“According to inscriptions describing the reforms of the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash (ca. 2300 BC), he is said to have abolished the former custom of polyandry in his country, on pain of the woman taking multiple husbands having her teeth bashed out with a clay tablet.”
-Wikipedia entry on Polyandry
see also this “Multiple Husbands” entry featuring a documentary on polyandry from YouTube
Transgressional fiction or transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who use unusual and/or illicit ways to break free of those confines. Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressional fiction may seem mentally ill, anti-social and/or nihilistic.
-Wikipedia entry on Transgressional Fiction
amanda, a female polygamist and an aspiring independent filmmaker from the northwest is found dead in the lower east side of new york city. she was married to three men, all living in and around new york: harry, tom and ian, each successful men, with various qualities between them. harry is a brute, tom is controlling and jealous, ian beautiful but detached. when each husband is brought in to identify her body, the secrets of her life and the mystery of her death are revealed.
four storylines, possibly five, three of which focus on amanda & each of her husbands told in flashback, one set in the present when the body is found and another focusing entirely on amanda as a filmmaker and leading up to the night of her death. interspliced scenes, echoing sentiments and contrasts between the three separate lives and her own filmmaking. perhaps footage, told in her voice. this not a police procedural, this is not about if one or all of her husbands killed her or not (although one of them might have). possibly difference in word choice as well between the flashbacks, as if each husband is telling his own version of her story, or perhaps the opposite, 3rd person for them, first person for her, giving a certain kind of ‘artistic’ attention to detail, etc.
trying to tackle themes about art, gender, love, marriage and morality. larger question, an old one, is the artist necessarily moral/immoral? how does love inform art and vice versa? how do the complications of marriage and loyalty get thrown into question because our protagonist is a female polygamist?
Logistical issues-
-Time management (she travels to shoot her films, when does she spend time with husbands, when does she film?)
-Even if moderately successful, wouldn’t she bring one husband or another? wouldnt her friends eventually figure it out?
Category Archives: frags
abandoned pieces, fragments, scraps
snowflake project: 1. single sentence
the life & death of a female polygamist told as her three husbands meet each other to identify her body in the morgue.
the story you have written on me
he writes on me a story i live by, of lies & emptiness, of leaving & rage. he writes on me a story that twists my flesh into scars pale and meaningful. i trace the ridges and hear him lie to me again & again. he says, you cannot tell this story, this is my story, this is my story of you, this is how you will live, that is my story of your life, this is my present to you, these words to live by
& i am mad & i am lost & i am the crack in the wall that weakens the ceiling & i am the fissure that bursts the spleen & i am the choke hold around your neck & i am the fly in your coffee grown cold & i am the broken skin around your fingernail & i am the sudden wet sound of a knife leaving the body & i am you being undone & i am the story you still tell from the grave i’ve put you in
notches
in vying to make a notch in their belts of the other they ended up hanging themselves instead
a wake, awake
a sight for sore eyes, eye sore, sores on the skin, whore, teeth clenched, more, i wanted all of it, site of infection, inflection, seduction, a gnashing of limbs, doors within cracked frames, panting, ranting, raving, craving, separate the nail from the finger, knuckle crack, fracture, rapture, rupture, piercing, wailing, i want none of it, all of it gone, used, abused, fallen apart from disuse, a wake, awake, just wake the fuck up.
resurrection game
with a steady hammer, you nail me on the crucifix of our desire only to saw off my limbs, claw the nails out with clenched teeth & nail me back up again.
this is my pain, you said, struggling with the weight, your breath on my cheek as you drive the biggest nail i had ever seen right through my eye.
& we laughed so hard that townsfolk miles away thought we were howling.
effortless, very own
i sleep without dreaming, a restless pitch into darkness, into the void. i see nothing. i feel nothing. i am nothing. nameless and faceless. disembodied, all my bruises gone, all my scars a figment of someone’s imagination. there is no past, no future, no hope, no despair, no sadness, no fracture, no comfort, no rage, no desire, no strain, no peace. perfect and effortless, swallowed within my very own absence.
is that all there is?
i ramshackle myself the idea with pine cones that fit into my mouth whole and unmolested. i hold you close and yearn the fear even further away than seagulls diving through tufts of my hair for a promise. spigots and pipes make up rhymes that burrow and weave through veins bitter and leave me stiffened. nails polished cracked and weary find the seam of my smile folded and doubled but absolutely lacking. i walk through city streets and landscapes of grass and knolls and shores that stretch endlessly with bones washed clean. into the darkness of hills without stars or a moon to guide us by i tapped a twisted stick before me as my cousin and i cackled our hysteria listening for an echo that never returned. i stifle it all into the ply of cardboard pieces wet with vomit and you laughed, is that all there is?
split level
he says, it’s a good thing, in the long run, to be as shattered as you are.
and i said, why is that, you must be fucking joking.
he says, because if you tried to reconcile all the pieces you’d only find out that none of them fit, that you in the end do not fit.
and i said, i already know that, i’ve known that for quite some time.
he says, no, thinking and knowing are two different things. there is no way to unknow something, but you can unthink something. you can stuff it away, push down and stop feeling that. you know, the sort of thing you do everyday.
and i said, you’re mocking me.
he says, i’m trying to teach you something here, something about yourself. you’re no longer becoming, you already are.
and i said, i’m not done yet, you’re out of your mind.
he says, you realize, of course, you’re just arguing with yourself here.
and i said, yeah, you’d think i’d be used to it by now. how fucked is that.
standing & completely unabashed
the thing of it was, it had been standing. right there, right in front of everyone, standing and completely unabashed about it. like an erection on a monkey. a completely buck naked monkey with testicles the size of two walnuts put together and a raging hard-on ready for some savage primate action. that’s how it was, that’s how far out there it was with everyone looking at it. and it seemed to get even bigger the more it noticed people noticing it. talk about ego tripping, like a fat man bursting his cheeks into a wet balloon, that sick wet whoosh sound and the balloon filling up. it was filling up like that standing right there and i swear i was on my tippy toes trying to get out of there. it was becoming ridiculous. between these two metaphors of the fat man and a horny monkey, it was literally all i could stand and i had to find a chair to sit down. to sit down and, i have to admit, admire it for what it was and what it was becoming. i’d let it fill the room until someone burst my bubble, but i had plenty of time before that happened. plenty of time at all.