Revising Romance

Revising Romance follows a week in the life of a frazzled single mother assigned to edit the sprawling manuscript of a critically acclaimed and yet untalented writer and womanizer. Over the course of this week Elaine not only successfully manipulates Spencer Stone into severely amending his unfortunate novel, but she also considers a romance with used bookseller Nathan Marks. Elaine's work — like Spencer's — exists in relation to particular constructions of gender and power. Ultimately, although the private lives of both characters seep into their narratives, Dugan writes Spencer as a power-abusing, intellectual man who is apparently ignorant of the relation between his privileged status and his craft, and Elaine as a woman whose literary work is often hindered by reminders of her status as mother, ex-wife, friend, and daughter.

Dugan's attention to the position of the woman in the literary marketplace makes this book about much more than falling in love. The text places equal importance on women's careers, families, bodies, and hearts, implying with clever self-awareness that no literary work is created in a vacuum, and that this fictional woman writer, anyway, still has no adequate room of her own.

Dugan offer[s] a much needed foray into questions of legitimacy, authorship, power, and gender politics.

In Revising Romance, a novella by Melanie Dugan, we find [a] kind of lightness of experience. Here, the narrator's deadline-driven life as an editor will appeal to many readers who recognize the stresses of the business. Elaine Salter wakes up to the challenge of working for the firm, known in the trade as 'Predator Press because of its aggressive policy of chasing down any book that looks like a potential money-maker.' Editing the works of prima donnas and independent-minded authors takes its toll, and the novella pushes Elaine through rewrites of a varied nature, including the one she decides to perform on her own life. Set solidly in the e-mail-friendly world of the present, informed by familiar references to popular culture, and laced with the kind of relationship woes only an urban thirty-something might appreciate, Revising Romance is recommended lively reading for late-night moodiness. It is an antidote to worries in what Elaine calls the 'various circles of hell that constitute working in the 'Real World'.' Clearly Dugan has decided that if you can't beat the Real World you might as well write about it.

For many readers, protagonist Elaine Salter will be the woman next door or the woman sitting at the next desk at work. She juggles the daily challenges of being a single mother and a busy editor in a small publishing company. She drinks too much coffee, worries that her 10-year-old watches too much TV, and wonders if she'll ever have a love life again.

In Revising Romance, Salter is having a stressful, life-altering weekend. She has just been promoted to senior editor and handed the monstrous task of editing a highly anticipated novel by the publisher's most prolific author. The manuscript is a disaster, and her boss wants the job done by Wednesday. The company's precarious financial future and Elaine's job rest on the success of this book.

Dugan draws on her own experience in publishing for the story. Because the novel takes place entirely between Thursday morning and the following Wednesday, there is a rushed feeling as the reader follows Salter's hectic life. Between pressure-filled editing sessions with the author, Salter reminisces about her marriage and her troubled relationship with her mother. Adding to the excitement and uncertainty is the possibility of a new romance with the owner of a used-book store who has his own tense history with the author.

Revising Romance is a fast-paced, entertaining read.