{"id":18870,"date":"2023-11-01T20:14:56","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T00:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18870"},"modified":"2023-11-01T20:14:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T00:14:56","slug":"my-life-as-a-dixie-darling-by-mark-goldblatt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18870","title":{"rendered":"‘My Life As a Dixie Darling,’ by Mark Goldblatt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When it comes to living our lives, I\u2019m sure that the vast majority of us are making it up as we go along. \u201cLunatics, lovers, and poets.\u201d \u2026of the people I\u2019ve known, they are the only ones who are certain about what they\u2019re doing. But with all due respect to Shakespeare, I wouldn\u2019t trust any of them to babysit my kid.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally I refer to the late D. Keith Mano, <\/strong>a somewhat tragic author who tried to write fiction about sex from a Christian perspective. I think he deserves a better posterity than he\u2019s enjoyed so far, but I’m also not sure he ever really hit his target. I heard a critic say once that almost every great filmmaker tries to do a movie about sex at some point, to infallibly fail miserably. My friend Mark Goldblatt has written a novel about softcore porn in My Life As a Dixie Darling<\/a><\/em>, and I think it mostly works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year is 2007. Doreen Martinelli is a very pretty wife and mother living in Shreveport, Louisiana. She\u2019s married to Bobby, a fairly feckless man-boy who works on and off as a car salesman. They\u2019re just getting by financially, and Doreen worries about how they\u2019ll eventually pay for their young daughter Arielle\u2019s college education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Bobby has a brainstorm. There\u2019s a porn site called \u201cDixie Darlings.\u201d It runs on (I assume; I have no personal experience here) the same general principles as OnlyFans \u2013 a woman posts her pictures and film clips, and subscribers pay to see her nude in the member\u2019s section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doreen is, of course, shocked and offended. At first. But Bobby is persistent. She isn\u2019t a prude, is she? She\u2019s a beautiful woman. He\u2019s not jealous. And they could make enough money to send Arielle to Harvard, potentially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what gets to Doreen. She\u2019d be doing it for Arielle. Who would it hurt?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little does she know. She adopts the name \u201cDee-Dee\u201d and posts some photos. The response is astonishing. Before long she\u2019s the second-most popular Darling, and rising fast. But that means competition with the Alpha Darling. Plus the constant risk of the neighbors finding out. And Arielle getting teased at school. And Bobby becoming a seduction target for other women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026As well as a weird flirtation with the boss\u2019s son, an intelligent, well-educated dwarf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overall theme in My Life As a Dixie Darling<\/em> seems to be materialism \u2013 the American tendency to justify any moral compromise \u2013 even when it leads us to neglect our children \u2013 so long as we can tell ourselves it\u2019s for the children\u2019s sakes. I also appreciated the unexpected complexity of the characters. This is one of those stories where there are no real villains, though many of the characters certainly do wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t entirely sure about the ending. I guess it should be seen as a peculiarly American kind of tragedy, but in a light-hearted way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recommended. Cautions (surprise!) for adult situations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to living our lives, I\u2019m sure that the vast majority of us are making it up as we go along. \u201cLunatics, lovers, and poets.\u201d \u2026of the people I\u2019ve known, they are the only ones who are certain about what they\u2019re doing. But with all due respect to Shakespeare, I wouldn\u2019t trust any … Continue reading ‘My Life As a Dixie Darling,’ by Mark Goldblatt<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[1761,4937],"class_list":["post-18870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-mark-goldblatt","tag-my-life-as-a-dixie-darling"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18872,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18870\/revisions\/18872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}