Venus of Chalk

by Susan Stinson

A road trip to Dallas turns into a nightmare. A call from her aunt and a death started it all.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Lesbian, Fat, LGBT, Womens, Feminism

206 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

Susan Stinson's novels are Venus of Chalk (2004), Fat Girl Dances with Rocks(1994) and Martha Moody(1995). Spider In A Tree is her novel in progress. Belly Songs, a collection of poetry and lyric essays, was published in 1993.

Her work -- which has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Seneca Review, Curve, Lambda Book Report and The Women's Review of Books -- has received the Benjamin Franklin Award in Fiction as well as a number of fellowships. She was born in Texas, raised in Colorado, and now lives in Northampton, MA.

Susan has given workshops and been a featured speaker at Dartmouth College, Amherst College, Wheaton College, Hampshire College, University of Massachusetts, and Smith College, as well as conferences such as the National Women's Studies Association, Nolose, NAAFA, OutWrite, and Saints and Sinners Literary Festival.


Honors
Grants and fellowships from the Vogelstein Foundation, Millay Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Money for Women/​Barbara Deming Fund, The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation and others. Venus of Chalk was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

Reviews

[Eloise Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and earnest celebration of lesbianism and fatness, which is exceptionally welcome and tenderly written. Nothing which stirred me to great emotion, and the prose didn’t do all that much for me, but still a pleasant read. I think Stinson does a great job of portraying the profundity of ordinary life— even the abnormal adventure that Carline takes is kinda ordinary, which works to the novel’s benefit. I will say the novel is a little weird about race? Blackness is mentioned one time in a strange throwaway line which doesn’t seem to do much, and all of the other characters (as far as I recall) are white or not radicalized. Just a little odd to me. By the end I was sick of hearing about the bus pamphlet and the tulle curtains with photo pockets, but there was some good stuff in here.

[Baxter Clare Trautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Venus of Chalk”’s heroine is a lesbian. She is fat. But this isn’t a novel about lesbians or fat girls. It’s a brave paean to how we all feel different.

Carline is fat. She lives in terror of the teenage boys that hang out on the corner and call her names. When she tries to take the garbage out they throw lit cigarettes at her, forcing her to flee to her apartment. Worse, they release Carline’s own demons. To stifle them, Carline lights a match and holds it to her arm, “the physical pain…a focus, almost a relief.”
In the morning, ashamed and remorseful, she takes a call from her beloved Aunt Frankie in Chalk,Texas. Frankie is distraught over her best friend’s death and though she sounds brave enough, it isn’t until Carline catches her regular bus to work that she realizes how devastated her aunt must be. When her driver announces he is taking the bus to Dallas in the morning, for auction, Carline casually suggests he take along some passengers for company. Thus begins the simple, innocuous unraveling of Carline’s meticulously stitched life.

Stinson’s characters reveal unexpected complexities. Indeed the novel rests on the tender intimacies shared between these most unlikely of strangers on their trip to and subsequent arrival in Chalk. Stinson’s descriptions are visceral and immediate, her gift for metaphor lush and effective.
Though it was joy reading “Venus of Chalk”, I often had to put it down. Stinson made me think about uncomfortable things I did as a young woman, to protect myself as Carline did, from feelings of otherness, of being different. Too different. Most importantly “Venus of Chalk” reminded me of a simple but profound truth: the best way to affect change outside, is to change inside.

Baxter Clare Trautman, The River Within
Web site: http://baxterclare.com
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot moved a bit slow, but there were many unexpected happenings along the way. A plus-sized woman (Carline) with a knack for home economics faces self-image issues, which ultimately leads her to travel across the country to spend time with an aunt who's mourning the death of a friend. Carline's abrupt departure from her family, work, and routine ignites an identity crisis and we see her slowly put the pieces together.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really one of my favorite books ever. The language is so gorgeous, every descriptive detail makes you fall in love with the experience. A book I'd like to read again and again.

[Katherine Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect. This was a journey in many ways and it made me want to read May Sarton again. Caroline is a very practical woman living with a poet who becomes more lyrical as the book continues in very unexpected ways.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read on the twitter recommendation of Roxane Gay and I am so glad I went out of my way to find the book. This was a road trip novel, but so much more. It delved into themes of human connections, how our our view of bodies can inform the way we move in the world and the way we conduct our relationships in the world even more than we realize. It meant so much to me that the protagonist was fat, because she was a fully realized and sexual woman, whose existence was not defined by losing weight, and who, despite the natural ambivalence that being a fat person in a world that seeks to shame you, wanted to love herself as she was, not as everyone wanted her to be. The writing was really lovely, and there were very homey images--the sewing, the baking, the caring--that will stay with me for a long time. Really great.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exquisite and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. It is not about major plot twists and actions. It is about relationships -- with ourselves and others -- in all of their beautiful, interesting, deep and complete complexity. This book is hard, funny, sweet, sad - Susan Stinson pulls you through the full repertoire of human emotions on a literal and figurative journey that doesn't feel forced or manipulative at all. If you've never tried to do that -- it is a phenomenally difficult task that she handles with aplomb. The writing (i.e. language, word choice, etc.) is poetic without being tortured or difficult; it is precise and vivid without being over-written. One of the best books I've read this year and sorry to say I waited so long to have read it.

[cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this book! period.

i purchased it last year and only allowed myself to read a few pages at a time so that i could prolong the shivery joy and jolts of recognition that i felt at her beautifully crafted words. this book rocked my world, much as her previous book, fat girl dances with rocks, did back when i so desperately needed to hear her words of girl love and body acceptance.

i will give away none of the story, and will tell you only that her main character carline sneaks into my head months after reading it, and each time, i wonder anew at the vividness and absolute truth of her. what a gift to be able to create such a character.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of an overweight woman who takes a physical journey to find herself and to find comfort in a body scorned by others and sometimes by herself. Susan Stinson's writing definitely made me feel for the character's pain and the injustice of her treatment, but the story was not particularly poignant, important, or striking. I didn't feel as if I had wasted my time by reading it, but I won't be reading it again.