pages before I had to politely extricate myself from the situation; the stuff was pretty dreadful, to say the least.

Perhaps the experience took root in my subconscious, because a short time later I began to get bits and pieces of an erotic storyline happening inside my head until I finally had to sit down and start writing it. Ergo my first erotic novel was born: The Captivity of Celia. I published a handful more, writing as M. S. Valentine, then moved into a new direction, writing under my actual name and aiming for a more mainstream market. The M. S. Valentine novels did quite well and they’re still selling, but professionally it was time for me to move on to something new and broaden my literary reach.

Since then I’ve been doing a variety of works that cross genre as well as blending them. I always try to make each of my books stand out as separate and unique. I don’t see the point in producing work that’s like everyone else’s; nor do I want my next book to be exactly like the last one. In fact, my next release (Red Velvet and Absinthe: Paranormal Erotic Romance) is completely different from Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts. I’ve moved from raunchy historical parody to Gothic-themed sexy paranormal in the blink of an eye!

Why prompted your move to the United Kingdom and how is the literary culture there different from the United States?

I’d always wanted to live in England, so I finally decided to do something about it. Nothing in particular prompted it. I’m not sure I can adequately or accurately differentiate between the literary cultures of both countries, as my experience is mostly from a British perspective, in that the majority of my professional literary life has been spent over here. For instance, I’ve appeared at literature festivals, been a creative writing lecturer at universities, and met some very renowned authors, such as Baroness Ruth Rendell. I’ve even had some British publishers.

One thing I have noticed is that there seems to be a bit more support here toward the more literary side of literature, since there are so many authors of “literary fiction” in the UK. I’ve found that poetry too, is more supported in Britain. It’s alive and well in the literary sphere, and even encouraged as a course of study. I’ve met many “working” poets since I’ve been here. I don’t recall contemporary poetry being as popular a literary form in America.

Which of your novels was the most fun to write?

Definitely Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts. The characters are the stuff of genius, and having an opportunity to play with them and take them in new directions was the most fun I’ve ever had writing. Sometimes a random scene from the book will come to mind and I just start laughing, wondering how in hell I ever came up with such stuff. I hope readers will enjoy the book in the spirit in which it was written.

What is one fun random fact about you?

One? You only want one?

You can find Mitzi on Facebook, Twitter, catch a glimpse of her on Mitzi TV and find more info on Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts on her blog Errant Ramblings.

A Travel Memoir Without Skydiving

Michael Crichton has always been, and always will be, one of my favorite authors. Upon reading Travels, his travel memoir of his life, he's now one of the people I desperately wished I could have met. His views on life are unique and staggering; the mark of a brilliant individual. After closing the pages of Travels, I learned three life changing things.

One - I'm ridiculously jealous of his life. "By the time I graduated from high school," Crichton writes, "I had been to forty-eight states, to Canada and Mexico, and to five countries of Europe." Great, I thought, I'm already behind. But even beyond his travels, his life was fuller than most fictional characters. He went through med school, became a world renowned author, directed movies stars like Sean Connery, explored meditation and the mystical inner realm, scuba diving, mountain climbing, swimming with sharks, seeing auras, the list is positively endless. All of it made me determined to experience as much as I could.

Two - We can never know everything, not as a person, not as a race. Crichton was able to experience so much and have this vast list of accomplishments because he was open to it. He didn't feel too learned or "traveled" to gain value from anywhere he could. Even those who know everything about one aspect of life only know that aspect. Existence is endless and we can never discover it all. A wise person must have an open mind.

Three - All travel, whether internal or across endless borders, is done to discover yourself. Through the lens of a foreign place or state of mind, we are able to see ourselves more clearly. Crichton states this numerous times as he rediscovers it time and time again. Each new adventure leads to a new realization about himself. His travel caused him to end relationships, change career paths, huge and drastic measures that most of us are scared to even think of. And yet he did; each and every form of travel helped him learn about himself and reset his path.

Crichton is truly a wise man, because he admits that his knowledge is limited and minuscule in comparison to what he doesn't know. He admits that a person must test themselves to discover themselves. And that an opportunity should never be passed over, but embraced to it's fullest potential. His memoir left me excited and passionate about experiencing new things. And while I'm envious of what he's done, I can smile because as far as I know, I've got him beat in at least one thing; I've been sky diving.

The Existential Beatrice and Virgil

The book jacket describes this as a story of a monkey named Virgil and a donkey named Beatrice. And it is. Kind of. Henry is an author desperately in love with his Holocaust flip book idea. He wants to create one of the first fiction accounts of the Holocaust because, as he says “surely, amidst the texts that related what happened, those vital and necessary diaries, memoirs and histories, there was a spot for the imagination's commentary,” and he wants to balance this with an essay. Neither can stand alone, but they are not truly linked, so he suggests putting them in the same cover, back to back. The idea is wildly rejected. He then meets a taxidermist, also named Henry. Taxidermist Henry is writing a play about two creatures he stuffed and named Beatrice and Virgil.

The character of author Henry seems to be Martel himself; bestseller list book, difficulties creating a passionate strong second work, a unique experience, birth of said creative second work. He meets taxidermy Henry and together the two Henrys seem to function as the flip book author Henry wished to publish; creative story meets factual balance and grounding. Martel writes about an author writing a flip book while he stitches his own flip book into one piece. The creative Holocaust story is told in taxidermist Henry’s play about Beatrice and Virgil and the reader is grounded to reality through author Henry’s life. The ending of Beatrice and Virgil could illustrate Martel’s thoughts on how he must proceed in creating his fictional Holocaust work. The fiction must force itself into reality and reality must give it pass. Beatrice and Virgil reads like the making of Beatrice and Virgil, which I believe is what creates that feeling of torn through a wormhole.

When I closed this book, the first thing I thought of was a monument in Berlin entitled “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.” It’s a blunt and blatant title, but aside from that, it makes no assumptions about the Holocaust experience. It is a collection of cement blocks arranged in rows and rows. They start at your feet, barely inches high, and then soar to eight feet. A person is meant to walk between the blank gray walls and the shifting corridors and just think about the Holocaust. There is no statement of what the Holocaust is, was, caused, or could have been. It simply stands to force people to be confronted with this moment in history.

I take you to this monument because it is the closest reference I have to explain Beatrice and Virgil. I can’t discuss this as a traditional fiction piece because it doesn’t function as one. I was bored through the majority of this book; there’s no action, no character development, no real plot. But closing the book, it does cause one to think about the Holocaust, the “Horrors,” and how there are no words. It is this uncomfortable state of mind that one can’t express, that I believe was Martel’s goal. You’re thinking about the Holocaust; it’s pain and victims, it’s senselessness and creation of powerlessness. Perhaps this is what it was like to experience the Holocaust. There are no words or reason. There are only musing and near misses and laundry lists that attempt to explain the feeling. If it is, then Martel is a genius.

For those who are fans of Life of Pi, be prepared; the two works do not share a very common reading experience. It’s a heavier read that asks more from its reader than its predecessor. My advice: do not read this as a novel. Embrace it as an artistic experience. Focus on the emotions created as you take in the words. Do not try to make sense of the world of the dual Henrys and instead let your mind “feel” Beatrice and Virgil’s experience.

Excerpt from Beatrice and Virgil:

BEATRICE: What name will it have?

VIRGIL: That's a good question.

BEATRICE: The Terror?

VIRGIL: Sounds like something done quickly, involving running and panting. Not enough calculation to it. Besides, it's been used before.

BEATRICE: The Tohu-bohu?

VIRGIL: Sounds like a dairy-free dessert.

BEATRICE: The Horror?

VIRGIL: That's stronger.

BEATRICE: Even better: the Horrors, plural but used in a singular construction, the curve of the s like a ladle in a soup from hell, serving up the unthinkable and the unimaginable, the catastrophic and the searing, the terror and the tohu-bohu.

VIRGIL: We'll call it the Horrors.

BEATRICE: Good.

(pause)

BEATRICE: So, how are we going to talk about the Horrors?

                                                                                              Courtesy of Spiegel & Grau

Heidi Durrow Interview

Durrow discusses her novel "The Girl Who Fell From The Sky," winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, her experiences being biracial and bendy straws.

In one moment, Rachel contemplates her conflict with her dual race and how one always seems to win out: “I don’t want being Danish to be something I can put on and take off. I don’t want the Danish in me to be something time makes me leave behind.” Do you feel as if you can equally embrace both races or is it as Rachel worries; that one gets left behind?

More and more as I get older, I feel like I am able to embrace the totality of my identity. But growing up I didn’t have that feeling. Like any kid, I wanted to fit in. Being both black and Danish was pretty different—and beyond that inexplicable. I just started saying what was easy for other people to hear for a long time. Now, I’ve given up being polite or making other people comfortable and so I just speak my truth.

How did you decide on this narration style for the book, traveling between character perspectives and time shifts? How did you pick the characters whose perspective you were going to adopt?

I started writing the book from Rachel’s perspective and realized soon that I needed other voices to tell the story because she is an unreliable narrator. And by that I mean that she’s got stories she’s unable or unwilling to tell at first, but the reader needs to know. The characters came about very organically. The character Jamie/Brick came about almost by accident—I thought that he was going to be a character in an unrelated story, but then realized no, he was a witness. Laronne’s character came about because I wanted someone to advocate for Nella. Each character is able to tell a little bit more of the story.

The time shifts were more deliberate. I wanted to show how much the tragedy defines not just Rachel but those surrounding her. And so in the first part of the book Rachel’s narrative goes through many years and the other characters live in the intensity of the tragedy –just a couple of weeks pass.

While it is not as explicit, there is the underlying issue of substance abuse and it impacts many of the character’s lives. Do you believe Rachel will end up “hereditary” like her mother and fall into addiction?

Ah, are you thinking sequel? Hee hee. Well, you know, I think I can say without spoiling the book that there is more hope for Rachel at the end than not. (How’s that for dodging a question?) But yes, alcoholism is an important thread to the story. I wanted to write a story in which this issue was dealt with – alcoholism destroys people but it also destroys families. But then also beyond that I wanted to depict characters who are dealing with alcoholism but who are not bad people—they are struggling people—they are people with struggles and in that way there is hope.

This novel functions both as a discussion of race as well as an exploration of healing. Did you have a primary subject in mind when you wrote it?

I think the book necessarily operates on both levels—and I did have that in mind when I was writing it. It’s been healing for me to share it!

This novel won the distinguished Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change. Do you feel that this honor changes the way readers approach the story?

I hope it allows readers to recognize that the book is operating as what I hope is a good and compelling story, but also as a book that challenges assumptions they may have, and most importantly offers them new questions to have about the world. I think that is the best thing about the Bellwether Prize—that it signals that the book raises important questions for us as a citizenry that can put us into a meaningful dialogue with each other.

What has your experience as a full-time writer been? What advice or recommendations would you have to other writers?

My experience as a full-time writer has been brief—I sure do hope it continues! And it has been amazing. What an absolute blessing that I get to do what I love most in the world every day and share stories that mean something to me with others. I have to pinch myself every morning to remember that it is all real. My advice to other writers working on getting the book out in the world: keep writing, and don’t give up. You just need the one gatekeeper to greenlight a project. The difficulty is in finding that one gatekeeper, but if you keep looking you are certain to find him or her.

What is one fun random fact about you?

I drink coffee (really anything not clear or light) from a bendy straw.

Visit Heidi Durrow at Facebook or her site for tour dates and Mixed Chicks Chat podcast on her biracial experience.