Book Review: Sexy Life, Hello by Michelle Kicherer
Cover art by Ryan Johnson
When Michelle Kicherer, former SNR contributor (read: Global Debut) reached out about her new novella, Sexy Life, Hello, I was all too excited to jump back into another world filled with characters so joyously sardonic and all too familiarly flawed (in the best way possible).
Elementary school teacher, Jane, is fired from her job when she and the principal are caught performing an unsavory act on school grounds. Jane’s life dives into crisis mode as she scrambles to find another job to keep the lights on, but quickly finds a gig nannying for a yuppie lesbian couple with twins, Franny and Zooey. Unexpectedly, she receives a response back from a celebrity porn star, Lola, for a sexting job she had applied to when curiosity got the best of her. Intrigued by Lola’s girl-next-door charm and desire to explore fantasy for herself, she takes the job, deciding she can totally sext and babysit at the same time.
As someone who is part of the generation that came of age in AOL chat rooms “having cybersex” (yes I’m old) and watching late night 1-800-GOT-SEX commercials, I am not embarrassed to admit that I, too, have tried on my “sexy” voice in an attempt to imagine what it might be like to spin erotic fantasies into the ears of desperate men for money. Which is why the world of Sexy Life, Hello was so easy to inhabit–in a weird way, I felt seen. Not so much because of the hilarious, yet creepy conversations that ensue when Jane is tasked with chatting with Lola’s subscribers, most of which involve various ways bodily fluid is exchanged, but because of the challenge of navigating one’s own fantasies through the lens of the male gaze.
Kicherer is able to entertain and critique the existential dissonance many women feel on the daily of having to be two things at once: an object of desire and caretaker. You don’t have to be a sex worker to have a day like Jane’s. Any woman who has ever sexted a man while on the toilet hungover, or hunched over their phone with a face mask on, will feel solidarity in the absurd performance of it all. I won’t spoil the ending, but the book left me with a lingering sucker-punch feeling. It made me think about all the ways we can easily lose ourselves in maladaptive daydreams, how seductive fantasy can be, and just how slippery identity truly is.
Sexy Life, Hello by Michelle Kicherer is now available in trade paperback. Order it here!
