You’re Writing A Book, Dipshit

Lexi Kent-Monning’s debut novel, The Burden of Joy (Rejection Letters, 2023), tracks a young woman’s journey through her divorce and subsequent grief as she tries to hold on to her life, which is crumbling around her like the cliffs of Big Sur. It’s a heartbreaking and revitalizing read all at once. It’s California, it’s Henry Miller, it’s Massive Attack. It’s smart and sexy, and cool, and cool people love it. There’s more than one perfect dog to cry over—which is all to say it’s a really, really good book. Kent-Monning has proved herself a formidable talent, and The Burden of Joy a debut to be reckoned with. Recently, Lexi and I talked about what’s really important: extreme levels of horniness, Giancarlo DiTrapano, therapy, Japan, and being quite Victorian.

Nicole Treska: I feel like you and I came into each other’s orbit over our love of the late, great Giancarlo DiTrapano. You were a student of his and Rose Books’ Chelsea Hodson’s, at the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Sezze, Italy. They both/MTVM had such an enormous impact on this upcoming era of emerging writers. Recently, we talked about how in the wake of his death, all of this beautiful work he helped birth is entering the world—the lovely poet Jahan Khajavi called him a midwife. I like that, that’s beautiful. Is there work you’re excited about?


Lexi Kent-Monning: I don’t mean to give a totally cop-out answer, but truly I’m excited to see everything that Gian helped usher into the world! His taste was so diverse that I could never predict what might come from his midwifery, which is why Tyrant Books was so unique. He was so attracted to a writer’s individual style - I remember him saying “style over story” - and I think he just liked to be surprised by an unusual approach. No two books are similar that Gian had anything to do with. Even within my cohort in Mors Tua Vita Mea, the five of us were working on completely different projects. I miss Gian so much, I crave anything that he had something to do with.


NT: Tell me about you and Gian.


LKM: I came to Mors Tua Vita Mea as a Hodson head (lol), so I only knew of Gian what I Googled before getting on the plane and reading a Tyrant book (“The Sarah Book” by Scott McClanahan). I was not at all surprised when this supposed bad boy turned out to be sweet as honey in real life. When I met him at the airport in Rome, he kissed my cheek to greet me, and the last time I saw him, when I was getting into an Uber in Bushwick, he kissed my cheek to say goodbye. Bookended by those cheek kisses was a giggly, sassy friendship that included a million voice notes over WhatsApp, , shared love for the band Low and the movie Grease, both of our dearly departed bulldogs named Rufus, Gian’s unbridled encouragement of my writing, and both of us giving each other unending movie and music recommendations. I would often wake up to a bunch of WhatsApp messages from him. I miss that so much. Nothing could start my day better.



NT: I thought about Giancarlo like an older brother. I always wanted to hang out with him. He was a year ahead of me in the Gordon Lish workshops at the Center for Fiction in 2009 and 2010, and he’d just started Tyrant… I thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever met. And then, like you, and so many who knew him, I found him to be the warmest, sweetest, most generous lunatic. And he always supported me, too. For years, he threw writing jobs and opportunities my way when no one else did. He and Gordon and Catherine Foulkrod, they’re my trinity. And Gian and Catherine were kindred spirits. Gian and I are both siblings of Catherine’s and I think we loved that about each other. How much do you love Giu (Gian’s husband)? He made my wedding dress, you know. I got married like a 16th century Napoletean princess. It was ethereal. That’s what I love about him, both of them, they surrounds you in their ethereal world.


LKM: HE MADE YOUR WEDDING DRESS? I am so jealous. I wish I’d known Giu when I got married. When we were in Sezze, he grabbed my MTVM mate Sophie and began draping a scarf on her like a dress. The most beautiful dress in the world. But it was just a scarf. He’s so talented, it’s absolutely wild. Watching Giu and Gian together was one of the joys of my life. During early COVID quarantine, I tried to think of what would make me happy, and I went on a merch website and made mock-ups of merchandise featuring Giu: earrings, a shower curtain, etc. I sent them to Gian and we were crying laughing over voice notes. That’s how much I love Giu: I want him on my shower curtain, because he is the best thing I could think of during a dark time.


NT: He is a bright bright light, both of them are. And speaking of bright lights, tell me about Japan.


LKM: Dude, man. It was fucking unbelievable. It’s so unbelievably gorgeous and efficient and stylish and surreal. Something that struck me is how thoughtful everything is, but almost to a point that’s unnecessary. My perfect example of this is we stayed in a hotel where at the elevator bank, there was a spot to touch with your hand before pressing the elevator button, so you wouldn’t get a static shock. It’s so thoughtful, it’s almost too much? Like what a minor inconvenience it is to get static shocked. But they don’t want you to experience even that minor level of discomfort. Also, bidets are the truth and I can’t believe we haven’t adopted them in the U.S.


NT: Recently, I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of women writing about their real true loves: their dogs. Tracy O’Neill breaks your heart over her beloved Cowboy O’Neill in the  memoir Woman of Interest; Allie Rowbottom talks about her sweet Butter, in relation to aging in her column for  byline; and in The Burden of Joy, you’ve got two great loves lost in one way or another—Rufus and Ladybird. Even in a book about heartbreak and divorce, the loss of the dogs hits hard.  At one point you say, “I find them and honor them all, but he’s [Rufus] the one who honors me.” Why is there no purer heartbreak than loving and losing a dog?


LKM: I’m someone who thinks love between people should be conditional. So I think the only place we can give and receive unconditional love is with animals. Dogs just embody that because they are so fuckin goofy and just want those around them to be pleased and happy, which in turn makes us want to make them pleased and happy. It’s that purity you’re talking about, it’s such a pure love. And when you bring a dog into your home, they open up and show you their unique personality, and you just get to both be yourselves completely in your house, be total weirdos together. The nicknames and songs I’ve made for my dogs are absolutely insane. I think we show dogs our true selves, and they’re like “fuck yeah, I love you” no matter what. So when we lose that, we lose a true witness, an unbelievably pure love. Oh my god, you know when a dog you follow on Instagram dies? It’s earth shattering.


NT: Yes, and I felt that in the book so much. I wept for Rufus. In general, you write grief with such clarity. When I had cancer, my therapist told me, “you can’t get out of this place until this is over. You’re a writer. You might as well see what you can see while you’re stuck here.”  And reading The Burden or Joy felt like a transmission from that dark place of trauma—the wild lows and the highs. For me, it’s a place that feels so insane and inaccessible from the outside, even when it’s your own. How did you get back in there? And get back out again?


LKM: I both love and hate that insight from your therapist! I hate it because it’s true, and none of us want to hear “the only way out is through,” right? Give me a shortcut, man! The reason I didn’t know I was writing a book is because I was just writing little fragments while I was going through this shit. It was therapeutic, and was also therapy-driven (“get it out of your body” was what my therapist said - writing, exercise, whatever it took, and because I’m a writer, I wrote). So most of the book came from that actual place, those were transmissions directly from that time. For a few years, that made it really easy for me to access it again. But now I’m in such a different place in my life, that it really feels like a character, someone I don’t know, let alone me. I actually think that made the last rounds of edits much easier for me - I could look at them from a technical POV rather than re-live it. Being removed from it was a fucking gift after all that time!


NT: Let’s talk about first books, and basically learning how to write a book by writing it and writing it and writing it forever, and then driving yourself mad trying to organize it, and tie it up right. Was this you, too?  Do you feel like the second book has to be easier?  What would second-book Lexi say to first-book Lexi, trying to make sense of the drafts?


LKM: Dude, NEVER write a book like I wrote my first one. I got it done, but I will never write a book like that ever again! Partially because I didn’t really know I was writing a book, or didn’t set out to write one. That made early drafts a complete fucking disaster and the editing process was BRUTAL. I have a draft of a second book, and I went about it completely differently and it was so much easier! I went in with the actual intention to write a book, a loose outline (I’m not a big outliner, but I at least had a *structure* in mind, which makes editing so much easier on the other end), and ideas of themes to thread through. Second-book Lexi would tell first-book Lexi “You’re writing a book, dipshit, you need a story arc, you need themes.” It’s a lot harder to inject those things later.


NT: I love how very horny your book is, and how, even at its horniest, at its most…in-the-body, it has an interiority rooted in the story that moves it forward. I wonder how you thought about using sex, physicality as a tool in the book?


LKM: It had like three times as much sex to start until Chelsea told me “You should take out about half the sex. Only keep what propels the story.” She was completely right. Really, sex was the only thing that made me feel like a human during that time period, so I relied on it too heavily in early drafts to show my humanity, or to try to embody myself/the character more, since so much of the book relies on interiority. Also like…grief makes some people horny, and I guess I’m one of those people?


NT: You are not alone, my friend. I feel like grief blots everything out, and creates a need, desire to feel alive. Sex is so visceral and brings you out of your head and into your body. Nature works similarly`in TBoJ, I think—a vibrant exteriority that bring the reader and narrator out of the interiority of heartbreak and back into the world. Was this intentional?


LKM: It was unintentional to start, and it was really just a reflection of how nature was one of the only things (along with sex) that made me feel connected to the world in any way during that time. I had also lived in cities for so long up until then that seeing a plant or something was like a shock to my system, something that really made me stand up and pay attention. I just saw gray concrete and buildings for so long, and all of a sudden there were redwoods, poppies, ferns, wild animals everywhere I looked! It was a stark contrast to my preceding years, just like all of a sudden being alone was a stark contrast after such a long relationship. It was really just me noticing new things. Later, it ended up being a really clear tool in the writing, and I leaned into that. A lot of my favorite writing is nature-based, whether Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or Claire Louise Bennett’s Pond. I love that tradition of women being along in nature, reckoning with it and with their internal shit simultaneously.


NT: I read in BOMB and Largehearted Boy about the art and music that made its way into The Burden of Joy. What have you been seeing, reading, watching recently that might make it into book number two?


LKM: Yes, music is massive for me and I always start by making a playlist when I’m writing! I’ve been listening to a lot of Fat White Family, the In Fabric original soundtrack, Prince , and for some reason my main song that I keep on repeat while writing my second book was Pop That by French Montana, Rick Ross, Drake, and Lil Wayne. I just have that song on repeat and it works perfectly for me. I’ve been reading and re-reading the entire catalog of the indie press Autofocus. They publish short-ish books of “artful autobiographical writing,” and I’m constantly amazed at what can be done in a short manuscript. “XO” by Sara Rauch and “A Calendar is a Snakeskin” by Kristine Langley Mahler are two of my favorites of theirs.


NT: And tell me about book two, or what you’re working on, now, and what feels enliving, or daunting.


LKM: I’ve been working on a sex memoir, that’s about my consensual and non-consensual experiences and how they inform each other. But that said, after having just released an auto fiction novel based largely on my life, I’m now reconsidering if I want something so autobiographical to be my next thing. It’s a lot! It’s emotional and exhausting and rewarding and enlightening and all of that shit to release a book, and when people respond with their own life experiences, and comment on what an idiot the narrator (me) is, and all of it. I actually love a lot of it, but it’s just overwhelming. So I might adjust course and work on a languishing poetry/prose hybrid manuscript I’ve got sitting around. I think I kind of want to feel less with my next book, to be honest. That’s probably bad to say, but fuck it.


NT: Yes to languishing prose poetry! And to feeling less in the next book/life in general, though I don’t think it’s in the cards for us feely-thinky types. What would we write about?? Like, I feel like both of our books deal with posting Ls—getting ghosted, then being utterly wrecked by it. This is all very Victorian, and excellent in material.


LKM: I love that we both post our Ls. That’s why I posted dead animals for so long (which I’m being more restrained with now). I know people who post the prettiest soft focus photos of their gorgeous lives, but in reality they will be texting me how depressed they are, how they just got into a blowout fight with their partner, how their baby shit all over the car, whatever. Why do that to yourself?! Life is fucked up, stop pretending it’s not! It can be both things.

Nicole Treska is the author of the debut memoir  Wonderland. Her work has appeared in The End, New York Tyrant Magazine, Forever Magazine, and BOMB, among others.

Lexi Kent-Monning is an alumna of the Tyrant Books workshop Mors Tua Vita Mea in Sezze Romano, Italy. Her writing has been published in The Believer, Paste, XRAY, Joyland, Little Engines, and elsewhere. Her first novel, The Burden of Joy, is available through Rejection Letters Press. A native Californian, she now lives in Brooklyn, NY.