A PLAY ABOUT A CURSE

A fledgling playwright vows to destroy her mentor.

When 23-year-old Corey Cordele graduates from the Theatre Conservatory in Dallas, her advisor, award-winning playwright Maxine Due, buys her dinner to celebrate. Now that she’s no longer Max’s student, Corey assumes they’ll be friends and that Max will use her status as “one of the few living main characters in the American theatre” to help launch Corey’s career. Instead, Max reveals that she will be leaving Texas because another former student, Daniel Cho, has offered her a playwriting residency at the Chicago theater where he’s artistic director. When Max doesn’t offer to take Corey with her, Corey lashes out, calling Max a “two-faced snake.” Max expresses disappointment in Corey, saying, “Middle-aged women need opportunities, too. It’s not all about you.” Enraged, Corey flees the restaurant and starts running, stopping only when she feels the pull of French clairvoyant Mélusine’s strip mall storefront. After surveying the shop’s menu of services, Corey strikes a deal with Mélusine to place a curse on Max. Feeling empowered, Corey then reaches out to Daniel Cho and—unbeknownst to Max—finagles a deal identical to her teacher’s, complete with a bedroom in the apartment where Max will be staying. Months later, when the women reunite in Chicago, it’s clear to Corey that Mélusine’s dark magic is working: Max’s mood is manic, her health is deteriorating, and her self-confidence is gone. Corey is unwilling to leave anything to chance, however, and embarks on a campaign to gaslight the woman into madness. This inventive novel adopts the structure of a three-act, two-interlude play, complete with dialogue blocks, stage directions, and scene breaks, but also incorporates swaths of fever dream–like exposition rendered in technicolor prose. Macon Fleischer may not exactly earn Corey’s blind vengeance, but as Corey herself observes, “playgoers [are] more willing to take a story at face value,” and that’s what readers become as the story progresses.

A searing caricature of fraught female friendship.