BOOK REVIEW: “A TIME AND A PLACE” by LARK LARSON
Alex Yarde has a exclusive interview with Erotic Novelist Lark Larson and reviews her powerful, critically acclaimed first novel!
“One of the things that always bothers me about novels that have BDSM in them, is that the submissive somehow has to fall in love with the dominant, for the reader to understand why she would want to participate. I wanted to write a book where that didn’t have to happen.”
-Lark Larson, Author of “A Time And A Place
Lark Larson’s provocative new book “A Time And A Place”, is much like it’s protagonist Wren.
Both are fueled by an insatiable desire for titillation without abandoning feminism, female sexuality or self determination.
This sinewy, erotic romp hits the ground running, and doesn’t come up for air. (Pun intended)
There is a well deserved content warning: contains graphic descriptions of BDSM & simulated rape.
Larson delivers and then some, but it never crosses the line. Larson’s deft use of informed consent is weaved throughout her narratives most outrageous acts, consent grounds the action.
Lark keeps the focus squarely centered on Wren’s explicit sexual exploration, but it never gets exploitative.
L.A. celebrity spouse Wren occupies a very posh gilded cage. She’s frustrated by her high-class but lonely, unfulfilled relationship with her distracted A-list movie star partner.
At a low-point in their long, scandal-free relationship, dreading the “for a woman your age” modifier and reevaluating the life choices she’s made, an old girlfriend calls her up for a chance of relative anonymity and the comfort of her old mid-western liberal arts college for her classes 25th reunion.
Wren is changed by the choices she makes during her shared week-long experience with two old classmates.
The over educated, thoughtful, romantic, hipster bar owner “Tuck” and alluringly dangerous, self-assured, emotionally unavailable Dominant “Chad”.
The proceedings that follow are extremely graphic in detail, however, Lark’s superbly crafted, authentic narrative is so strong, it deftly weaves it’s way through the shoals of mere pornography, to the shores, at certain points in this novel, of high art.
It’s smut, but smut with a purpose.
Larson gives Wren an inner monologue that is refreshingly “sane”, charmingly self-effacing, brutally honest and unapologetically raw.
Wren’s voice rings true as she comes to terms with fundamental questions concerning her sexuality & her power.
And, in between all the depictions of fornication, Larson’s book challenges blatant hypocrisy of the status quo that limits female sexuality and burdens women with stigmas for behavior men are applauded for.
This novel is a brisk read (240 pgs.) that informs as it entertains. It hits a level of literary achievement I’ve rarely experienced from a freshman erotic novelist.
This speaks to the creative skill, intelligence and candor of Ms. Larson as a writer, whom in light of full disclosure, I’ve come to value as a friend.
I had the unique opportunity to interview Lark Larson about her remarkable first novel-
AY: I loved how Wren, even at the very beginning when she first encounters Chad, is willing to be submissive, but never his slave. She has agency, she challenges him.
This attitude like, “You like your splooge on my face? Whatever man. I need to get off!” It’s a mutual power exchange. Very sharp. How much of Wren is Lark?
LL: Well yes! She’s totally a version of me. She started out being me, but then went in her own direction.
AY: I found it interesting your protagonist name was “Wren”. In nature, Wrens are small, smart plucky survivors. Taking on much larger birds. Coincidence?
LL: Total coincidence! I used Wren because it is not very different from my own name, which is also a type of bird. Also I figured “Swallow” was going to be too obvious (haha).
AY: Chapter 12 “Candyman” was one of my favorite chapters. It really fleshed out some of the main characters. The major characters dropping acid & tripping balls!
It was such a lucid description of the indescribable effects of LSD. Do you remember much from your trips? I sure don’t!
LL: I’m glad I was able to capture an LSD trip effectively. I don’t remember a lot, just little tidbits here and there — how weird my physical self felt, how much I felt the urge to talk and yet had nothing to offer of any depth. Wren’s description of the intricate fractals she saw on a dorm wall did happen to me
Another friend once described watching her husband’s chest rise and fall while he was asleep, and it seeming like the sky grew lighter with each breath, So those things come from real life but no, I don’t remember much. And I’m not sure I would have been able to actually fuck, and in particular orgasm, on acid!
AY: The “Amoret” (wanton) pet name Wren’s lover Tuck gives her, the bandying back & forth of Romantic era names of male and female genitalia. Even the name “Tuck” and his demeanor, so close to “Puck” and the natural setting of The Bowery so reminiscent of Shakespeare’s “A Mid-Summer’s Night Dream”, How much of the literary panache was due to your Carlton College English Major background?
LL: Wow, that’s a hard question to answer succinctly. My main influence literally came from my mom, honestly, who took away the harlequin romances I had as a preteen and gave me Anais Nin, DH Lawrence and James Baldwin in their place.
She told me, you don’t have to read shit to read sex. You can read brilliant Literature, true works of art, that have sex in them. So she’s responsible for starting me on my path to ruin, er, I mean success! (As an aside, Another Country by James Baldwin has the hottest consensual non consent interracial sex scene I have ever read, written by a gay man no less. (James Baldwin could WRITE!)
Tuck (not only rhymes with one of my favorite words, but also) comes from a young adult Novel called Tuck Everlasting. It deals with issues of time/immortality and love, pervasive interests of my own. The main character is a young girl (14 yrs old or so?) who falls in love with Jessie Tuck.
Jessie’s family drank from the fountain of youth; he’s been 17 for over 100 years (you might need to fact check me on this, it’s been quite a while since I read it!)- making Jessie Tuck an ideal of sorts, for a young girl — age appropriate but also very experienced in the world.
At Carleton (I was a history major, not English lit) one of my first classes was a course called “The Spirit of Place”, where I was introduced to Louise Erdrich, another one of my favorite authors. Her writing is a strong influence on mine. I especially admire her ability to use words to conjure a setting, a feeling, a scent.
I am including a screenshot of one of the (imo) most beautiful passages from the book I read in that class, called Tracks.
“Amoret” was actually a last minute change! Tuck called Wren “Killer” for most of the book’s life, but my copy editor (the awesome Lily Miller) felt that it wasn’t in keeping with Tucks gentle nature and the care he took with Wren.
We played around with other bird names as a replacement, but the fact that Amoret meant “a wanton”, and was in keeping (somewhat) with Tuck’s degree — it just seemed to fit!
AY: I found the “Cunnilingus” conversation between Tuck & Wren very interesting as part of a larger metaphor for how American Society has ingrained, archaic, puritanical limits set on female sexuality as well as perpetuate unrealistic patriarchal gender performance norms that benefit no one.
Is this novel a way to expose and dispel some of this baggage?
LL: Not to get too personal, or put too fine a point on it — but YES. The whole “going down on me is a chore” is DEFINITELY something that I internalized and struggled with for a lot of my life. I think a lot of women do.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard about blowjobs happening on first dates, but couldn’t tell you one time when I heard “he ate me out and Then drove me home”. And we learned from the Sopranos that there’s a traditional “machismo” that denegrates men who eat pussy.
(If you never watched that show, one of the goomahs accidentally lets slip that her gangster loves to eat her out. It gets back to the other gangsters via their goomahs and they tease him mercilessly for it — so much so that the pussy eating gangster dumps his longtime goomah because she had dared to tell his secret.)
“I think men who enthusiastically eat pussy are the unsung heroes of heterosexuality.” — Lark Larson
AY: Post #MeToo, is the idea of “Consensual Non-Consent” a tricky subject to navigate since many don’t understand Consent before the most “vanilla” of sexual acts?
How far were you willing to push the envelope in this regard? Was there ever a point while you were writing you said to yourself, “Hmmn, I think I need to rein this in.”?
LL: I was fortunate to have two very close friends read multiple versions of this book as it grew, and they both told me early on that the sex scene the morning Wren wakes up with Chad after their intense BDSM sequence was “kind of rapey.”
So yeah, I worked hard on making the accompanying dialogue mitigate that somewhat. The thing is, there’s a reason that “rape fantasy” is a variety of porn that many people seek out, somewhat ashamedly.
I think it’s tied to the fact that, for a lot of women, saying “yes” to sex in our society is so loaded… What are we getting ourselves into? Is he going to be trustworthy? Am I going to regret this? Am I going to get pregnant, or diseased? Am I going to be judged later for it, by him or others? Is it going to come out, affect my job, hurt my family, etc?
It’s uncomfortable but true that for many of us there’s a relief in not having that pressure on us, of giving up our responsibility for saying yes or no. But obviously we don’t want to be raped, because that’s against our will. And we as humans are really bad at being able to do the simplest things, like figuring out what we really want, and not what we think we “should” want (more about this later).
Saying “no” while we pull down our panties absolves us of that responsibility of deciding, but also is hell for men as it confuses consent and also gives shitty guys a way out of responsibility for their own actions, ala “her lips said no but her eyes said yes”, etc.
I tried to find a way for Wren to be able to experience that freedom without “paying” a societal price for it. I hope I succeeded!
AY: “You can’t serve two masters.” and “You can’t live for someone else.” are two big takeaways. What are some of the things you’d like readers to walk away with when they finish your book?
What did the experience of writing “A Time And A Place” teach you about yourself as a writer, and a woman?
LL: I’d like readers to have as much fun reading my book as I had writing it, and as many orgasms as Wren has!
Or put another way, I have a friend who told me when she got to Heaven and St. Peter (or whoever, I’m not Christian so pardon my scriptural ignorance here) asked her if she had any questions or requests, she was going to ask to see a list of every man who had masturbated to her.
I loved that. If more people have orgasms because they read the book I wrote, then I am happy!
AY: One of many brilliant Wren internal monologues that spoke to who she was becoming was her confrontation with Chad -
“I bristle. We stand there, facing each other. I know I shouldn’t. I know. But I want to show him. I want to show Chad I can take whatever he’s dishing out. I can match him, and subordinate myself at the same time. I can have them both. I can have it all.
“Let’s go,” I say.
Any stand out for you?
“I wrote “A Time and a Place” as an antidote, to the “20 year old inexperienced virgin “initiated” by a 40 year old dom” trope.
I believe women (who are heavier consumers of erotica than men, although men like it too) deserve a strong, confident heroine they can live vicariously through.
I don’t know any 40 year old women who wish they were a 20 year old inexperienced virgin again, do you?
We don’t want to go back, we want to move forward!”
- Lark Larson
LL: Two. The first is the description of herself Wren gives upon her arrival in Minnesota, specifically in relation to her personal inner voice, the one she calls “a fucking bitch”.
I think most of us have one, and we would all be happier if we learned how to tune that voice out. I can’t tell you how many smart, beautiful, accomplished women in their 40’s (my age as well) let that bitch keep them from being happy, with themselves, and others.
Women who have careers, marriages, have carried and are raising other human beings — still spend so much time comparing themselves to others unfavorably. Men do it too, I’m told, but of course my main concern is the self esteem of women.
Instead of it being a matter of “[shrug] that’s them and I’m ME”, we let “she has bigger boobs” or “I’m too fat to do xyz” stymie us from living our best lives.
So that inner monologue is very important, I think, both in explaining how Wren has the freedom to act as she does, and hopefully also as an inspiration to others. It’s how I try to live my life, at least.
The other (and this relates to the convo we had the other day), is the one where Wren thinks about what Chad’s desire to inflict pain on her means, because just as it was important to me that Wren not have to love Chad to justify his “abuse” of her, it was also important to me that it not be that there’s something “wrong” with or “evil” about Chad because of what he’s into.
Interest in bdsm doesn’t have to correlate to either loving ones abuser or reliving childhood trauma to be understood. As someone who loves the pain and pleasure mix of getting a tattoo, in my opinion bdsm isn’t really that different, nor is it dissimilar to the way one feels lighter and less overwhelmed after a good cry.
Sometimes, pleasure is more acute when it accompanies pain, and sometimes bringing someone else to those extremes of experience and feeling are as satisfying as experiencing them oneself.
AY: Tuck and Chad are polar opposites but Wren realizes she wants both the hard and soft approaches each represents, there’s truth and complexity within this triads interactions, is there a “Tuck” and “Chad” you modeled them off, or are they just male composites?
LL: This reminds me of something my husband says, when we see a movie and “inspired by (or) based on true events” comes on the screen — he always points out what a meaningless statement that is, as it could mean anywhere from .002% to 99% of what you’re about to see is real, but just saying these words makes the viewer think — “aha! Reality was involved here!”
So the answer is, almost every character in the book was inspired by someone who really exists, but who the characters grew into over the course of the almost three years I spent writing this book is not just a composite, but a heavy dose of fantasy as well. I don’t think Chad or Tuck exist in real life.
AY: Wren has a bit of an epiphany before the “Druid Circle” about who she is and what she wants. Is this something you feel is vital for women to become self-actualized?
Do you feel it’s possible for a woman to reach this clarity earlier on in life?
LL: I think the greatest challenge for any human being is to figure out what they want, without the impositions of familial or societal expectations.
That is why I try very hard never to use the words “should” or “shouldn’t” with myself or others. It’s only when we figure out what we truly want, apart from what we think we “should” want, that we have even the slightest chance of moving on to the next step, which is getting what we want.
I think this is vital for all humans to become self-actualized, not just women. Is it possible to do early in life? I’d like to think so. I wasn’t able to do it until I got a sex-positive therapist to help me sort it all out.
(Sex positive therapy, In brief, is therapy which operates with the understanding that sexual satisfaction is integral to a person’s physical and mental health. I found mine through an organization Dan Savage the sex columnist recommends called ASSECT. I think everyone should have a therapist!)
AY: At one point, Wren’s uncomfortable with the feelings she’s sharing with Tuck and feels she’s in over her head.
How important do you think is setting boundaries before engaging into sexual relationships both physically and emotionally?
LL: I think it’s important to know oneself, ones interests, comfort (and erogenous) zone(s) and one’s limits, before engaging in sex with others because sex and intimacy are so raw, and make us feel vulnerable, and exposed, at the same time we are seeking satiation/satisfaction.
And because another person or persons are involved, there has to be compromise, and compromise can’t happen without communication. I think the problem Wren runs into is that she just doesn’t have the experience to know what to expect, or how to set those boundaries.
I think she also doesn’t think in advance about the fact that when women orgasm, their body releases oxytocin, the “love” hormone. When women have great sex we sometimes can’t help but fall in love as a result.
Add to that the fact that she is vulnerable and emotional from her husband’s reaction to her expressing her needs to him, she’s horny, unfulfilled and impatient, and she does A LOT of drugs that week… it’s a combination of factors that leave Wren emotional and confused.
AY: When Wren is entering the Airport, it’s a great scene of her “going on autopilot” “I put myself on autopilot. I have to. Leaving a fantasy behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Then, it occurred to me, which life is “fantasy” and which is reality? The week she spent at her reunion, or her life in L.A.. What’s your opinion?
LL: The whole thing is a fantasy. Only a fantasy husband would be wealthy enough to allow Wren to not have a job she’s missing, or bills she needs to pay, or the million responsibilities that drag the rest of us down from living our fantasy lives on a regular basis, not to mention one who has no problem with her fucking other men, without even the slightest twinge of “why does she need someone else when she’s got me!?!?!”
Wren is insanely lucky that he’s accepting of her needs but doesn’t feel responsibility for them. I don’t know many men in real life who would react the way John does to being told by their wives that they want to fuck other men, cause he’s not doing the job 😂
AY: You end the book on a magnificent cliffhanger of deliciously poetic justice. Will we see Wren in a sequel? Also, I would LOVE to see this adapted for film or tv, any plans on either or both possibilities in the future?
LL: I am working on a sequel! It’s a bit of a struggle to maintain the magic of the first book, but yes, I don’t think it would be fair to make Wren stay in that airport bar for eternity!
“A Time And A Place” by Lark Larson is available now on Amazon Prime
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Art Credit- Author / Lark Larson
