Emily: Welcome to another edition of Queer Girl Book Club, which is now past its inaugural stages and is in full swing. We’ve read some great books, we’ve read some okay books, and we’ve read some really bad ones. So where does our latest one fall on the scale? This time, we’re discussing Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca. It’s a novella written all through e-mails and instant messages between two women who enter into a BSDM relationship with each other that’s entirely virtual. Agnes meets Zoe when she’s trying to sell her apple peeler on a queer message board. Agnes seems desperate to find connection, and Zoe… well, her motivations are a little less clear and something I think we should discuss. We also have a guest with us this time! So welcome, Mary! What made you want to join Queer Girl Book Club for this particular book?

Mary: When you mentioned that y’all were reading this book, I knew I had to force my way into the discussion because I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time. I keep seeing posts on BookTok about it, and a lot of book influencers have talked about how shocking and horrific it is. Nothing gets me hooked more than something people are disgusted by — I just have to know what’s up. Also, I love an epistolary novel; the constraint required makes for a more interesting story, sometimes. I’m not ashamed to say I read this one in one sitting!

Emily: Well, this is interesting because I know Kelli hates epistolary novels so maybe we should start there and let y’all duke it out. Did this form work? What sort of constraints does this form put on the story, if any?

I should also say… spoilers to follow!

Kelli: I definitely found myself struggling with the epistolary form here for some of the same reasons I often do. This is not to say that it’s impossible for me to enjoy epistolary novels — just check out our discussion of The Color Purple a while back for an example of how this format can and does work when employed well. 

My main issue with this format is that it never feels believable to me. Often, the supposed letters or emails we’re getting will read almost exactly the same way a regular first-person novel does with a “dear” and “love” slapped onto the beginning and end of each section, and it just feels totally contrived, because I know that when I write letters — and when most people write letters — we are not literally writing out full dialogue and minor details of the exchanges that take place in our day-to-day lives. Maybe some people do this, but I don’t know those people.

All that said, this wasn’t as much of an issue for me here because most of the exchanges are pretty specific to this relationship, the majority of which has taken place online. However, something that bothered me here was that both Zoe and Agnes seemed to have the exact same writing style and voice. Reading their exchanges over Instant Messenger, there would’ve been basically no way for me to tell the difference between the two of them without reading their screen names. Despite the total power imbalance here, these two women seem to view the world in almost the exact same way, write with the same formal tone, and share the same dark sense of humor. I was put off almost immediately when the post about the apple peeler on the message board started with “let me tell you a story.” I was like… oh, for fuck’s sake, can we not.

Mary: On this one, I’m with Kelli. Look, I love an epistolary novel and ones that are mostly emails/internet communication are even better, but there was something weird going on with the voices of both Zoe and Agnes. Not only did they sound the same (totally agree with you there, Kelli), but they also don’t sound like people at all?! There’s just weird syntax and phrasing throughout, and I had to work to get past that and enjoy the book. This kind of seemed, at its core, like a weird book about weird people, so why should I expect them to sound normal? Lol.

Emily: Yes, I just want to echo what both of you said and agree that the writing style was super similar. And it wouldn’t have been so distracting if it wasn’t such a stylized and formal kind of writing. I just want to defend the apple peeler story though. It does seem to me like this story fits with what we know about Agnes’ personality. Agnes seems like she’s just an oversharer. She has no close relationships in her real life and she’s searching for validation. Part of the way she tries to find connections with others is by sharing her stories. Note that Zoe doesn’t really tell full stories with details in the same way Agnes does. So ultimately, I was okay with the fact that Agnes’ letters read like a first-person short story. Because this girl seemed like the kind of person who would just break out into a first-person short story every time she wrote to someone. That was baked into her character in a way that made me think, “I’ll allow it” every time it happened. 

Kelli: Fine. I’ll allow it.

Mary: I also have some questions about the power imbalance. In a big way it was all kind of consensual and Agnes showed she had the power to cut off the relationship at any time she wanted — even if that’s not what she ultimately chooses. I really feel like if someone (even someone I was attracted to) told me to do a lot of the stuff Zoe commands, I’d be like, “Hm, nope” and just log off forever. I guess Zoe knowing her bank info is a big deal? I’ve seen people make comments about how the book is set in the early 2000s, and I guess...I don’t know, was the internet scarier then? I feel like the internet couldn’t have been a worse place than now. Maybe people were just more naive about it.

Emily: I think it was set in the early 2000s because people were still using Instant Messenger back then. We don’t IM people anymore. Social media has moved on.

Also… really Mary? You think you might not do some of the things Zoe commands even if you were attracted to her? I’m going to go ahead and say I think most people would not agree with this arrangement at all. The moment she said let me be in charge of your life, I’d be out. Y’all know I gotta have control at all times.

Kelli: Yeah, I think money, in general, creates a power imbalance, whether or not Zoe has access to Agnes’ bank account. In this relationship, there is one person who has the ability to take care of the other person while that other person can barely manage to make their rent payment, and I think that’s enough to have a pretty significant impact on their relationship. None of this is to say that Agnes needed to do any of the things Zoe asked her to. She could have just accepted the rent payment and moved on with her life, but she was obviously attracted to the idea of being submissive to this level. I can’t relate, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who can. It made sense to me that Agnes was pretty much fine with the requests until the salamander because that one crossed an obvious line. 

Emily: I found it really interesting that the salamander was the point where Agnes wanted out. And by interesting, I mean that it made total sense, and I liked what it tells us about her as a character. She is unquestioning when it comes to doing things that might be detrimental or even harmful to herself, but she has no interest in harming others. In fact, it disturbs her to do so. 

Mary: Okay, okay, I admit I wouldn’t want to give up control either, but I can like, kind of get it until the demands started happening. That was the point when I was like, okay this just is hard to believe at this point. My disbelief will only suspend so far. 

I agree about the salamander scene. Agnes doesn’t want to hurt a living creature, and even though she carries out the act, she doesn’t relish it at all and even ends their arrangement over it. I did really appreciate–like Emily said — what that tells us about Agnes. It communicates a lot of information by showing us how she feels. 

Another thing I was wondering about: How did y’all feel about the introduction? Readers get this whole statement about how there’s an investigation into Agnes’ death, so we begin the story knowing that Agnes is going to wind up dead, though we don’t know how it’s going to happen. For the whole story, I was thinking the two might eventually meet and have some kind of altercation, but I think there’s a nice flip where Agnes suddenly becomes the more persistent person in the relationship. She’s the one that doesn’t want to stop the whole tapeworm thing even after Zoe says they should call it off. It just didn’t go like I thought it would.

Kelli: Yeah, I didn’t have expectations exactly for how things would go down, but it was clear that Agnes didn’t have very many positive things going on in her life, and it wasn’t super surprising that things ended the way they did. I thought it was odd that the introduction specified that the emails and messages were compiled by a third party — who was that person and why did they do this? 

Emily: I would agree the story didn’t go down the way I thought it would. The beginning suggests Agnes dies, so I was expecting her to be dead by the end of it. When I got to the last page, I turned to the next page expecting there to be more. I wanted more of a reveal about Zoe by the end of it. The only reason I don’t think Zoe is a fake person is because of what we get in the beginning about the trial. But I still feel like I wanted one more step at the end. 

Mary: I need to talk about the tapeworm. Overall, I really disliked all the animal cruelty in the novel, and each time Agnes began describing some sort of animal stuff, my mind went blank and I read a little faster. I just really hate it when there’s violence towards animals in stuff.

That being said, I’m absolutely haunted by the tapeworm birth sequence, and lingered a long time on the phrase “He has your eyes.” This really seems like a turning point for Zoe, and she really disengaged after seeing how far Agnes had gone in their little game. For me, I think the tapeworm stuff reminds me a good bit of David Lynch’s Eraserhead, which I still don’t fully understand but feels similarly haunting. The tapeworm, like the baby in that film, kind of represents something unknowable and not of this world, and neither protagonist is able to really care for their alien charges. While several scenes in this short book made me pause and consider if they were just for shock value or actual plot, the tapeworm seemed like something different. I’ve been really wanting to talk about it with y’all! 

Kelli: So, something that confused me in general as the tapeworm situation unfolded was that Zoe seemed so freaked out by it. I’m like… you instructed Agnes to let raw meat sit out, eat it, and contract a parasite of some kind with the implication that this would be carrying some kind of life between you, and then you get freaked out when Agnes becomes emotionally attached to the tapeworm? Like, the fact that this was what made Zoe decide they’d gone too far was bizarre to me because in my mind, they had already gone too far with the salamander murder. Also, Zoe, this was YOUR IDEA! Like, damn.

Mary: I kind of wonder if Zoe actually expected Agnes to actually go through with it.

Emily: Yeah, I want to pause here for a second and talk about Zoe. I kept waiting for more to be revealed about her, but we really don’t know much about her at all. What are her real motivations here? What is she getting out of this situation? I think it was clear pretty early on that Zoe was not into this relationship at the same level that Agnes was. But in what way was Zoe invested in this relationship? Who is Zoe? What does she want?

Kelli: We’re in agreement that Zoe’s motivations were unclear here. I was pretty taken aback when during one of their first conversations she was suddenly like, “I want someone to belong to me.” It seemed like maybe she was a queer elder of sorts, based on the things she said to Agnes when she sends her money for the first time. I got the impression she’d been out for a long time and was comfortable with her sexuality and her place in the world in a way that Agnes clearly isn’t at the beginning of the novel, and Zoe feels like she’s doing her due diligence by helping a fellow queer person. The 180 into “what have you done today to deserve your eyes” territory was surprising, and I would’ve liked to understand where it came from a little bit better. 

Mary: I agree — we need to know more about Zoe in order to fully understand what’s going on here, but it’s just… not there. I was also kind of shocked by the wild 180, and that got me invested in the novel because the apple peeler story wasn’t doing it. 

Kelli: But yeah, back to baby tapeworm: in general, body horror terrifies me, and parasites in particular really freak me out. I have spoken many times about the only time a book has ever given me a panic attack, which was My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, and the section that caused it involved a pretty graphic description of a tapeworm. After that, this felt pretty tame in comparison as far as the level of description went, but the thought of Agnes holding the tapeworm like a baby was definitely disturbing and, as Mary said, haunting. While this kind of thing freaks me out, I do think the fact that it went in this direction elevated the book for me and got my mind away from my issues with the style because I was too busy being like “fuck, this is creepy.”

So like, here’s an annoying question: what is this novella really about?

Emily: Well, it’s saying something about control and something about loneliness and the ways in which people try to connect with one another. But what is it saying about those things? I think I was too busy being disturbed to even think about what it was trying to say. We didn’t even talk about the most disturbing part to me—the crucifix story—which… we don’t have to talk about it. I just want to acknowledge that it’s fucked up. 

Kelli: Wow, I totally blocked that out until just now. Thanks so much for reminding me.

Mary: I had also blacked it out, then Emily asked if I’d told Todd about it. Ben chimed in with, “Please don’t.” He didn’t want to hear any of it, and I honestly don’t blame him.

Kelli: But yeah, I’m not sure if I know exactly what it’s saying either, which is not always a bad thing. A story doesn’t necessarily have to have a map that we can trace out telling us what things mean or how we’re supposed to feel. But I have to say that I agree with what you said earlier, Emily — I turned the last page and was surprised to have reached the end. I wanted more, and not even in a way where I was like, “I’m enjoying this so much that I don’t want it to end,” but in a way where I needed more to feel satisfied. This was such a short read, and while I’m normally thrilled to read something that doesn’t feel bloated with too much information or exposition, this felt lacking. 

Mary: I also don’t fully know what this book was about, but I do know that I’ll be thinking about it for a while, and I’m really excited for the follow-up (and maybe trilogy??), so we’ll see. 

Emily: One more thing I want to talk about before we rate: the author. This is a book about two queer women, but the book is written by a nonbinary author who does not identify as a woman. This is the first time we’ve read a queer girl book that isn’t written by a queer girl. Some people on Goodreads (you know how people on Goodreads are, but anyway) have argued that this is lesbian trauma porn and this is not the author’s story to tell. How do we feel about this? Does it make a difference to read a queer girl story that isn’t written by a queer girl?

Kelli: I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with a nonbinary author writing about women, and I don't know that I would call this trauma porn either. Like we talked about before, I had a hard time seeing these characters as people, let alone as women, but I don't think that's an issue with the author not understanding their subject or being unable to access the experience. It didn't strike me as offensive in any way.

Mary: I will say that I am happy to see a queer author getting all up in the horror space! That being said, yeah, I don’t know how I feel about LaRocca in general. I’d love to read some of their other stuff, but I don’t know that it hit me as trauma porn per se. Then again, like Kelli said, there’s not a lot of character depth here, and a lot is left unsaid. How did you feel about it Emily?

Emily: The only thing about the queerness that kind of rubbed me the wrong way was the fact that so much was made of Zoe and Agnes not being able to have a real child together. Which feels like a strange heteronormative way to look at children and families? But on the other hand, there was nothing particularly queer about this at all, because even if this had been a hetero relationship, Zoe and Agnes never meet in person, so they still could not have made a child together.

Mary: Oh man, yeah, you’re right about that. I just kept thinking, ok but there are so many options to have kids. I agree on that.

I gave the book a 4 out of 5 on Goodreads. I enjoyed it, and I’ll be thinking about it for a while, even if I don’t fully get the hype around it.

Emily: I also gave it a four. Generally speaking, I’m really interested in stories about human connection and the lengths we’ll go to to feel loved and cared for. That’s something that has always fascinated me, and that’s a lot of what this book is exploring. And I also loved the epistolary style and what a quick read it was. Just because something is short, it doesn’t always mean it’s a quick read. But I can’t give it a full 5 stars because, as we mentioned, there is a major voicing issue here, and that pulled me out of the story. I also just wanted a lot more.

Kelli: I haven't rated this yet, but I think I'm going to give it a three. Overall I felt pretty unfulfilled by it, and I didn't feel much while reading it either, other than the discomfort surrounding the tapeworm baby and that other story that we’re not going to talk about. It just didn't do very much for me. It's probably more of a 2.5, but I feel compelled to round up because it's queer and also because people on Goodreads give things bad ratings for the wrong reasons.

Emily: If you’re looking for more queer horror books, Mary, there are a lot of good ones! Shout out, for instance, to a previous Queer Girl Book Club pick, Plain Bad Heroines, and also another book I recently read, Summer Sons. 

And speaking of other queer books, what are we reading next?

Kelli: Next time we're reading Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body by Megan Milks, which promises to be another weird one!

Emily: I love a weird book! See y’all in January for our first Queer Girl Book Club of 2022!