“Young people making bad decisions — what’s not interesting about that?” — Andrea Lawlor
I spent my afternoon with UMass’s Living Writers students, listening to their talk and Q&A with writer Andrea Lawlor before attending the UMass MFA’s Visiting Writers Series in which they were the third of four guests coming to visit our campus this fall. Lawlor is a professor at Mount Holyoke College and author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, which was initially published in 2017 by Rescue Press. Lawlor’s novel, title often shortened to Paul, is the story of Paul Polydoris, bartender and queer theorist, who also happens to be a shapeshifter. The novel is an exploration of gender, sexuality, love, lust, and queerness in the 90s across the United States.
Amherst Books sold copies of Lawlor’s book at the event.The Living Writers classes read Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl and had a wide range of in-class discussions about so many different topics that carried over into the Q&A. Students had the opportunity to ask Lawlor questions about the writing process, publication process, and their influences. Lawlor began the talk with a quick description of how Paul came about. They had been working on the novel in various forms and drafts for ten years before ending up at UMass for their MFA. They ended up finishing Paul as part of their MFA thesis. Students asked Lawlor how UMass impacted the process of writing, editing, and publishing the novel, to which they replied that what helped most was actually their poetry workshops: “I didn’t know how to finish anything.” But writing poetry rather than prose helped them learn how.
In attempting to get a literary agent to represent them and Paul, they found that no matter how much interest there was in the manuscript, no one seemed to think there was any money in it. They queried agents that they had known through other writers, particularly other queer and trans writers, but 9/10 submissions ended in personal rejection letters, claiming interest but that it wasn’t the project for them at the time. Paul ended up finding his home at Rescue Press, a small publishing house that published high quality books with excellent cover designs, as Lawlor remarked. After being very briefly noted in The New Yorker, Lawlor’s book got some new attention from agents and publishers, which is how they ended up with an agent of their own and how Paul ended up being acquired by Penguin Publishers after its initial release.
One of the first sets of questions raised by students was about the specificity of time and place in Lawlor’s novel and the amount of research that this type of writing may have involved in order to prevent factual inaccuracy. Lawlor noted that the regionality of the novel comes from familiarity of these spaces, that they had lived or spent long periods of time in most of the places mentioned in the novel, from Provincetown to San Francisco. They talked about the elements of the novel, however, that did require research, like the existence of the Michigan Women’s Music Festival and its anti-trans policies. Jokingly, however, Lawlor noted, “I thought I was writing thinly veiled autobiography” and that they had never thought of this novel as being historical in any sense, when an old professor approached them and described it as such. Lawlor remarked about the novel’s setting of the 90’s, “That’s my childhood!”
What required some research as well was the amount of music references made. Lawlor talked about listening to a lot of music while writing the novel and how they enjoy such a wide variety of genres that they often had trouble naming them: “If it’s a banger, I like it,” they said.
Another aspect of Lawlor’s novel that the students talked in depth about was the snippets of fairy tale or folklore retellings that are weaved throughout the text. One student asked about the decision to include these stories and what connection they had to Paul’s journey. Lawlor talked about these as potential origin stories for Paul. They referred to the question asked often of queer and trans people, of why they are queer. They talked about how the “correct” answer to that question allows queer and trans people access to the respect of the people around them, to gender-affirming surgery, and to other life-saving resources. In giving Paul possible origin stories, Lawlor is giving a voice to queer people who wonder at where they have come from and why.
From there, Lawlor and the students delved deeper into the queerness of the text, particularly about a lot of the references that perhaps only queer audiences would pick up on. One student asked about these references, about whether Lawlor intended for only certain people to be the audience for the text because of it, to which Lawlor replied that the references are for the people who get them, but everyone else is welcome (and Google exists). This spawned a great conversation about the ways in which students connected and related to the novel both as people and as writers.
Lawlor talked about the presence of sex and smut in the novel, joking about how fun these undergraduate classes must have been in their discussions of such topics. They talked about writing and talking about queer sex as a political act, especially after growing up queer in the 80’s in the midst of the AIDS epidemic and how sex and death were intricately connected in that time. In talking about writing sex and about the relationship between sex and gender, one student brought up queer theorist Judith Butler. Lawlor says that they write fiction and poetry, rather than queer theory, because they like not having to know the answers. Lawlor points us to an essay by Jordy Rosenberg, who was a professor of mine, on Butler’s gender theory.
The Q&A concluded with a discussion of pronouns in the novel and Lawlor’s decision for Paul to use he/him pronouns throughout the story. They talked about how it is often cis-het readers who question their decision and queer readers who understand. Their reasoning lies in the context of the novel, the 90’s and its lack of gender-neutral language, and also in their want for people to be more focused on Paul than his pronouns. They noted the importance of readers growing used to uncomfortable and untraditional language throughout their reading of Paul, of learning the fluidity of gender and sex through that language.
The night’s event featured Lawlor reading a “tasting menu” from Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl along with some poetry from their Chapbook titled Position Papers.
The first section of Paul that they read from involved a graphic description of Paul’s physical transformation as a shapeshifter from female genitalia to male. The language Lawlor used was vivid and descriptive in a way that I feel is unique. Lawlor has incredible control over language. They are able to build a life for Paul in vowels and consonants, in words and their opposites, in piling together syllables with such intention and care. Lawlor reads through a section of Paul’s rememberings, a section rife with such vivid detail that if I closed my eyes, I could see Paul in New York City, be right beside him as he lives his queer life in the early 90s, a life so different from my own and yet Lawlor makes us feel so close to it with their immaculate way with words. The audience at the event was enraptured by Lawlor’s specificity, by the drama of their language and by the relatability of the story, no matter how fantastical.
They transitioned to reading some poems from Position Papers. These poems are future-focused. The chapbook is about exactly what it sounds like: it is Lawlor’s position on various topics, a sort of reference text for belief and for a world better than this one. It includes their position on cell phones, on communication, and on politics. These “we will” poems situate Lawlor as not only a poet but an activist, as someone who is not afraid to make bold statements and to make them eloquently.
Lawlor finished off the reading with some poems written just in the past few weeks, as part of a casual poetry project with some friends and fellow writers, in response to political outrage of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. These poems, however short, are loud and sure. Lawlor’s poetic voice is the same.
Lawlor spoke to readers and signed books before the event’s reception.
The final guest of the UMass MFA’s Visiting Writers Series is novelist Gabriel Bump. Join us at the Old Chapel for the event at 6:00 pm on November 30!
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