It's appropriate that both The New York Times and The New Yorker assigned women to review Miranda Popkey's relatively recent novel "Topics of Conversation" because this is Chick Lit, or literature primarily of interest to women, in spades. Both of the lengthy reviews are positive so if you don't like what I have to say below, click on the names of the publications above and read something different,
Aside from women, I suppose a male writer worried about how he might convincingly depict The Contemporary Woman might be interested as well, but beware: one could get rather depressed in the process.
Before continuing, I suppose I should explain how I came to purchase and read this book. I was skimming through my daily Lit Hub email and noticed an item about a woman wanting to read Henry James novel "The Ambassadors" -- one of his best, in my humble opinion (I haven't read all of his books). And I thought: "this sounds like an interesting person, so perhaps I should read her book." It didn't take long to get through it. Although it's about 220 pages, it's a very quick read.
Sarah Resnick, who reviewed "Topics" for "The New Yorker" probably hit the nail on the head in saying that Popkey's book attempts to capture the contradictions of female [sexual] desire.
"This contrast—of women raring to assert their agency in one context, then willing, even eager, to relinquish it another—captured my interest in part because of its familiarity. I’d seen it crop up recently in widely praised works both written by and featuring brazen, outspoken, and almost always middle-class white women," Resnick said.
One can't help noticing what Resnick is talking about as one reads the book and, among other things, one begins to wonder, if this is true, what does it say about the credibility of the #MeToo phenomenon? Well, of course there have been some brazen atrocities, but there have also been some claims that make one wonder.
In "Topics of Conversation," which contains more in the way of monologue (both outer and inner) than actual conversation, the chief character, an unknown woman loosely associated with academia, floats along on a river of alcohol as do the other female characters, including her mother who, after four gin and topics considerably heaver on gin than on tonic, admits that she had sex -- at her instigation -- with her therapist when her sessions came to an end.
In the acknowledgement section of her book, Popkey thanks her own therapists in New York and St. Louis, "neither of whom I have slept with." That, apparently, is in case you, the reader, have come to the conclusion that this work must be largely autobiographical.
Then, in a very curious entry, she thanks Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück "who gave me permission to write fiction" and award-winning author Ben Marcus "who gave me permission to write a novel."
What in the world is this all about? After three waves of feminism, does Popkey still believe that as a woman, she needs to ask permission to do this, that or the other? Or is this a sly means of self-promotion: the implication that if Glück and Marcus have given her permission to put pen to paper, they must consider her talent to be equivalent to theirs? Or perhaps this is just old-fashioned name dropping. Whatever it is, it is ill-considered and even inappropriate.
Along with a great deal of sex -- much talk about it as opposed to descriptions of it actually occurring (this book is far from pornographic) -- there is a good deal of transgression, real and imagined. It probably goes without saying that sex and transgression sell a lot of books, which may at least help explain the nature of the narrative.
Near the beginning, for instance, a chain-smoking psychoanalyst named Artemisa, who is apparently both a bigamist and in an open marriage with her current husband (they have a young child) casually bares her breasts to Popkey's protagonist, then employed as a young nanny. Same-sex attraction is in the air.
But what follows is this:
"Most psychologists, Artemisia said, theorize the commonality of the so-called rape fantasy among heterosexual women as linked to shame. ... Women are raised to believe they should not desire sex. More explicitly in earlier generations, yes, but the message remains implicit today, ... But okay, the rape is fantasy. At least theoretically, it allows the woman to have the sex that she desires without also having to admit the shame of that desire. Force becomes a method of circumvention."
And so it goes, one drink after another -- mostly white wine, but also slugs of bourbon (while carrying a young child in one's other arm) and scotch and, of course, those gin and tonics. The life of The Contemporary Woman until (happy ending?) a rehab clinic leaves Pokey's protagonist sober as the book ends. (Spoiler: there is no thanks to any rehab clinic in the acknowledgement section of the book -- at least none that I noticed.)
Lastly, near the end of the story, the unnamed protagonist horses over the idea that women don't want to have sex with men they are supposed to desire, but do want the reverse.
So, earlier in the tale, Popkey's heroine (if one can use that term) marries a man one might call "too-nice John" -- a man she can only eventually hold in contempt for excessively good behavior toward her, a beta-male if you will. He richly deserves to be made a cuckold by means of an exceptionally tawdry initiative on the part of his wife. And to have her leave him, which she does.
There's more, of course -- the sisterhood of unmarried mothers, for example. But I suspect you've gotten the idea.
My recommendation: forget "Topics of Conversation" and read "The Ambassadors" instead. But if you must, have a stiff drink always at hand. It will evidently help you understand The Contemporary Woman.
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