The Dry Season is an exceptional memoir that grew out of author Melissa Febos's insight that, in the pursuit of the relationships, flirtations, and sexual adventures that had dominated her life since her teens, she had somehow lost track of herself and knowledge of what gave her genuine pleasure and satisfaction. The catalyst for this realization came at the end of a two-year relationship she dubbed "the maelstrom" because "the experience was less like sinking into an abyss of mediocrity than being sucked into a powerful vortex."
Febos (Girlhood; Body Work) granted herself a period of celibacy, during which time she researched chaste and celibate female communities and individuals throughout history--research she recounts in delicious and thought-provoking detail. Questions abounded during the early days of Febos's celibacy: Should she issue "rain checks" for potential future dalliances? Was masturbation permitted? Whom should she tell about her decision? What was the right amount of time to remain celibate? Did the relentlessness of her romantic involvement constitute addiction?
After she lays this foundation, Febos blends discussions of her growing self-awareness of her own patterns and the "invisible topographies of [her] early life" with accounts of female religious communities in which "yielding to the divine was the only way to avoid yielding to men." She also explores literary and philosophical figures such as Virginia Woolf and Octavia Butler, whose passions lay outside the realm of the interpersonal, at least from time to time.
Febos's writing is expressive, striking, and singular. The connections she makes expand this work from memoir to intellectual history with profound resonance. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.