So I finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo pretty quickly — as the friend who recommended it put it, it’s a faux literary beach read, so it’s not too hard to get through — and while I am loathe to devote too much time and energy to a silly fluff book, I do want to talk a little more about the book’s approach to bisexuality, because I think it is telling.
Also, okay: when I wrote last week about why the author’s heterosexuality was deeply apparent throughout the book, even as she chose to make a central character bi, I did my best to avoid spoilers. But in order to talk about what I want to talk about today, I’m gonna have to spoil some shit, so if you’re really really invested in going into The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo totally cold you should stop reading now. If you don’t care about the book at all, though, read on: you don’t need to have read it to understand the points I’m about to make.
Alright then.
Halfway through the book, it’s revealed that Evelyn Hugo, the aging starlet who is retelling her life story to our writer protagonist, is bisexual. The initial lead up to this is subtle enough — there are mentions of her flirtation with, and seeming attraction to, her co-star Celia St. James, but it all plays out in a way where you’re not one hundred percent sure if you’re seeing what you think you are (you are). And then we have the actual coming out scene and it’s weirdly heavy handed: Evelyn is suddenly speaking in platitudes that feel like they have been directly lifted from a Bisexual Myth Busting™️ fact sheet. And honestly, they probably were, because for the rest of the book, well —
The thing that truly bugged me was that so much of Evelyn’s bisexuality basically played out like a Bisexual Myth Busting 101 seminar. Celia, Evelyn’s only female partner and the great love of her life, is a lesbian who is deeply jealous of all of Evelyn’s male partners, even when Evelyn is monogamously committed to her. When one of Evelyn’s husbands learns about Celia, he declares that she’s a lesbian and threatens to out her. No one — even the millennial writing Evelyn’s life story! — seems to have a basic grasp on the concept of bisexuality, and she’s constantly having to push back and insist that she is not straight, not a lesbian, but bisexual.
And push back she does, which — I mean this is part of the book that strains credibility the most for me. I am expected to believe that a woman born in 1938, a woman who must keep her queerness secret, never has any doubts that she’s bisexual? That she just hears the word and confidently owns it? It feels so odd, and more than that it flattens Evelyn as a character because she’s never really given a chance to wrestle with her attractions. She’s mostly just a Strong Bisexual Woman™️, and even as she remains closeted for most of her life we’re given to understand that that, too, is a strong choice, and one that is made not out of self doubt or confusion but a cold eyed calculation about what it would mean to be an out queer starlet in the back half of the twentieth century. Despite her near total isolation from any queer community outside of a gay best friend and an on again, off again lesbian partner; despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to know any other bisexuals at all, she somehow manages to arrive at some solid, confident form of bi pride and… what?
The biphobia Evelyn experiences, too: I mentioned earlier that it feels like the author is just checking off a list, and a part of me really does believe that, in deciding to write a bi character, she went to Bi.org or wherever and lifted their list of bisexual struggles as plot points, without ever thinking about how these things might unfold in real people’s lives. Because, frankly, it’s usually a lot more subtle than it is in this book. It’s something you tend to doubt is happening, even as you directly experience it. Rather than angry and aggrieved, it often just makes you feel broken and bad — but we never really see that from Evelyn. Which, again, flattens her and makes her feel less real.
And I’m not saying that a bi writer would automatically have gotten this right: there are plenty of bad bi writers, and there are plenty of bi writers who are too in denial about their own pain and suffering to accurately represent it on the page. But I am saying that for me, as a bisexual, well — the way biphobia has unfolded in my life has been far less obvious than lesbians insisting I’m straight, or women I’m with being jealous of male partners, or male partners insisting that I’m a lesbian. Has stuff like that happened? Sure! But more often than not the biphobia is less about what people say directly to my face and more about what they imply with their behavior, more about the way their general statements about sexual identity and sexual behavior do not incorporate my lived experience. More often than not it’s “jokes” or even flat out statements about The Bisexuals that of course I am not supposed to take personally because I’m an exception, I’m one of the good ones, and so on and so forth.
And… The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo simply does not get that. It does not get that at all. There is virtually no subtlety to Evelyn’s bisexual experience: while her attraction to women does feel seamlessly integrated into the story, feels totally believable, everything else just feels like a lecture that is being yelled at the reader. And as a Professional Bisexual™️, I just find it embarrassing. I mean, I guess it’s nice that straight white woman Taylor Jenkins Reid wants to educate her (presumably mostly straight and white) readership about the struggles of the bisexuals. But she ultimately just reduces what we go through to something flat and cartoonish in the process.
It’s more subtle than you think.
Professional Bisexual - I’ve never heard that before! made me smile 😃 I’m wondering about the unprofessional bisexuals?
this book seems to believe that a good bisexual is a bisexual who obviously prefers a conveniently attractive person of the same gender. the whole "don't ignore half of me" spiel falls flat in the face of the fact that only the female love interest is fully fledged. it reminds me of those tiktoks that go "i'm bisexual, so i like all women and one fictional man". bad rep, poor writing and boring reading material tbh