Funny how things work out in life, but they often do. In the ever-present battle I have over deciding whether to spend time rewriting my first novel and then sending it off to agents, or giving it up as a first attempt and moving on to some of my other partly-written novels, I’ve just had an important small victory, in favour of Kanako’s Foreigner (yep, the first novel).
The thing is, one of the plot lines involves the main character fantasizing about a lesbian affair, and I’ve been wondering if that really fits into the story (I mean, it’s a key part of the story, but does it suit it … well, I can’t explain it well). Maybe I’ve been wondering if it’s a good fit with all the multicultural themes. I could argue myself around in circles for hours here, but anyway, the point I want to get to is this: just when I was really wondering about it, I quite by chance read two new Australian novels that also point to this theme. The first was Kalinda Ashton’s The Danger Game, where the theme came up so unexpectedly that I wondered if the book was actually as well-written as I’d initially thought (I even tried to go back in the story to pick up foreshadowing parts that I’d missed), Hot on the heels of finishing reading that novel, I started Andrea Goldsmith’s Reunion and stumbled into the same topic.
And before you ask, it’s not because I was looking for novels featuring lesbian affairs like this to justify my novel – there was no mention of it in the blurbs or anywhere. Pure coincidence? Maybe, but it’s helped me to decide that it’s worth getting back to Kanako’s Foreigner and making a real go out of it. After all, if it reached the Top 100 at Amazon’s contest, it can’t be all bad.
(On a related note, I haven’t been able to link those two novels to Amazon like I usually would – why is it that Australian literature takes so long to be picked up by Amazon? Does it have to have an American publisher first? I don’t know how it works, but I don’t much like it!)
Tags: Kanako's Foreigner
If it’s any consolation, I tried foreshadowing the affair by making Sarah more clearly a lesbian inviting another woman she was interested in around for dinner. But it was just shocking and clunky. The lack of setup divides people into two camps: either they take it as one of life’s vicissitudes and are completely unworried by it, or they wonder why I didn’t “tell” them Alice was a lesbian from the get-go. It’s possibly a generational/political thing.
Thanks for your comment Kalinda, it’s always great to hear something straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I actually loved your book, especially the main plotline with the brother’s death etc, and also I really admire how you handled the different points of view because that’s something I’m always struggling with. And on the lack of setup – I’m not sure I would have noticed it so much myself if it wasn’t so relevant to what I’m working on. Anyway, thanks for stopping by!