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Ainslie Hogarth Hits the Mother Lode With ‘Normal Women’
With her latest novel, the Canadian writer tackles the twin taboos of motherhood and sex work, and along the way, puts her own beliefs to the test / BY Rosemary Counter / October 19th, 2023
It doesn’t take long for readers of Ainslie Hogarth’s Normal Women to get to details about C-sections (“they ended up slicing her open, which was great”), prolapses (“no different from enduring the day with a sock that keeps slipping beneath your heel”) and four-degree tears (“poo hole to goo hole”). The filterless thoughts of Dani, a stay-at-home mom, and her equally brazen buds Anya, Dawn and Ellen, make this a no-holds-barred book about the lives of, well, normal women. How the characters define “normal” is what makes this novel unique.
For Dani, normal is boring. She’s moved from the big city back to her hometown, where her father’s role as a bigwig at the Silver Waste Management Organization made the family rich and earned her the nickname “the Princess of Trash.” She’s supposed to feel proud to be a stay-at-home mother. “She should feel lucky,” writes Hogarth. But the job is hard, and “she suspected that what made it harder was the utter lack of respect a person got for doing it, from assholes like her.”
Dani is conflicted about motherhood, and increasingly uncomfortable being dependent on her husband, Clark, whom she’s convinced might drop dead any moment. So, she tells her husband she’s studying human resources – wink, wink – as she loiters around The Temple, a brothel disguised as a yoga studio selling “healing” sessions. There, Dani meets the too-cool madam, Renata, and her team of MBA-toting sex workers who are nothing like Dani thought they would be. At The Temple, Dani’s “human resources” are noticed, appreciated and well-paid.
It’s risky territory for Hogarth, who’s currently trying (and failing) not to read reviews of her divisive second novel. Despite some criticism, just like Dani she’s not apologizing or backing down any time soon. Zoomer called the Canadian writer to talk about mom-shame, unpaid female labour, sex work vs. “straight” work and challenging her own biases.
Rosemary Counter: How are you feeling about how your latest novel is being received?
Ainslie Hogarth: I feel good, though it’s kind of a weird one, to be honest. So far it’s been really polarizing: A lot of people love it, but a lot of other people hate it. I shouldn’t read reviews, but I do, just to get a sense of what’s happening out there. Now that it’s out, I’m going to stop. I hope.
RC: Could “polarizing” be a good thing? That means people are reading and talking, right?
AH: I definitely knew when I was writing it that it was going to ruffle feathers, just because of the subject matter. Sex work is a loaded topic, and I’ve read that the big gripe is the ending, which some people are saying is unrealistic. To me, the only thing that’s unrealistic is that women are actually being paid for the labour that they already do for free. My last book had people eating people, actually, and nobody called that unrealistic.
RC: Cannibalism is more believable than a woman making a man’s salary? Makes sense.
AH: Ha! Yes! It’s a tough thing to have to think about your own financial dependence when you’re in a heterosexual, heteronormative relationship. Emotional labour is part of the job, sexual labour is a part of the job. That’s a difficult thing to think about. Women marry for security all the time, and this labour is an expectation that goes with it, especially once children are involved. I started thinking about this a lot once I had my daughter, when I was “off” work, and it was during the pandemic, too, so suddenly it just didn’t make financial sense to go back to my job at a speaker’s bureau. All of my characters are in similar positions: Trying to figure out what makes sense for you, for the family, how to make it work and be valued.
RC: How much of yourself is in your characters? Listening to you talk, you sound a lot like Dani.
AH: I’m sure I do! I think there’s part of me in every character. I take a thought I’ve had and then I pump it up. Every character is a version of me, amped up and on drugs. I’m in there for sure, but also not really.
RC: Hopefully you don’t see yourself as one of the “Mom2Gabbies.” Can you explain to the readers what that is?
AH: A “Mom2Gabby” is just a particular kind of judgy online mom who exists to make you feel badly about yourself. If you ask, “I had a beer an hour ago, is it okay to breastfeed?,” a Mom2Gabby will tell you about trace amounts of alcohol and then link to the study. A Mom2Gabby goes out of her way to make you feel like a terrible mom every time.
RC: Dani hilariously learns about sex work beneath the cover of studying “human resources.” I think that might be the perfect euphemism for sex work.
AH: Yes it is, because people tend to think of sex work all wrong. I did. From my understanding, women are actually much more likely to achieve financial independence and make their own money and be their own boss in sex work than “straight work.” My conclusion after researching this book was that sex work is only illegal because it’s an avenue for economic independence for women. For lots of women, this is a way better job than working in an office. I’ve had tons of shitty jobs, so I totally get it.
RC: One of your characters has an MBA, another is a shrewd businesswoman. Did you actively think about challenging stereotypes about sex workers as you wrote this book?
AH: Absolutely, yes. There’s a misconception that everyone in that line of work is completely desperate with no other options, but it’s just not true. Most of us don’t know this, and I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t written this book. I really wanted to write about a regular, relatable, normal woman and what personal circumstances it would take to have her change her mind entirely about these women and embrace their work. That’s what this book’s about.