Against the backdrop of a boozy, restless late-90s Chicago, creative writing graduate student Mary Van Pelt and her eccentric roommate navigate the collision between party life, domestic harmony, and academic ambition in The Girl with the Black Lipstick. Mary Biddinger's novella in linked flash stories conjures outrageous fashion and the oddest of odd jobs, sparing no detail when immersing readers in bedrooms, dancefloors, lakeshore beaches, and university seminars.
Set before smartphones filled every pocket, The Girl with the Black Lipstick chronicles a bygone era of performance and spectacle. Biddinger offers vivid, surreal vignettes told in the heat of the moment or recalled as we follow Van Pelt from her first days of graduate school into life as a tenured professor. Our heroine and her roommate overcome predicaments and deepen their bond while simultaneously ignoring and obsessing over the future, blissfully unaware of challenges ahead until those challenges arrive. The Girl with the Black Lipstick is a tale of deep creativity and found family, paying tribute to those who support our youthful selves in unexpected ways.
