Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapters 9-11

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part Two: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Chapter 9-11

(Tweet Link) Thread #5 for Stephen King's Sleeping Beauties and my live-read focusing on trans exclusion.

Tiffany is gone. Lila's lack of reaction makes me doubt whether I misinterpreted the kiss entirely. Maybe it wasn't a kiss? Maybe King thinks women just pull each other's faces towards theirs for a nice friendly facebump once in awhile? I don't know. I'm lost.

One last thing about the pregnancy because a few people have asked: these were actual doctors. Erin and Jolie were doctors of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Georgia worked at Planned Parenthood.

Tiffany knew she was carrying a boy and knew she wouldn't survive (idk) and has left 10 commandments for her baby boy to live by. The 10 Commandments are tragically misspelled, because this book is the hackiest hack job I have ever read. ...and I have read the full Deathlands series by "James Axler".

Linda is brought back into existence on this page to lactate for Tiffany's baby despite already weaning hers. "Linda quit nursing Alex a while ago" sounds like a deliberate choice, so King isn't aware some women nurse for years? and that nursing for years in a situation where the alternate food is "burned deer" and "raw berries" is... maybe a good idea? Wasn't Alex only born, like, 2 months ago? Tops? Linda might've weaned if she couldn't nurse, but then she wouldn't be able to nurse now. What are they feeding a weaned two-month old infant????????????

Never mind, I refuse to put more thought into this than the authors did.

They have "accepted as fact" they could die at any time from their bodies being killed, but they're still planning ahead a gas refinery.

Oh my god, I am going to set this book on fire.

Remember Elaine? The black woman who was sensible and good and kicked Frank to the curb when his domestic tyranny became unbearable? We haven't seen her at all since she fell asleep, only hints and pieces that she's terrorizing their daughter (Nana) for missing Frank. She is now--apparently--going to drive to the Tree and idk destroy it or something, for the women's own good. I had, yaknow, hopes the women might discuss the Exit in their Meetings, but Elaine (the one black woman) is just going to decide for them.

There's pages about how Frank was a bad husband not because he was a tyrant who scared his wife & daughter but because he doesn't do dishes. (I've lived in an abusive marriage with a tyrant who didn't do dishes. The tyranny was worse than the dishes.) And once again we equate XY chromosomes with maleness. Man = Penis = XY chromosomes. King is just doing this on purpose now.

Look, when I started this a lot of well meaning people were like "if it helps, I think he just ignores trans people entirely". No. It doesn't help. And this isn't ignoring us. Callous insensitivity isn't a good thing and it's not ignoring or neglect. When a narrative takes the time to say Man = Penis = XY, that doesn't "ignore" trans people, that's a direct fucking attack on us. Cis people sometimes don't see or remember these passages because they don't hurt you. Okay! But that's privilege. The passage hurts us. This right here is telling me, the reader, that I can't be a man because I don't have a penis. No, that isn't helpful or benign or neglect.

So just.

PLEASE.

For the future, when trans people are wary of a book, please do not say "if it helps, I think the author ignored you!"

Okay, back to the book. I apologize for that tangent. Group hug, ya'll, we got this. *punches the air*

So to be clear, our one black man is the antagonist in the real world and our one black woman is the antagonist in the dream world. And the message we've received from Lila (protagonist) is that the best possible world is one repopulated from scratch by white women. This was published in 2017 during a swell of white nationalism and white supremacy and no it's not a mistake or an accident. This book is racist and everyone who contributed to its publishing is complicit. Write me up as "toxic" if you want, it's still true. I liked Elaine, I adored her, she was the counterpart to Frank being awful, but now she's a man-hating shrew who hates her own daughter.

As @TurianBatman points out, this is a "paradise" that is:
- all white
- no trans people
- the queers die

Each time paradise has been "threatened" it's because a queer, black, or mentally ill person got in and wrecked shit up. And the paradise isn't even that grand! A woman just died from lack of medical care, but there's "no pedophiles", what the fuck.

Elaine is a completely different character now. Is it magic or bad writing?

Welp, we've reached the point I predicted: apologia for Frank's abuse. Fool that I was, I had thought Frank's early justifications for his abuse were meant to be seen as incorrect and disingenuous. I thought  we were being shown, with a subtle touch, how abusers lie to themselves in order to justify their actions. Nope! Turns out Frank really was just a good man being pushed too far by his bitchy wife.

I mean, we could argue this is just a tired child misremembering abuse in order to romanticize her father, but c'mon it's not. You can't have a subtle narrative when the mother (Elaine) is cacklingly evil and twirling a sinister mustache. Nana was previously stated to be 12 and on her first period; Elaine was gentle and thoughtful. Now.... we get.... this?

Is King seriously giving us an 12 year old Black girl who is sexually active with a 16yo boy? I'm horrified by this. What the shit.

That is what it feels like. I feel sick that I thought the initial "subtle" portrayals of abuse were handled well.

Ah, okay, this is..... slightly better. Still really awful! Better. The passage was confusing anyway, because the whole "she'd been holding hands" happened SIX MONTHS AGO IN ANOTHER WORLD. Elaine, we are informed, is embittered from her years volunteering with abused women. They always go back "to their chains". Elaine equates wanting to be with a man to insanity.

Can I just say how garbage this is from a narrative point of view? Elaine hasn't existed for pages. If anyone should leap into this role, it ought to be Lila. She even has the right name association: Lilith, who rejected Adam. Lila wouldn't even need to be acting rationally; she could be upset by Tiffany's death and blaming the men who knocked her up.

You can't... just, from a writing perspective, you can't just summon a character out of stasis to present a big threat all of the sudden! You need to build up to it. The reader should have some sense of who they are and why they're doing it. Not an infodump as they do it. This isn't just anti-feminist and misogynistic and racist, it's bad craft. King wrote "On Writing", he surely knows better than this.

Tiffany, who died yesterday, was "seven months" pregnant. Lila, who arrived LONG after Tiffany, says she's been here "eight months". *weeps* This is the thing that breaks me. She was "seven months pregnant" mere pages ago and one day previously in Lila's time frame.

*keening wails*

WHERE ARE THEY GETTING BREAD FROM. What season is it??? It was starting to be winter at, like, 4 months in? and they're at 7-8 months now? So it's maybe March?

We cut away from the women's world to build tension re: whether Elaine managed to burn the tree or not, to return to the men's world. Two escaped local drug dealers are holed up in a cabin (why don't they just drive to Vegas????) and contemplate their future. I laughed, because this is literally the first time someone has questioned who they'll fuck with women all gone.

That actually is of interest to me, and I'd love to see a good writer tackle the problem. There'd be guys realizing they're bisexual but never had to think about it before, of course. There'd be "artificial" women--androids and dolls. And you'd have a lot of sex-working men who impersonate women for pay. Both online, over the phone, and in person. If there was any kind of stock market left at this point, I'd put all my money into whoever makes Real Dolls.

I'd be interested, truly, in a straight male writer honestly grappling with the "who do we fuck and how" question in a setting like this. Because heterosexuality for men is so deeply tied into toxic masculinity and once you kiss a boy you're not manly anymore, etc. etc. But many men do crave affection and physical touch and kissing and there's no longer any women on earth to satisfy that need. I feel like a good author (a good one, not a bad one) could unpack a lot of toxicity that way. But here we are with this hot mess.

I'm going to go get some food, brb.

*rubs forehead*

Rather than go anywhere else in this chaotic world, the Drug Lords are going to Storm The Prison and kill the woman witness. They could drive to Vegas, but they're instead going to attack Local Law Enforcement just in case the witness wakes up. There's something surreal about how no one even considers leaving this town to go anywhere else.

Like, this is just blatant author-driven nonsense to throw a curve ball at Clint and Frank as they battle over Eve. Might as well make them professional jewel thieves determined to steal the Sapphire Eye left in the prison library or whatever. And since we only briefly saw these characters, like, once before this plan, we have zero investment in it. This is so badly written. I don't care if Owen did write all this and Stephen just stamped his name on it, your dad is Stephen Fucking King! What, you didn't have a copy of On Writing to thumb through before you wrote this, Owen?

Vonnugut's Rule 8, even!! This is blatantly broken, time and time again!

As are #1, #2, and #3, while I have you here.

Lila wants nothing! She's a floating observer in the Women's World, always unsatisfied but never wanting anything concrete. Clint wants... the book to be over? We get no sense that he wants Lila back, he's just sorta doing what Eve tells him. What does Eve want? We don't know if she wants  mankind to fail or if she harbors a hope that they'll surprise her with kindness. Elaine wants to never see another man again, that's the only "want" I can find in this novel. Frank wants his daughter cured. That's it. There's no action in this book, there's just characters mechanically following the demands of the author.

*nods* This is exactly how she reads, yes, and it doesn't fit her purpose in the story at all. It's just.  No.

Yeah, there are multiple references to "the XX chromosome" and "the XY chromosome".

Anyway. We've acquired a Chekov's Bazooka for no adequately justified reason.

This is Terry, who has been drunk and asleep most of the book. Everyone has just embraced the supernatural rumor of Eve.

The only thing they know is that an unreliable drunk prison guard said he say Eve sleep without cocooning. That is literally all they know. But they're going to storm the prison and possibly die--Clint has guns now--because they believe a woman who can cure everything is in there. This is supposed to be a treatise on mankind, but there isn't a single human in these pages.

YES! King could've justified all of this! That's what second drafts are for. Like, I know some writers are terrified they'll fuck up. This book? Everything in it is fixable in a second / third / fourth draft!

Terry has forgotten the faces of his wife and daughter since he hasn't seen them in four days.
I feel like the ball was dropped timeline-wise. This would be way more plausible if it was either still the first day (and he was in a sleepless panic) or months / years later. If it was still the first day, then everyone would be panicky and on adrenaline. Fine. If it were months / years later then people would be feeling like no cure was coming. They'd be desperate for a magic fix. But on Day 4, I feel like most folks would be numb and just kinda.... assuming that The Government Or Someone will fix it soon.

Randomly, there are cocooned women floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I guess from plane crashes?

A new character is introduced (sure why the fuck not) to give Frank's side a mess of plastic explosives. I'm frustrated by the fact that Frank's side has no idea--and no curiosity--about Clint's motives. This is important. They believe Eve is or has the cure. Why do they (correctly) assume she doesn't want to come out? Why not assume Clint is keeping her there? Maybe Clint doesn't want the women to be cured. Maybe he'll kill Eve if Frank gets too close. You'd think Frank would want to plan for that.

...This book was written specifically to infuriate me.

*lolsob*

I guess I should note--because a weird complicated sideplot is happening--that at least 5 women in our story are still awake.

- Eve is in prison.
- Angel, an amoral conscienceless killer, is in prison acting as Greek chorus.
- Jeanette, a tragic victim of domestic violence and prison rape, is in prison.
- Van, a prison guard, is tailing the Bazooka Boys.
- Mika, a news reporter, is also at the prison (now disappeared from the narrative after helping to smuggle guns to Clint).

This feels a touch odd, just because the book promised a world without women. 99% men isn't 100% men.

Clint and Frank meet. This should be a big scene! Clint asks Frank's intentions for Eve. Everyone thinks she has a magic fix. "What she did to the women" when this plague started in Japan/Australia makes no sense.

The Tree is here, this is the battlefield, the plague should have started here, but then the women wouldn't have tried to stay awake. And you could even have that struggle to stay awake if the cocooning happened slowly over time! A few women every night.

Some books are bad because the premise is bad, but this book didn't need to be bad!! Everything here is salvageable! All you have to do is have the plague start here and build slowly. Then it makes sense to see Eve as Patient Zero! I am upset by how close this came to not being garbage! This could've been a good book! If editors had been employed! Go read @alexandraerin on this, esp. if you're doing NaNoWriMo or feeling Imposter Syndrome-y, because YOU CAN DO IT.

It's trite to say that writing is re-writing, but writing IS re-writing.

God, and if the cocooning was happening slowly over time, that could be your reason for a ticking clock mechanic. Eve says she has to stay alive until [arbitrary date] or all is lost. You know what would be better? Staying alive until last woman sleeps. Then we would have a vested interest and care about Jeanette's struggle to stay awake. As it is, I do not care about this. Why should I?

I already know what will happen if she sleeps; she'll get scrambled eggs and toast.