Bodies Ablaze
Mrs. S is a New Kind of Queer Romance Novel
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The all-girls boarding school. It’s an evocative setting for a lesbian romance, isn’t it? I’m sure you can think of several examples of stories that take place in this setting. There are classics like Mädchen in Uniform (1931) or Olivia (1951). There are more recent additions like Lost & Delirious (2001), Loving Annabelle (2006), and the Chilean soap Perdona Nuestros Pecados. I can think of several ‘Clexa’ fanfics off the top of my head that take place at boarding schools. There’s a lot to draw from here. The structure, the rules, the uniforms, the power dynamics – these are all salient, suggestive qualities.
Despite this surface-level connection, there has never been another book like Mrs. S, the debut novel from K. Patrick. The story utilizes this familiar setting, but that is where any reductive associations end. We begin by greeting characters with no name. Our protagonist, a young butch Australian known only by her title of Matron, finds work at an English boarding school named after a figure known as the Dead Author. The Matron is unwittingly drawn to the headmaster’s wife, Mrs. S, an alluring woman who commands but does not reveal. They embark on an affair that is as invigorating as it is unsettling – an undoing as well as a coming together.
It’s immediately clear that Patrick’s writing is in a realm entirely of their own making. The prose is sparse, striking, sharp. There are no quotation marks or paragraph breaks to indicate a new line of dialogue. Instead, these are sentences that demand your attention. There are no wasted words here; each phrase is as precise as a scalpel. What this means for the reader is that we are given time to fill the spaces in between the lines with our own reactions and desires. A short, stinging sentence ends. The reader pauses, gasps, then takes on the next sentence, which is just as arresting.
The verbs are always active, forceful even. This is a book about the desire between bodies, yes, but everything in this world is alive. The natural elements, the school, the objects around the Matron are all brought to live through the senses. Doors slam and creak, papers russell, shoes squeak, the rain pounds. This sense of personification serves the story. The propulsive force of the school and its residents is contrasted with the Matron’s sedentary, watchful inaction. She is almost always outside of the school’s built-in rhythm.
The Matron’s feeling of being an outsider is intimately connected to how she feels at home in her own body. This unease is central to the experience of desire. While the Matron feels discomfort about her body, Mrs. S floats through the world with feminine ease. While the Girls flit about with their boundless energy and eagerness, the Matron holds back. When the Matron meets the Housemistress, the only other butch in a sea of rigidly enforced femininity, her sense of corporeal longing becomes even more acute. How could there not be desire here?
This set of bodily relations is especially resonant as a part of queer desire. The Matron objectifies Mrs. S, but not because she doesn’t respect her as a whole person. Think of the queer obsession with specific body parts, a kind of laser focus that distills desire down to just a few square inches of flesh. From the very first page, the Matron is captivated by Mrs. S’s hands: “her hand – I want more detail, I can’t have it.” Later, her imagery becomes more comprehensive: “estuaries of neon veins, knuckles rising like moons.” For lesbians, there are two reasons why hands might become an obsession, one of which is an aesthetic concern and the other more functional. But any body part can become laden with desire. Later still, the Matron exclaims, in her economical manner, “her shin, like a mast, oh God.”
The Matron’s desire for Mrs. S does not emerge simply from these lustful observations, but also from exploring how her own body feels in relation to Mrs. S. Take, for example, a scene where they are newly acquainted and have gone swimming. “Without waiting for me she removes her white shirt. Each button a piece of my own spine, undone.” Shortly thereafter, a hand flexes, but does not fully reach out. Think of The Hand from Pride & Prejudice, or Celine reaching for Jesse in the back of the cab in Before Sunset. The hands, oh god.
You can’t separate desire from the body, and in Mrs. S, the body is always felt. The Matron is keenly aware of the difference between her and Mrs. S. The ease with which Mrs. S moves her body is foreign to the Matron, and this freedom makes her jealous. This difference is something Mrs. S will never understand, and such a contrast is ever-present. The Matron finds herself enamored with men’s bodies as well – the peace with which they move through the world that is different than Mrs. S but feels just as out of reach. But perhaps the most important body in the book is that of the Headmistress, the Matron’s assured butch friend. The Matron writes longingly about how she embodies masculinity, “the way she lives in the hinges of her body.” There is desire here too, even if it is not the same desire she shares with Mrs. S.
Just as bodies are always intertwined with desire, so is gender, but the latter element is often left unexplored. Though Mrs. S leaves a lot of things unsaid, gender is not one of them. The Matron frequently compares how she and Mrs. S move through the world as a result of their gender, and the difference between them is made even clearer when they discuss their histories and the shape their lives have taken. Though it probably shouldn’t be, this butch perspective in a romance novel is something of a revelation. It is powerful to see a butch lesbian be desired and pursued in this way. Certainly, a butch being seduced is not an impossibility. Rather, this narrative absence is simply a failure of imagination. (Mrs. S, too, suffers from this lack of imagination, and is unable to fully comprehend the Matron’s perspective or why she chooses to wear a binder, for example.) But, who we might ask, is really seducing who? And what does this say about our preconceived ideas about gender and power?
Ultimately, the Matron’s story is her own. The experiences of butch lesbians are so often misunderstood, and even Mrs. S, who the Matron is willing to prostrate herself before, repeats this mistake. Desire and understanding do not always go hand in hand.
As a sensuous, tenacious coming-of-age tale, Mrs. S reminds us of all the stories that have come before it only by proposing something entirely new. There is seduction, but also self-empowerment, desire alongside shame and loathing. It’s a lean piece of meat to sink your teeth into, but it will leave you satiated all the same.