![]() (Lawlor has cited both Woolf’s Orlando and Ovid’s Metamorphoses as influences.) He can summon breasts and watch his penis shrink into his body to be replaced by a vulva and vagina. The main point of the plot is that Paul has a secret… he can shift between genders at will. ![]() (There is one exception: when Lawlor describes a vagina as a “slidey packet”, which we will never, ever speak of again.) The sex is mostly gloriously written – which is not an easy skill, as the annual Bad Sex in Fiction award for the most egregious passages of passion attests. The New Yorker described Lawlor’s book as “smut” and there is lots of dildo action, soaking wet knickers and spitting on hands before anal sex in bathrooms. Paul… is a story about love: finding romantic love with other people, learning to love oneself and discovering the love and acceptance of a community. One can almost feel the rattle of the cassettes and hear the click of the boombox buttons during Lawlor’s wonderful descriptions of making mixtapes for one of Paul’s partners. ![]() ![]() Some novels wear their references heavily, labouring over authenticity, but Lawlor scatters just the right amount of mentions of Levi’s 501 jeans, bands such as the Breeders and, amusingly, even the advent of latte culture. Lawlor, who is non-binary and takes the pronouns they/them, crafted Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl on and off for 15 years while teaching creative writing. ![]()
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