I have this bad habit of rationalizing things instead of questioning them so I think I had a similar feeling as you that there was something unconsidered about the sex work component but I just told myself that Alex wasn’t really a sex worker, or not really a pro, it was just an identity that she was trying on. In the flap copy it says “a young woman pretends to be someone she’s not” so I took that as someone trying to inhabit a muddier persona than her own. Also when Alex says that there was nothing dark or difficult in her background it was all just ordinary. So I wonder if the lack of mud is because there is no mud (as you note) because Alex (vs Emma) is co-opting mud? Though now that I say all of that I think you’re right that without a first person narration it may be hard to argue that. Like how close is the close third? Can it be unreliable in the same ways as a first person telling? I don’t have a fancy MFA either so just I can’t say! Just throwing questions about without having answers, lol.
I have this bad habit of rationalizing things instead of questioning them so I think I had a similar feeling as you that there was something unconsidered about the sex work component but I just told myself that Alex wasn’t really a sex worker, or not really a pro, it was just an identity that she was trying on. In the flap copy it says “a young woman pretends to be someone she’s not” so I took that as someone trying to inhabit a muddier persona than her own. Also when Alex says that there was nothing dark or difficult in her background it was all just ordinary. So I wonder if the lack of mud is because there is no mud (as you note) because Alex (vs Emma) is co-opting mud? Though now that I say all of that I think you’re right that without a first person narration it may be hard to argue that. Like how close is the close third? Can it be unreliable in the same ways as a first person telling? I don’t have a fancy MFA either so just I can’t say! Just throwing questions about without having answers, lol.
This take rules