Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"

[Anasa Tristis]

In the spirit of on-topicness, I must point out that Rocco is a bastard. Once was a time (as recently as 1966 - in North Carolina, at least) when a judge would have signed a warrant allowing Lily to be hauled into court to name Rocco's father so that Joe could be ordered to pay for a bastardy bond - a form of child support meant to safeguard public funds. As fate would have it, Lily would now pay for the bond out of her own earnings because her fancy man doesn't work. Progress!

So he is! Kek. And there used to be "bastardy bonds" to "safeguard public funds"? That's fascinating. And very thunk provoking.

 

[Bookwork]

So he is! Kek. And there used to be "bastardy bonds" to "safeguard public funds"? That's fascinating. And very thunk provoking.

Images of the bonds are being put online these days, here for instance. They were used in Britain and all across the U.S.A, probably in other countries, too. Interesting discussion on how the different approaches to them worked here.

 

[Law]

(I wouldn't mind if he turned his pen to something that was a bit closer to his own heart, the sort of book that appeals more to a male audience like technothrillers, spy novels, or hardboiled detective stories. This is an interesting experiment, but how sustainable is it for Dan the Man's Man?)

Women's Hotel written in the style of Rainbow Six or Red Harvest has great comedic potential.
I'm imagining Tom Clancy's use of "Damn." as a sentence, replaced with "Goodness gracious."
Mallory writing a technothriller would rule. It's the perfect marriage of complete opposites, just like Jane Eyre and texting.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Women's Hotel written in the style of Rainbow Six or Red Harvest has great comedic potential.

It turns out that the hotel is a base of secret operations for a foreign government, and subtle clues in the breakfast offerings are the trigger that leads an ordinary resident into a web of espionage and spycraft that will turn her quiet world upside down.

 

[Free the Pedos]

So he is! Kek. And there used to be "bastardy bonds" to "safeguard public funds"? That's fascinating. And very thunk provoking.

Courts still try to safeguard the public funds by pursuing the non custodial guardian for child support, FWIW.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

Courts still try to safeguard the public funds by pursuing the non custodial guardian for child support, FWIW.

Yea, it’s not called a “bastard bond” today but a modern version still exists to some extent today. It’s why some states are particularly pushy about establishing paternity. If a child born out of wedlock requires public assistance the state will pursue the father to be be recompensed for some of the money it has to spend to provide for the child. Even if the mother doesn’t pursue child support from the father, the state will on its own behalf if the mother applies for public assistance. Women confused why the courts are after their baby daddy because they aren’t asking for child support, not realizing the state is going after the father because it’s giving her welfare benefits for the child.

It’s not all fathers. If mother’s lose custody of their child they can be ordered to make support payments to the guardians or the state too.

 

[TheMeanOne]

It turns out that the hotel is a base of secret operations for a foreign government, and subtle clues in the breakfast offerings are the trigger that leads an ordinary resident into a web of espionage and spycraft that will turn her quiet world upside down.

That's kind of the plot of At Bertram's Hotel which is an Agatha Christie/Miss Marple story. Miss Marple is delighted by how old-fashioned and full-service the hotel is but the Irish bellhop is in with some kind of gang, the society daughter is secretly involved with a scary foreign race car driver, the hotel is basically a front for a lot of organized crime and I think someone murders a bishop. I don't remember the details. But it's worth reading more than most Christie because even someone as consciously conservative as she was is saying, "Time marches on you can't expect things to stay the way they were."

I don't know if Mal has it in her to make a statement like to her audience. "You want things to be one way but guess what? Things change and that would just be a facade at this point."

 

[Dr. Butt]

Nothing to do with an HBO series. Idk where you were raised but bastard has never fell into disuse in many parts of the USA.

“Bastard out of Carolina” was a popular novel in the 1990’s and I still have the lyrics:
“more than an occasional hazard. You run the risk of conceiving a bastard” stuck in my head from twenty years ago.

Illegitimate and “out of wedlock” were mostly legal and administrative lingo, or when you were speaking to your pastor or trying to be extra proper about a sensitive matter.

I just calls 'em "babies".

 

[Bookwork]

Is acclaimed American male writer Daniel M. Lavery going to cross-dress for Halloween? "Egregious."

 

[Free the Pedos]

There are 50 people on the waitlist for the ebook at my local library. Mal needs to send someone a huge fruit basket for scoring that mention. I hope someone posts a copy here soon directions on where to find a copy.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

There are 50 people on the waitlist for the ebook at my local library. Mal needs to send someone a huge fruit basket for scoring that mention. I hope someone posts a copy here soon.

38 requests on 2 copies at mine, and she hasn't even made her appearance yet here. Credit wherever it's due, this is a much more successful rollout than I was expecting.

 

[monstrous bubo]

Is acclaimed American male writer Daniel M. Lavery going to cross-dress for Halloween?

What a manly hand that is.

I hope someone posts a copy here soon.

Mal is published by a real publishing house that will not be amused and has lawyers to make Jersh’s life less cheesy, so I don’t. Also the thread will then be featured and we’ll have an influx of retards who will fuck up the thread.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Is acclaimed American male writer Daniel M. Lavery going to cross-dress for Halloween? "Egregious."
View attachment 6533917

I think what she's saying is the labels are switched. Since they're otherwise the same costume the black costume should be the "sassy" one.

 

[Potatis Salad]

There are 50 people on the waitlist for the ebook at my local library. Mal needs to send someone a huge fruit basket for scoring that mention. I hope someone posts a copy here soon directions on where to find a copy.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

There are 50 people on the waitlist for the ebook at my local library. Mal needs to send someone a huge fruit basket for scoring that mention. I hope someone posts a copy here soon directions on where to find a copy.

Not to dismiss the demand, I’m sure plenty are legit because she has a supportive fanbase, but publishers also employ tactics with libraries to make books seem more in demand than they actually are, esp in certain markets.

Library orders subsidize certain sectors in publishing and depend on them to not go under or to keep pushing new books out that aren’t self-help and celebrity bios. Therefore some chicanery is used to help puff up library stats for the less profitable divisions.

Out of curiosity I checked a library in my city. Two copies, one hold. I’m sorry to say I have far too large of a “still need to read” stack to consider picking this up but I do hope some KF can provide some choice excerpts in the future.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Okay, which one of you wrote the "Joe L." review on Goodreads?




Perhaps this entire novel needed a little more time to ferment in order to become the delicious dish it was meant to become.

 

[peatbog]

There are 50 people on the waitlist for the ebook at my local library.

At mine there are 22 holds on 4 copies of the ebook, and 22 holds on 14 hardbacks. In comparison, they have one copy of Please Miss, and that's available on the shelf.

 

[autogynephobia]

What bothers me most about this book is that there's both a Katherine and a Kitty (a nickname for Katherine). You only had to name five characters and you gave two of them essentially the same name.

 

[Bookwork]

The county library for my undisclosed location:

Women's Hotel​

- 12 paper copies ordered, 85 people on wait list​

- eboook 7 copies, 109 people on wait list​

Frankly, I'm impressed. Granted Mal's earlier Prudence book's supply/demand curve matches Joe's below. Women's Hotel is basking in newness just now.

No Please, Miss but:

Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan​

- ebook online, no waiting​

​

Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques​

- ebook online, no waiting​

 

[Cnaiur urs Skiotha]

Mal is published by a real publishing house that will not be amused and has lawyers to make Jersh’s life less cheesy, so I don’t. Also the thread will then be featured and we’ll have an influx of retards who will fuck up the thread.

Agreed, also Women's Hotel is not going to be entertainingly good-bad or psychotic like Greer's self-published screed. From the sample we've seen it's just more unbearably twee, pretentious prose trying way too hard to be clever and cute. It's very funny to me that a manly dood like Danny would write what is possibly the most feminine book of the century, but I don't suspect there's much entertainment value in actually reading it.

If someone does get a copy and there are passages worth making fun of, they could always post choice excerpts for the purposes of commentary and criticism, rather than a rip of the entire book. Less for others to slog through looking for the good bits too.