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Lisa Taddeos books are filled with desires we dont often talk about.
Every living tissue, Bird thinks.
She doesnt want to, but of course she does.
Bird wants a shirt that smells of her mother still to ball up in her hands.
Sleep and let the phone go, let the school bus pass.
Take the day in bed.
I cant want that.
She brings the baby to her breast in bed and tries to sleep.
Shes all stirred up.
She smells smoke, or a hurricane coming.
Smells the babys milky head.
She has a tooth already, this baby, a little headstone poking through.
A little zing when she nurses.
If only it would hurt a little more, Bird thinks, maybe she would wake him.
Take her man in her mouth and wake him, want him hard again.Gimme gimme.
Makes up, or lives, Bird cannot sort it.
She will turn a corner and find him there.
She will never in her life again see him.
I find her to be completely fearless.
I often think of this passage because of how uncomfortable it made me and how much I like that.
That part about if only it would hurt a little more when shes nursing.
If only the feeling of it felt a little bit less like a baby and more sexual.
The womans face is just like,Great, this is my day.
When I wrote about Maggie inThree Women, people would say, Whyd you saythatpart?
And Id say, Because that part happened.
Its so weird whenever people talk about writers taking risks.
I think a risk is like having a surgery that might kill you.
When I see writers who clearly dont care about that, I find that really electrifying and exciting.
Ive been really emboldened by writers who break the rules.
I dont think there should be rules necessarily.
Sex writing has this bad rap.
I dont like the wordpussy, and I dont like the wordcockin my own writing.
I dont use those unless a character uses them.
I wouldnt say, He put his penis inside of her.
I would say, Within seconds, he was inside of her.
