skygiants | (no subject)

I SWEAR TO GOD, this is my LAST Mary Brown reread. NO MORE. But my copy of Playing the Jack finally came in at the library, aka The One With Cross-Dressing And Syphilis, and I couldn't not read it.

And for the record: I can totally see why I loved this book as a kid. Not only is it better-written than most Mary Browns and contains (wonder of wonders) more than one sympathetic female character, but it is entirely free of magic unicorn rings and sexy dragon-pigs; the only nod to sff is that the heroine --

-- sidenote: the book plays coy about the fact that "Zoroaster Mortimer" (YEP) is really Zoe Mortimer for the first hundred pages or so, but given that the front cover spoils it I don't really feel bad about it --

-- anyway, the heroine is sort of very slightly mildly psychic, but this basically has no effect on the plot. ANYWAY. What I started to say is Playing the Jack is that rare piece of work, a female picaresque narrative, in which Our Lovable Rogue of a Heroine bounces around taking a bunch of different identities and a bunch of different love interests and meandering cheerfully around the edges of conventional morality until she gets her happily ever after. Like, Tom Jones and Candide are the influences here. The only recent similar story that I can think of is the Bloody Jack series, which is even more traditionally picaresque because Jacky cares even less about conventional morality and has about twenty more love interests of both genders. (Needless to say, I love the Bloody Jack series.)

. . . ON THE OTHER HAND, there is the terrible love interest, and the whole super bizarre section set in the brothel. And, let us not forget, the syphilis.

So the book begins when Our Heroine, a starving cross-dressed teenager, gets picked up off the side of the road by a troupe of sideshow performers, led by impresario Jack.

The first thing Jack does when he meets "Zoroaster" is punch him twice in the face, which sort of sets a tone.

Still, Zoe likes working in the sideshow with Jack! She makes friends with Annie the Fat Lady and Tom the animal trainer, acquires a puppy and a pony, and hero-worships Jack as only an impressionable teenage girl can hero-worship a glamorous thirty-something asshole. And this section of the book is largely an enjoyable set of roadside-performance hijinks, aside from some unfortunate ablism and racism (let us not speak of the Muslim performer they call "Sam Alley-coom" or of The Incident With the Dwarves.)

Eventually Zoe decides she can no longer hide her gender, so she decides to make a Grand Reveal in an accidentally see-through dress when they're doing a performance of Othello. Jack is not happy about the long-term deception or about the dress.

JACK: I'm trying to decide if I should beat you or rape you as punishment!

HA HA HA. What a scamp, Jack! (For the record, he does neither. Jack's constant threats of sexual assault are totally harmless, because they are never actually carried through, right? RIGHT?)

Zoe keeps on cross-dressing for a while after this, until Jack gets furious at her (in a sexy, shirt-tearing way) because she's old enough to flirt with girls and it's gettin' REAL DANGEROUSLY LESBIAN UP IN HERE. This means that clearly it is time for her to switch over to skirts before this book we are reading turns into a way better book.

. . . and soon after skirts comes sleeping with Jack. Well, first lots of foreplay and near-sex with Jack, because she's still too young and Jack is honorable . . .? At least, that's what I think we're supposed to be getting out of this. And then finally actually sleeping with Jack, followed almost immediately by a TRAGIC SEPARATION from Jack & co!

It is interesting to note that Zoe -- who, aside from terrible taste in men, has seemed reasonably intelligent for the entire first cross-dressed section -- abruptly seems to lose all her intelligence as soon as we hit this section, in which she collapses of starvation again, and wakes up in a MYSTERIOUS HOUSE with a mysterious girl named Angel and her hot brother Nick, who rapidly becomes Zoe's new boyfriend.

ZOE: Why are there so many kids next door?
ANGEL: . . . it's a children's school!
ZOE: And why is it so full of sex noises all the time?
ANGEL: . . . children are noisy!
ZOE: And why do we seem to be mending flashy lace underpants all the time?
ANGEL: . . . children are messy!
ZOE: And why is Nick so into doing weird sexy roleplay where he pretends to be, like, a fat ugly merchant who is paying me for sex?
ANGEL: . . . Nick's a weirdo, I don't know, leave me out of your sex life!

ZOE: Anyway, I'd better write my friends to tell them where I am, I guess.
ANGEL: So, your friend, is he, like, a worldly gentleman? The sort of person who would frequent a lot of brothels, for example?
ZOE: . . . I mean, I guess, yeah?
ANGEL: Great! Write to your friends that you are at [Famous Brothel on Brothel Street] and you are very happy with your new sexy work.
ZOE: Okay!

ZOE: . . . huh, it's weird that Jack has not written back except in sputterings of incoherent rage. Wonder what's got into him!

Then Zoe goes next door and is shocked, SHOCKED to find out that she's working at . . . a famous brothel! And that her new boyfriend Nick is supposed to be training her up to join the famous brothel goings-on!

At first Zoe has some idea of, you know, REPORTING EVERYTHING TO THE AUTHORITIES AND TRYING TO HELP ALL THE ABUSED CHILDREN BEING SOLD OFF IN SEX AUCTIONS, but she fairly rapidly decides there's not much she can do in the situation and settles down to try and figure out her own escape, leaving all the tiny tykes to their fate. She also does not dump Nick, because while Angel and her boss the brothel-owner are totally evil, Nick the procurer is just . . . hot and misled? OR SOMETHING.

Then one day Angel appears in the hallway, covered in blood!

ANGEL: Zoe, you know how I hate you because of my weird incestuous love for my foster-brother Hot Nick and have basically kept you prisoner here awaiting your brothel-y fate?
ZOE: Yes . . .
ANGEL: Changed my mind! Nick and I are escaping, and you can come with us! :D
ZOE: Oh, awesome! I will follow your instructions immediately.
ANGEL: Except for the part where I totally just framed you for the murder of the brothel-owner that I just committed, BWAHAHAHAHA SUCKER.
ZOE: . . . probably shoulda seen that one coming.

It's okay though because at this point Zoe bumps into Jack's Token Gay Friend and goes to live with him and his boyfriend for a while and work as a scribe, until, through a series of coincidences, she manages to land a spot at a school that teaches girls to become lady's companions.

And everything is all very pleasant and domestic, which is sort of a DRAMATIC CHANGE after terrible child brothel antics, and eventually Zoe manages to land a gig working for a nice old French lady who turns out to be (of course) Jack's mom. But Jack's mom is not the only one in the house! (!!!)

ZOE: So who is the creepy lady in the attic who always cradles a dead baby rag doll and occasionally threatens to stab people with knives?
JACK'S MOM: Alas! that is Jack's wife.
ZOE: And why does she always wear a mask and gloves?
JACK'S MOM: Alas! that is because her flesh has almost completely rotted off with the syphilis.
ZOE: . . . . well, way to one-up Bertha Rochester, man.

ZOE: Um, just as a matter of impersonal interest, does Jack also have the syphilis . . .?
JACK'S MOM: Alas! she contracted it while Jack was away, and then gave birth to a syphilis baby, so we are pretty sure he was smart enough not to sleep with her after that. We are still not sure where she got it from. Although, by an astonishing coincidence, it turns out that Jack's brother, the Creepy Rogue Degenerate Who Hates Jack, also has the syphilis. Weird, right? Probably totally unconnected, though.
ZOE: What a series of totally unconnected unfortunate events!

Then Jack's Creepy Rogue Degenerate Brother gets stabbinated MYSTERIOUSLY, and Jack's Mom has a stroke, and so Zoe has to go fetch Jack back from his SECRET MISSION IN FRANCE, because yes! Jack was a secret agent for the crown ALL ALONG!

. . . but no less of a douchebag, as proven by the scene where Zoe decides that Jack needs some violent stress relief and then proceeds to have seduce him by smacking him, falling down, and then struggling and pretending doesn't want to have sex with him at all. Which, uh . . . Zoe, if you deliberately make your boyfriend believe you're not consenting, it doesn't matter if you secretly are consenting, he is still a rapist. JUST FYI.

In the grand finale, Syphilis Wife tries to shoot Zoe in a fit of mad jealousy and accidentally shoots herself instead, Zoe tries to go back to school, Jack informs her they are getting married instead, and . . . happily ever after . . .? APPARENTLY.

At least Zoe gets her puppy back.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/346507.html

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

brownbetty

Man, usually you have to be reading Piers Anthony or Jack Chalker for this kind of fuckdery.

From:

skygiants

Somehow I managed to avoid Jack Chalker! BUT THAT'S OKAY APPARENTLY, given how much Piers Anthony and Mary Brown I had. (What would have been most okay is to have none of these.)

From:

brownbetty

Well, I avoided Mary Brown, but hit Chalker and Anthony. Maybe it's a 'pick two' situation.

From:

bookblather

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT.

Bloody Jack has love interests of both genders?

What is the first book I need it now.

From:

bookblather

Uh, the Bloody Jack thing said.

Um.

WHAT.

I almost think I'd prefer the sexy dragon-pig.

Edited Date: 2013-08-27 09:29 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

SHE DOES. Though it's all subtext and fakeout makeouts until book seven or eight, when she meets the SEXY PIRATE QUEEN. (Whichever book that is has a number of problems, but it was delightful to FINALLY get firm canon evidence that Jacky also likes ladies.)

First book: Bloody Jack!

From:

skygiants

I don't think Mary Brown understands how to write boyfriends that are not terrible.

From:

rachelmanija

I love that you read this. I read it in high school, and my memories went something like this:

- Awesome circus hijinks! Cross-dressing! Transparent dress Shakespeare!

- Jack seems sketchy. Hot, but sketchy.

- HOT FINGERING SCENE. Woo! More of that, please!

- ...and then there's all this stuff in a brothel...?

- Can we go back to the circus now?

- ...and something about syphilis, but it's okay, because Jack doesn't have it.

- Can we go back to the circus now?

From:

skygiants

Too much syphilis, not enough circus hijinks!

The other problem that I had reading this now that I did not have the first time I read it prior to 2003 is that I could not shake the mental image of Jack as Jack Sparrow.

ALSO HEY WAIT MA'AM, do you not owe me a Mary Brown read of your very own? :O

From:

rachelmanija

In September. ;) This has literally been one of the busiest months of my entire life. Capped when a professor today emailed me to inform me that I had to rewrite my entire paper which I'd just turned in.

From:

jinian

Holy crap, someone else ever has read Playing the Jack? All I remember about this book is the "LOL you don't really have your period because we always notice your PMS clumsiness, YOU MERE GIRL" conversation and how somehow I read the book AGAIN AND AGAIN. (I am going to guess that had something to do with the hot fingering scene Rachel mentions, although I don't recall it now myself.)

From:

jinian

She is a makeout queen all around the world! It's pretty great, especially when after being ravished properly, i.e., by a Sexy Pirate Queen, she's like, well, guess I can't claim to be a virgin any more! (In my mind she heads home to Amy ASAP to pass on her learnings, so all the sexy bits in the novels can stop fading to black quite so soon.)

Now if they would stop making her look EIGHT YEARS OLD on the new cover set, ugh, so disturbing.

From:

cyphomandra

... Is Zoe's puppy secretly reading her mind and planning to sleep with her once and abandon her? Just, you know, given previous books, I might not be convinced of the inherent goodness of puppies!

From:

rachelmanija

However I did read Pigs Don't Fly to prep for it, and LOL WHUT. The romantic hero is a PIG for most of the book. A pig named THE WIMPERLING. And he FLIES BY FARTING.

I know you said all this, but it has to be read to be believed.

Edited Date: 2013-08-28 07:31 am (UTC)

From:

rachelmanija

I think Bookelfe should excerpt the fingering scene for us, since it was obviously the best part and God knows the book is not a) easily available, b) something most of us actually want to own.

From:

buymeaclue

I read Brown and Anthony but bounced off of Chalker at every try! I think you are onto something here.

From:

buymeaclue

Good gravy, I never even heard of this one! Wow.

Zoroaster Mortimer will be the name of my next pit bull.

From:

skygiants

I LOVE that after having at least three near-sex experiences per book, it is the Sexy Pirate Queen that finally gets her to be all ". . . yeah, sorry, Jamie, virginity is a no-go." (And someone needs to write that fic stat.)

Have you read the most recent books yet? Lorelei Lee is the last one I've gotten to!

From:

skygiants

ahahahaha oh lord. I will ACCEPT THIS DELAY AS VALID.

From:

skygiants

I ONLY REPORT THE FACTS.

The thing is I am fairly sure that this book also originated a lasting weird fondness in me for plots where the human's cute animal friend turns out to be SECRETLY SORT-OF HUMAN and their love interest. (See: Princess Tutu, Twelve Kingdoms, my youthful terrible novel about a were-unicorn.) I'm not sure WHY, except that maybe they all would have to be better than this one?

From:

skygiants

I ALSO READ IT MULTIPLE TIMES. And briefly considered using it for my undergraduate thesis, when I was brainstorming Great Crossdressing Works. (I did not actually use it for my undergraduate thesis, thank god. Mostly because I could not find it to reread it.)

From:

skygiants

Excerpting more than two sentences of porn from terrible books is a service I provide via email only. *dignified*

From:

skygiants

Both pony and puppy in this one seem relatively innocent! Pigs, on the other hand, are MOST EMPHATICALLY TO BE AVOIDED.

From:

skygiants

The thing is, this really is her best-written book! Like, the writing is fun, and it does a good job with the 17th-century feel. It's just, you know, then the child brothel. And the syphilis.

From:

telophase

I read this book YEARS ago, in undergrad, when I was spending a semester at a tiny college in Wales, and making weekly trips to the town's library and picking books by how thick they were, as I didn't have a good bag in which to carry the books back to school so needed to maximize reading time and minimize number of books. (I read a lot of Victorian novels.)

I loved the first 75% of it at the time because the girl-disguised-as-boy is a trope near and dear to my heart, because the mysterious trickster that Jack is for the first parts of the book was also a trope I loved at the time, and because I and my roommates from the US university I went to had spent a couple of years reading terrible 80s bodice-ripping romance novels and so ~~my standards were really low~~ I loved the cracktasticness.

Anyway, I didn't make the connection that Mary Brown had written Playing the Jack for a number of years, as I forgot who wrote the book after I turned it in. It blew my mind when I found out, a decade or so later, that the person who wrote the book with the flying pig wrote this.

From:

telophase

And let me say that my freshman year of college, my roommate's mother gave us a grocery bag full of cheesy 80s romance novels that she'd read. It was a BAG OF RAPE and I have no idea what it says that she was perfectly happy to pass it on to us!

From:

coffeeandink

Sadly, I have read all three of them.

From:

buymeaclue

I am awed and horrified in equal measure!

From:

coffeeandink

This must mean either that my youth was misspent, or else not misspent enough, but I can't tell which.

From:

rachelmanija

I have too.

From:

enleve

What? There are Shakespeare references and syphilis in the same book, and no Measure for Measure references? Or are there?

(Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure is all about the syphilis jokes.)

From:

skygiants

It's weird because this is the ONLY BOOK she ever wrote that lacked dramatic flying-pig-style shenanigans! Like, there are totally shenanigans in Playing the Jack, but they are a VERY DIFFERENT TYPE. The writing is similar but also clearly a level up -- I keep wondering if there was another very strong influence on this book that's not mentioned. Or maybe I just have a weakness for faux-eighteenth-century-picaresque (as opposed to pigaresque?)

Edited Date: 2013-09-03 04:07 pm (UTC)