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Writer
Lauren Fox, a 1987 Nicolet High School graduate who now lives
in Shorewood, is working on her second novel.
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There are a number of reasons why
Lauren Fox’s new book, "Still Life with Husband,"
published by Knopf, is getting a look, both from the reviewers and
readers.
For readers of this magazine, it might
just be a brief passage on page 130, where the main character’s
mother talks about an article she recently read in Northshore
Lifestyle. (Northshore Lifestyle is the former name of M Magazine.)
"I did take a lot of creative
license with some of the elements in the book," says Fox.
"But that one, I think my own mother actually did call me and
tell me about it."
It’s just one of the many elements
that lets readers know that Fox’s debut novel is set in the
Milwaukee they know and love. Though Fox says she lifted "many,
many more superficial details" from her own life, the infidelity
in "Still Life With Husband" is pure fiction, and it
challenged Fox, a happily married woman with a child.
"I had this idea for the novel
several years ago," she says. "It struck me that men who
cheat on their partners receive so much attention in literature and
popular culture, but, aside from a few obvious examples, women who
stray are sort of ignored."
It took Fox five years to write the
book, though she took a break for motherhood. "I took a brief
two-year break to wallow in a cesspool of hormonal muck, then to run
around after a kamikaze toddler, then finally, when things were
slightly more under control, to sit and stare at the computer screen
and wonder where my brain had gone," she says.
The end result is a novel that’s easy
to pick up and hard to put down, and the fact that her novel is now
released still excites Fox. "Never, ever, ever did I think this
would happen," she says of her experience. "I tried for 15
years: Write, get rejected, write, get rejected. I was in default mode
for a long time."
Not anymore. She’s already started
work on a second novel.
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