This week on The Write Question, the first half of host Lauren Korn’s conversation with memoirist Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (Knopf). In this, her fifth book, Melissa investigates love and sex and celibacy and relationships, of course, but also control and addiction, spirituality, the divine, and the holy—and the act and art of memoir-writing and mentoring, too. This book (and these are Melissa’s words) “isn’t really a book about celibacy. It’s a book about being in love with the world, and how that makes it easier to participate, and to change it.”
About the book:
In the wake of a catastrophic two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break: For three months she would abstain from dating, relationships, and sex. Her friends were amused. Did she really think three months was a long time? But to Febos, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship after another with men and women. As she puts it, she could trace a “daisy chain of romances” from her adolescence to her mid-thirties. Finally, she would carve out time to focus on herself and examine the patterns that had produced her midlife disaster. Over those first few months, she gleaned insights into her past and awoke to the joys of being single. She decided to extend her celibacy, not knowing it would become the most fulfilling and sensual year of her life. No longer defined by her romantic pursuits, she learned to relish the delights of solitude, the thrill of living on her own terms, the distinct pleasures unmediated by lovers, and the freedom to pursue her ideals without distraction or guilt. Bringing her own experiences into conversation with those of women throughout history—from eleventh-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, Virginia Woolf, and Octavia Butler to the Shakers and Sappho—Febos situates her story within a newfound lineage of role models who unapologetically pursued their ambitions and ideals.
By abstaining from all forms of romantic entanglement, Febos began to see her life and her self-worth in a radical, new way. Her year of divestment transformed her relationships with friends and peers, her spirituality, her creative practice, and, most of all, her relationship to herself. Blending intimate personal narrative and incisive cultural criticism, The Dry Season tells a story that’s as much about celibacy as its inverse: pleasure, desire, fulfillment. Infused with fearless honesty and keen intellect, it’s the memoir of a woman learning to live at the center of her own story, and a much-needed catalyst for a new conversation around sex and love.
About Melissa:
Melissa Febos is the nationally bestselling author of four books, including Girlhood—which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, the Black Mountain Institute, the Bogliasco Foundation, and others. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Essays, Vogue, The Sewanee Review, New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. Febos is a full professor at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly.
Mentioned in this episode:
French author Colette, 1873–1954
Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892–1950
Belgian beguines; to read more: The Wisdom of the Beguines: The Forgotten Story of a Medieval Women’s Movement by Laura Swan (BlueBridge)
Hildegard of Bingen; to read more: Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century by Matthew Fox (Namaste Publishing)
Melissa Febos recommends:
Coming soon—in the meantime, join Melissa on her book tour, happening now!
Lauren Korn recommends:
Everything written by Melissa Febos, but particularly The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex (Knopf) and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative (Catapult)
Lonely Women Make Good Lovers by Keetje Kuipers (BOA Editions)
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
Everything written by Heather Christle, but particularly The Crying Book (Catapult), In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf (Algonquin Books), and Heliopause (Wesleyan University Press)
Another Word for Love by Carvell Wallace (MCD Books)
Bluets (Wave Poetry), The Argonauts (Graywolf Press), and Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson (Graywolf Press)
Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story (Back Bay Books)
A Room of One’s Own and The Waves by Virginia Woolf (Mariner Books Classics)
elseship: an unrequited affair by Tree Abraham (Soft Skull)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Fact & Fiction, an independent bookstore located in the heart of downtown Missoula, Montana, providing books for all ages and supporting the literary community in Montana and beyond. More information can be found at factandfictionbooks.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
