Deborah Grabien wrote a book that was published in 1994 in the UK. It’s never been made available in the US or anywhere else… until now. (See proposed cover art to the right.) We’ll be releasing it in January in print and ebook.

And Then Put Out the Light tells the surreal story of Emily Moon-Bourne. Emily is a sculptor gaining in popularity, the daughter of a Swedish alcoholic mother and a Native American father who disappeared frequently and for long periods throughout her childhood. She’s the ex-wife of a successful, tight-assed attorney who cheated on her with a woman almost half his age. She’s a woman who listens to the vituperative voice in her head.

One of Emily’s most successful pieces is a carving of a malevolent wasp. She gets a line on the anonymous buyer from a sympathetic young woman who saw it in a gallery and, having equated her husband with the wasp in her mind, goes to find the buyer.

Over the course of the novel she travels from London to Paris to Nice and everywhere she goes sees, becomes attracted to, and finally obssesses over a tall, dark stranger in a frockcoat, while at the same time she begins to remember things she’d rather not about her childhood and finally, at the age of 38, begins to unearth who she really is and what she truly believes.

I won’t tell you any more. I don’t want to spoil it.

But now we come to it. The author and I disagree about what the story eventually tells us about Emily Moon-Bourne, and by extension women in general. And so I have an opportunity for you. If you would be interested in reading the novel and will agree to write up your ideas regarding where we end up, what we’re to think of Emily, and where her travels take her, comment on the Interact blog, on LiveJournal, or on MySpace, explain a little bit about why this idea intrigues you, and we’ll draw to give three commenters an electronic copy of the ARC. You have until September 15th to comment. We’d really like to know what you think.

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