{"id":2394,"date":"2025-06-15T13:56:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T20:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2394"},"modified":"2025-06-15T13:56:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T20:56:28","slug":"bookshelf-writers-lovers-lily-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timporter.com\/seconddraft\/?p=2394","title":{"rendered":"Bookshelf \u2013 Writers & Lovers, Lily King"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All of us who labor in media or the arts know someone like Casey Peabody, a talented writer (or photographer or painter) who swirls in the eddies of unfulfilled dreams, seemingly stranded as success and relationships dissolve in the passing currents.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In \u201cWriters and Lovers,\u201d a sometimes baffling, often entertaining, and ultimately moving tale of finding creative authenticity and discovering the difference between love and need, Casey Peabody struggles. Burdened with student loans, she waitresses through double shifts. Grieved by her mother\u2019s sudden death, she tears up with regularity. Deceived in love, she vacillates between two suitors, one who offers comfort and security, the other a chance at something unique. At 31, she feels her sell-by date approaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The perspective is unblinkingly female, and men are not seen well \u2013 overbearing, dishonest, clueless, insecure. One of Peabody\u2019s beaus, for example, is a successful novelist who frets about the smallness of the venue for a book-release event. \u201cI am forty-seven years old. I was supposed to be reading in auditoriums by now,\u201d he laments. Casey\u2019s thought bubble responds: \u201cNearly every guy I\u2019ve dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. \u2026 I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it\u2019s how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I\u2019ve met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The storytelling itself is both clever and conversational, with dialog worthy of being eavesdropped. Here is Casey \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n