And that could have been an interesting novel.īut what “Building Character” seems to really be about is a writer’s anxieties. I at first assumed that Fen, Ruby, and Marissa would battle to the end in a competitive triad. The novel seems as if it’s going to be about Ruby’s ulterior motives, her designs on Fen’s money, and Marissa’s buffoonish attempts to attract Fen’s attention and affections by waiting outside her home in the snow. Fen eagerly seduces her, though from the minute Ruby appears, she is unable to write as she was before, focused so intently on Ruby’s physical charms as she is. Ruby is a red-lipsticked sex bomb, but also a clever manipulator. A character in her 1940s mystery novel springs off the page and into Fen’s bed. The book becomes increasingly strange when Fen returns to her writing, which she always does in a state of manic high. It’s risky to write about a woman who basically doesn’t like people and doesn’t treat them very well.

Fen doesn’t go in for relationships, and she has her life completely sorted out. Genet treats us to a luscious, no-strings sex scene between Fen and the voluptuous singer backstage. Her longtime friend Simone shows up the club and is planning a birthday party for her, but Fen is less than enthusiastic, clearly used to being the kind of person who fends people off and participates reluctantly in group activities. Marissa turns out to be a sort of pining literary groupie, and Fen quickly disconnects from her. They meet at a jazz joint, where the sultry singer has already been one of Fen’s pickups and is still flirting with her. Genet establishes this firmly in the first chapter, as 40-ish Fen leaves the fancy home where she lives alone in great comfort to rendezvous with a young woman, Marissa, who met her at a book club. The tale rather deliciously dwells on a well-known writer’s anxieties, as she finds a seductive character from her own work becoming real and slipping into her day to day life, with disastrous results.įen Marshall (it took me a while to realize that both the names suggest slippery and low-lying places) is a successful New Zealand writer, a lesbian, and clearly not a nice woman. A book that came out last month without much fanfare is Kate Genet’s latest, Building Character, and it’s an accomplished work that deserves a second look.

The summer months are difficult ones for indie authors, who tend to see sales of their full-length ebooks diminish. By Kate Genet, 2012, Kindle/Smashwords ($6.99)

Building Character by Kate Genet