Robin Talley - Pulp - the must read inspiring LGBT novel from the award winning author Robin Talley

“She burned your letter?” Elaine reached out to take Paula’s hand. Suddenly her touch was the only thing holding Paula to the ground. “The letter you loved so much?”

“Like I said, it was my own fault.” Paula drew a cigarette from the pack with a shaky hand. “I should’ve known better than to save it in the first place.”

“I don’t think it was your fault at all.” Elaine stroked Paula’s hand, leaned across the table and kissed her lips. Her mouth was warm and soft. “Someday, I’m going to write you a new letter. One nobody can burn.”

Abby closed her computer, the scene still echoing in her mind.

She traced her fingers over the stickers on the laptop’s protective case. It was old stuff, mostly—a rainbow flag, a Bernie logo from the primaries and a Hillary one from the general, the “Feminism Is the Radical Notion That Women Are People” illustrated quote Ms. Sloane had given her last year after she told off one of the guys in their workshop for submitting his third story about a superhot robot babe.

It all dated back to when she and Linh were still together. Maybe that was why none of it felt right anymore. Abby wasn’t the same person she’d been then.

She should probably peel off all her stickers with some Goo-Be-Gone. Start fresh. The way Paula had started over when she moved to New York.

Except...the past always followed you. Right? That was what Paula had learned, and Elaine, too. It was a miracle that Paula and Elaine had even made it out of the places they’d come from in the first place.

Or, well, it would’ve been a miracle if any of it had been true. Elaine and Paula were fictional, obviously. Even though they felt so incredibly real.

Abby wondered, not for the first time, if the characters were entirely imaginary. Marian Love could’ve drawn inspiration from people she knew, or even from her own life. Authors did that sometimes, right? Wrote carefully disguised stories about things that had really happened? Paula and Elaine felt too solid, too three-dimensional, to have come from nowhere.

Abby had finished the last page of Women of the Twilight Realm late the night before. At first she’d sat on the bed in a daze, overwhelmed by all the hours she’d spent in Elaine and Paula’s world. Then she’d realized it was the perfect moment to start writing her own story, when her mind was still totally immersed. She’d opened a blank doc and tried to write a meet-cute for her two main characters, but none of the words she wrote sounded remotely cute compared to Marian Love’s.

So she’d searched for more information about the book instead. She’d been hoping to find a sequel, but apparently Marian Love had never written another book, even though Women of the Twilight Realm sold millions of copies. In fact, she seemed to have straight-up disappeared off the face of the earth. And just like the other pulp authors, she hadn’t been writing under her real name anyway.

Abby didn’t understand it. How could anyone write a book that had such a huge impact, then vanish without ever writing more? How could Marian Love have resisted the lure of all those fans? Abby had kept writing fanfic for years, mostly because of the comments people left begging for more chapters, but the highest number of comments she’d ever gotten on one story was a hundred or so. She couldn’t imagine having millions of people read something she’d written.

She opened her laptop again. She’d skipped her lit mag meeting—Abby was the editor, but it wasn’t as though she had to be at every single meeting or the world would end—and come straight home from school. Her plan had been to spend the whole afternoon writing, so she’d have at least some chance of meeting Ms. Sloane’s deadline, but she kept going back to Women of the Twilight Realm and rereading her favorite scenes instead.

She kept staring at the cover, too. Now that she’d finished the book, it made more sense. Paula was the one in the tie, and Elaine was the one with the fabulous boobs. Though if the sex scenes inside were accurate, Paula’s boobs were pretty fabulous, too.

Plus, it had turned out to be so much more than a romance novel. The story definitely started out with what Abby’s fandom friends would’ve called “insta-love”—Paula and Elaine had sex and declared passionate love for each other the first night they met, and moved in together a few days later—but the obstacles they were up against were a lot more intense than in the romantic comedies Abby had seen. When Elaine tried to break up with her flaky boyfriend from back home, he arranged to get Paula fired from her job and basically outed Elaine to her parents, which led directly to Elaine’s father committing suicide.

Probably. That last part was kind of unclear. It could’ve been an accident.

Strangely enough, though, the book didn’t wind up being a downer in the end. Plus, it was honestly pretty fun just to read a novel that was all about lesbians. Abby hadn’t realized how neat it would be to see characters like her front and center in a story. Sure, she spent plenty of time with queer people in real life—all her friends were somewhere on the queer spectrum, since Linh and Ben were both bi, Savannah was questioning, and Vanessa didn’t use labels for sexual orientation but definitely didn’t identify as straight—but it still sent happy shivers down Abby’s spine to see the word lesbian used nonchalantly so many times in one novel.

Most of all, though, it was the romance that had swept her away. Sure, the book had its sappy, melodramatic moments, but there was just something about the way Paula and Elaine loved each other so deeply , even though they knew the outside world would never understand. True love, the kind they had, was strong enough to withstand absolutely anything.

And the ending—wow. Even with all the terrible things that had happened to Paula and Elaine, the end of their story still managed to be a perfect fantasy. The kind Abby loved most in the world. Despite all the challenges they’d faced, despite living in a world that would never understand them, the ending made clear that it was all going to be okay, because they had each other.

Maybe that wasn’t realistic, but who cared? Abby had already had enough reality to last her a lifetime.

Footsteps rang out on the stairs, and Abby groaned silently. Every board in their house creaked in anticipation before you even touched it. It always annoyed her on shows when teenagers snuck out of their houses. If Abby had ever tried that her parents would’ve caught her before she’d even made it to the landing.

She hoped it was only Ethan. He’d go straight to his room without bothering her. But as the creaking got closer, it was clearly too heavy to be her brother.

Abby closed her eyes, bracing herself.

A knock on the door. “Abby? Can I come in?” It was Mom.

“Okay.” Abby opened her eyes and arranged her face into a carefully bored expression.

“It’s good to see you.” Mom stepped inside slowly. She didn’t hold out her arms for a hug, the way she always used to do when she got home from trips. Abby had told her parents she was too old for hugs a while ago, but it still felt kind of weird that nonhugging was their new default. “I missed you while I was away.”

Abby hated it when her parents did their fakey-fake forced-affection talk. If they genuinely missed her, they wouldn’t leave so often. “What did you guys wind up doing to Ethan? Is he grounded?”

“He had to apologize to Mr. Salem, and he lost his phone and his computer for a week.”

“What, that’s it? He basically attacked someone!”

Mom sighed. “Punishments are for adults to decide, Abby. So, how’s school?”