The Real And Outrageous First-Time Novelist’s ‘Holding Out’ May Set American Women Abuzz
Lauren Fontaine is a feminist. A gorgeous, rich, successful feminist with a lusty appetite for men. A sassy, cussing feminist who adores her teen-age son. A Chanel- and lipstick-wearing feminist who brings the male-dominated U.S. Congress to its knees with a little thing called a sex strike.
A nationwide sex strike. By women.
Fontaine is the leggy hero of “Holding Out,” the creation of first-time novelist and former Wall Street standout Anne O. Faulk. Outrageous premise and humorous tone aside, the book dishes out a host of meaty issues - violence against women, disillusion with the feminist movement - and publisher Simon & Schuster is betting American women will eat it up.
Faulk may be an unknown commodity in publishing circles, but she was a hot commodity in her former life as a financial adviser and founder of Faulk & Co., which she sold in 1992. Having conquered the world of investments by age 36, Faulk took up writing. Five years later she finds herself riding a wave of publishing-house buzz to probable best-sellerdom.
That’s partly attributable to timing. In the novel, the catalyst for Fontaine’s dramatic call-to-arms is the suicide of the wife of the chief justice of the United States - a suicide prompted by years of domestic abuse. Despite overwhelming evidence, Congress refuses to censure the justice. The media go nuts. The accused vilifies his accusers.
Sound familiar? The press kit for the book claims “White House Sex Scandal and New Novel, ‘Holding Out,’ Go Hand-In-Hand.”
The outraged Fontaine joins a march on Washington, ends up as the keynote speaker and emerges as the leader of a newly unified women’s movement. Borrowing a tactic from the mythological Greek heroine Lysistrata, Fontaine entreats the women of the United States to withhold sex from their husbands and male lovers until Congress impeaches the justice.
“I thought that would be fun,” Faulk says of the plot device. “I wanted to take something so real (domestic violence) and mix it with something so outrageous.”
Whatever the literary merits of “Holding Out,” the book approaches feminism and women’s issues in an uncommonly accessible manner. Faulk’s story is sexy, romantic and humorous. It’s an easy read despite its 427 pages and the serious subjects it touches on, including sexuality as a tool of female power and the way women treat other women.
Agent after agent rejected the book, Faulk says, until a well-connected friend called an acquaintance at the William Morris Agency and persuaded him to read the manuscript. Several months later, Faulk received a call from book agent extraordinaire Joni Evans, who put the novel up for bid last winter.
Simon & Schuster paid $300,000 for Faulk’s manuscript, according to a London newspaper. (“They paid a nice amount of money for it” is all the author would reveal.) An HBO movie is in the works. A sizable publicity campaign is under way. As far as the initial printing, the publisher would only say the number is “substantial for a first novel.”
Though editor Michael Korda liked the book for its story line, Faulk says, it wasn’t until the women at Simon & Schuster started reading it - and talking about it - that the publishing house threw substantial marketing weight behind “Holding Out.”
“There were so many things that, as a woman, I faced and dealt with and my friends faced and dealt with,” says Faulk. “And (other women writers) didn’t seem to want to deal with those issues.”
After graduating from the University of Georgia in 1977, Faulk joined Merrill Lynch three years later as its youngest female account executive. By 1986, she had been named a vice president of investment giant Kidder Peabody. When she writes about living in a man’s world, she knows of what she speaks.
Faulk has never been active in the feminist movement, but she did join a pro-choice march on Washington several years ago. “I was mesmerized by the experience of it,” she says. The camaraderie of the women inspired Faulk, who believes women are generally extremely competitive with one another, both in the professional world and for the attention of men.
“There is a real sense of musical chairs, in that however many of us there are, there are fewer goodies.”
Lauren Fontaine feels the same way. At the beginning of the novel she defines herself as a “man’s woman” despite calling herself a feminist.
“It may be as out of favor as communism, but I’m a feminist,” Fontaine asserts. “I believe in the sisterhood of women. Although to be honest, I find this much easier to subscribe to in theory than in practice. Groups of women scare me, for I’ve seen firsthand that women are capable of extraordinary cruelty. … This doesn’t mean I don’t feel strongly about women’s rights, it just means that I like to do it from a safe distance.”
By the end of the novel, though, Fontaine “learns about the strength and support that women give that’s not based on anything but understanding,” explains Faulk. “Not on how attractive or pert or cute or fun you are, or how easily manipulated.”
One of the catalysts for “Holding Out” was Faulk’s frustration with today’s feminist movement. Mainstream women, she believes, are turned off by an image of the movement as led by angry, man-hating women fighting for lesbian rights and other “fringe issues.”
“Feminism in its first generation had very strong goals; It was about women having a place at the table,” Faulk says. “In its second wave it became about ‘we’re victims’ and ‘we’re powerless,’ which I think turned off an enormous number of people.”
Faulk’s feminist heroine bucks that perception. She likes men. She likes sex. She’s not bitter. And her idea, the strike, is all about women feeling powerful. “Lauren makes the point that, politically, men as a group have always controlled woman as a group,” Faulk says. “But individual men can be controlled by individual women.”