Stranger
Than Fiction
By
Delores Swallows
Excessica,
2015
We
authors often complain that our characters boss us around. We hear
their voices in our heads, voicing their displeasure at our plot
twists and demanding changes. They object loudly when we try to make
them adhere to our outlines. It’s worse than herding cats.
Stranger
Than Fiction takes this conceit one step further. In this tale,
an erotic author’s heroine becomes corporeal in order to express
her dissatisfaction with the sexual scenes he’s penned for her.
Ruby doesn’t just bitch about her sexual frustration; she takes
action, seducing poor James and engendering vivid (and messy)
orgasms, even though he knows she isn’t real. In the process, she
jeopardizes her creator’s already threatened marriage. As
mild-mannered James tries to juggle his attraction to the
increasingly wild heroine he has birthed and his love for his
overworked executive wife, he learns a thing or two about his own
sexuality.
Delores
Swallows writes with a sure hand and a ready wit. Ruby’s outrageous
behavior and James’ futile attempts to curb his lust for his unruly
character will have you laughing out loud. However, Stranger Than
Fiction is more than just a
raunchy lark. Ms. Swallows (or maybe I should say “Mr. Swallows”,
since the author freely admits to being male) incorporates some
underlying wisdom about the nature of imagination and the complexity
of eroticism.
I
suspect that Delores Swallows didn’t consciously intend to make
Ruby a personification of her creator’s sexual frustration, but one
could read the book that way. While James tries to write a story
infused with realistic emotional conflict rather than unbridled and
fantastic lust, he’s shackling his own sexual creativity. When he
lets Ruby come out and play, he liberates his own libido.
And
is the book erotic? Stranger Than Fiction
deals more with light-hearted arousal than deep, obsessive desire,
but it does include a lot of lively and pleasurable sex, with many a
nod to favorite female fantasies like multiple partners and sex with
hunky strangers.
Stranger
Than Fiction is about forty
pages long. Novellas of this length often feel either incomplete or
rushed. This book is exactly the right length for the story it tells.
The story arc builds, rises to a climax (or several), then resolves,
to everyone’s satisfaction (including Ruby’s). The sense of
completion is another testimony to Ms./Mr. Swallows’ authorly
skill.
This
is the first book I’ve read by Mr. Swallows. Given that he now has
a several book backlist, I’m certain it won’t be the last.
