Guest post from Curves For Days author Laura Moher
Author Laura Moher is a sociologist specializing in social inequalities (of race, social class, gender, size), who co-chaired the Fat Studies section of the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association. One of her goals in writing Curves for Days is to illuminate cultural bias and social barriers related to body size, mental health, and economic situation. “My heroine, Rose, is fat and has experienced obstacles: not only nastiness and negative assumptions from others, but also physical barriers such as flimsy furniture or spaces built to fit only those with smaller bodies. I want to be clear: These are not problems caused by Rose’s—or anyone else’s–fat body. They are caused and perpetuated by society’s attitudes and prejudices about fatness.”
Curves For Days is available from Amazon, B&N, Indiebound, Bookshop, Books-a-Million, and Books2Read.
I wrote my first three manuscripts as a burned-out college sociology professor.
Each book needed a working title, something quick and easy and appropriate. The working title for the story that became “Curves for Days” was “Enough.” It was short, clear, and summed up major life issues for both main characters.
“Enough” also sums up major themes from my professor life.
I’d moved to the Carolinas with my teenaged son, straight out of grad school. After our cramped, dated condo in Illinois, our new house seemed big and sunny and private. My son went around bellowing songs at the top of his lungs just because he could without bothering the neighbors. We had a yard and a real guest room and two bathrooms, and light and shadows danced across the high ceiling and walls in a truly lovely way.
My son started high school and I set up my campus office, enjoyed getting to know my new colleagues, and jumped into teaching with great enthusiasm. I was at a smallish public university which drew a wide variety of students: young people fresh from local high schools, athletes recruited from elsewhere, working parents wanting to earn degrees, veterans trying to make use of their military benefits… All of them were taking steps toward the lives they wanted for themselves and their families.
Some were bright, curious, eager learners like Rose in “Curves for Days.” I could tell from their essays and their participation in class that they enjoyed having new ideas to examine, and a new lens through which to view the world (Sociology is GREAT for that!). Others were there to learn what they needed for a particular career. And still others were there not because they had a firm plan or path in mind but because they’d been told a college degree was the only way they’d be able to support themselves and their families with any kind of security. They weren’t there out of a desire to learn; they were there out of fear of what would happen to them without that piece of paper–that diploma.
And I could understand, because that was the message they were hearing from all sides. You need a loan because you need to go to school for a degree because without one you’ll never be able to earn enough to get by. Not everyone’s schooling had prepared them for success in college, and those loans would be anchors around their necks if they didn’t go on to graduate and find well-paying jobs, but that’s the path they were pushed down anyway.
Many of our students DIDN’T have enough. Our campus food pantry made regular calls for donations to help students get through the week. One of the people in charge told me about a young mom who had to rely on the food pantry whenever her ex was late with child support, but who then would turn around and donate to the pantry when the checks finally came through.
For years I taught about social inequality while evidence of it piled up around me. People trying to get ahead, working so hard…and still not always having enough to live on or succeed. Student loan terms got worse, and the state cut funding for higher ed, and my university seemed on the verge of killing off the sociology program just when it was needed most, and I started to burn out. It wasn’t the students’ fault, although many of them seemed to come in burned out too. For me it wasn’t entirely about work—my son had finished high school and moved way up north to college and I was struggling mightily with empty nest syndrome.
I began to write stories while waiting for my burnout to go away. I sat in my now-too-big, all-too-quiet house, missing my son and realizing that he was never going to move back to the Carolinas, no matter how much he loved me or our pretty house. I’d be in the bedroom and would realize, suddenly, that there was an 8-foot-wide strip of the room that was totally unused. Totally unnecessary. Same for the living room. Same for the kitchen. And now there were two unused bedrooms and an extra bathroom, and a big yard I had to care for all by myself. And I was working at a job that had begun to feel like it was killing me, and I was going to have to keep working it as long as I kept that too-big, too-much house.
Finally, after 11 years, I realized the burnout wasn’t going to go away. I made a plan. I quit my job. Sold my house. Gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in my Honda and moved across country to be near people I loved. I kept only what I really needed for the simpler life I wanted, and I got really serious about my stories and my writing.
In “Curves for Days” (aka “Enough”), Rose is a woman who grew up poor, never had enough, and then wins the lottery and finds herself having to decide what to do with way too much. Angus is a man who feels like he can never quite do enough to make up for past mistakes. His relationship with “enough” isn’t about money, it’s about effort and fairness. Where Rose never used to HAVE enough, Angus feels like he ISN’T enough–and like he has to always give more than everybody else to make up for that. He’s miserable in any situation where he’s not sure he can pull his weight.
“Enough” perfectly sums up “Curves for Days,” but maybe also life in general, as we each try to figure out what we want and need, versus what we’re told we SHOULD want. What is actually enough for us, and what might ask too much or be too much. How best to spend our time and energy and resources, while still leaving some to share with others.
