In this episode, Rosie and Georgie chat about Jackie Ess’s debut novel Darryl, which came out with Clash Books in 2021. Darryl is about a man called Darryl Cook, a forty-something white guy who lives off his inheritance with his wife in Oregon, and proudly identifies as a cuck. Throughout the novel, we follow Darryl’s earnest and unfiltered musings through a succession of succinct diary-like entries. As the story evolves, so does he, and through his encounters with others in the cuckolding lifestyle, Darryl embarks on a turbulent journey of both self-discovery and self-destruction.

In the episode, we discuss the voice of Darryl, incels, Darryl's masochistic tendencies, and his relationship to his masculinity, sexuality and gender, before ending with a segment on TV, where we gossip about the latest season of the L Word: Generation Q.

Links

Follow us on Instagram: @bare_fruits_podcast

Buy Darryl: https://www.clashbooks.com/new-products-2/jackie-ess-darryl-preorder

Mentions

Donald Winicott, ‘Fear of Breakdown’ (1974, The International Journal of Psychoanalysis) https://icpla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Ogden-T.H.-2014-Fear-of-Breakdown-Int.-Jour-of-Psych.pdf

Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts (2016, Graywolf Press) https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/argonauts

Andrea Long Chu, Females (2020, Verso) https://www.versobooks.com/books/3061-females

Amia Srinivasan, The Right To Sex (2021, Bloomsbury) https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/right-to-sex-9781526612533/

David Futrelle, ‘Incels love to call others “cucks,” but some of them are now claiming the label for themselves’, on We Hunted The Mammoth (2020) https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2020/01/19/incels-love-to-call-others-cucks-but-some-of-them-are-now-claiming-the-label-for-themselves/

Imogen Binnie, Nevada (2013, Topside Press) – NOT Casey Plett as referenced in the episode! https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/imogen-binnie/nevada/9781529092066