The Soft Animal
LGBTQ+ Fiction, complete at 105,000 words.
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1990. Moses Howard may be accustomed to her stepfather’s drinking habits, but she never expected to be attacked by him or to nearly kill him in self-defense. In a single night, their fragile routine is shattered, and Moses is left limping between homeless shelters and small towns.
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1997. When Moses – now twenty-five– learns her stepfather has actually died, she leaps at the opportunity to come home. The town rumor mill has fastened the night she fled into a tall tale, but even the most outlandish gossip doesn't faze Moses once she reconnects with Stella Robinson, her oldest and dearest friend. Moses finds herself moving in with Stella and her young daughter, seizing the chance to begin again on her own terms. Even with this budding sense of normalcy, Moses knows better than to let her guard down. Not when her stepfather’s drinking buddies blame Moses for his demise; when Stella’s mother, calculating and cold, still has her hooks in Stella; or when Stella’s golden yet guarded boyfriend constantly activates alarm bells Moses can’t explain.
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An ever-escalating campaign to run Moses out of town is soon launched, yet it drives her and Stella wondrously, impossibly closer. Close enough for Moses to believe Stella may just reciprocate the love she’s carried for upward of a decade. With everything to lose, Moses must do her damndest to stay afloat in a town determined to break her once and for all.
Author's Statement
I have always liked the idea that a story finds you when you need it most. It never occurred to me, however, that the same sentiment can be applied to an author. The Soft Animal began as a short-story in an Advanced Fiction Writing course at VCU, was shelved, and remained on the back-burner for the front half of 2020.
However, after a summer spent consuming no small amount of soul-crushing lesbian media, the straw that broke the little gay camel's back? Mike Flannigan's The Haunting of Bly Manor. I binged the series in one sitting, finishing it at 4AM in the trenches of the COVID-19 pandemic, in my childhood bedroom. That next morning? I woke with the drive to create a lesbian love story that - in spite of the tragedy and world coming down on our main couple- worked out in the end, in a way that not only felt earned but well-deserved. (I also believed, at the time, that I was 100% straight. You know, just #AllyThings.)
Writing this novel felt like talking to a version of myself that would not surface for several years, like I was reaching across my unconsciousness with the assurance that the unearthed gem that is lesbianism is a beautiful thing, a soft animal, waiting to be loved. I hope, when this novel makes it into the world at-large, folks will find comfort and love in Moses, Stella, Tina, and Charlie, as I have.
Inspiration Behind the Title:
Chapter-by-Chapter playlist:
