Dyke Aching: A Decade of Chloé Caldwell's "Women"

"Nothing can hurt you like a woman can hurt you. It sucks, but it’s addictive."

I found Dyke Aching at the ArcLight.

The sorely missed Hollywood movie theater (baby, come back!) had a cafe in the lobby with a few rows of carefully cultivated books recommended by celebrities. One was Lena Dunham who, at the height of her “Girls” fame in 2015, suggested Chloé Caldwell’s novella, “Women.” I don’t remember what Lena wrote about it at the time, but it was likely similar to the blurb that accompanies the book’s reissue:

"Chloé Caldwell's ‘Women’ is a deceptively teensy book. The tragicomic tale of the author's doomed relationship with an older woman ... perfectly captures the way good sex can make us throw anything under the bus — even our identities."

I was already fully entrenched in Sapphic Yearning when I found “Women,” and was exhilarated by the rare appearance of a middle age butch librarian with a penchant for poetry and a Virginia Woolf tattoo as the object of lust. The unnamed narrator’s desire for the older and unavailable Finn unfolds over a year’s time, with passionate emails, intimate sex and an emotional tug of war that is teased out in the Anne Carson epigraph: “Girls are cruelest to themselves.”

A slim white paper volume clocking in at only 131 pages, “Women” is easy to devour and deliciously fun to savor. Originally positioned as the tale of a straight girl “dipping her toe into the lady pond,” to borrow a phrase popularized at the time of publication, “Women” followed the heat and heartbreak of the narrator’s intense first romance with another woman. Published by a small press, “Women” went out of print in the U.S. somewhere around 2018 but maintained a cult-like worship among queer women who, through word of mouth, queer lit listicles, and “The L Word: Generation Q,” clamored to claim a copy of their own.

Ten years later, the novella has returned to print with a new publisher (Harper Perennial) replicating the famous cover with an additional quote from Hot Bisexual Emily Ratajkowski on the cover, foreword from Katie Heaney, and afterward from Caldwell, in which the author reflects on a decade of Dyke Aching and its enduring resonance for herself and others, too.

Beyond “Women,” I am a fan of Chloe’s writing and recognized the dyke in her work even when she might not have been able to see it so clearly herself. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with her on an essay I wrote about femme friendship, and took her brilliant novella writing workshop, which I highly recommend — any of her workshops, for that matter.

Chloé Caldwell was kind enough to Zoom with me the day “Women” was named a USA Today bestseller to discuss dyke dramatics, femme/masc power dynamics and writing from love.

two big dykes

I’ve been surmising what’s going on in your personal life via Instagram and other pieces you’ve been writing. From what I can tell, it seems like you're kind of back in a ‘Dyke Ache’ space.

Chloe Caldwell: Oh God, you have no idea. You have no idea! You know what's really weird — and you should put this in the Substack because I haven't talked about this yet — “Women” was literally out of print the same exact years that I was with a man. As soon as I divorced, I sell it for actual money for the first time in my entire life, and now I'm able to have it come out where I'm actually comfortable. Because when this book came out and I was 28, I was not comfortable with my identity, or with being a writer. So the timing is the most insane thing that has ever happened to me in my life, and I will always think that way. Like, I actually can't believe that this is real. Most people do not get a second chance with their book or a second chance to come out with their book, and the fact that it's exactly 10 years is wild. I divorced last May and began dating women, one of whom is leaving bad Goodreads reviews on my book as we speak. She's doing it because she knows it's meta.

She might be the one!

Yeah, that's what I thought. She's in the afterword. I'm obviously in a queer adolescence and should not be indulging in this kind of drama, but I am.

You’re an Aries, right?

Yes, are you?

No, but I’m a Sagittarius, and when I read that you were an Aries, I was like, “That completely tracks.” I know that you were originally kicking around the idea of calling the book “Dyke Aching,” and I’m curious about your relationship to the word “dyke,” both then and now, and how you think that title might have changed the trajectory of “Women.”

So, I didn't put a lot of work into this title. The title is a joke. I don't really take my writing that seriously — I probably should — but my first book, “Legs Get Led Astray,” is from a song lyric, and “I'll Tell You in Person” is from what I text people. Dyke Aching I love as a concept or a phrase, but it seemed too niche on a book, and it was hard for people to say orally. It would probably look cool on a book, but it doesn't roll off the tongue.

I think the book is about Dyke Aching, but I don't think it was the right title. “Women” was because Bukowski wrote a book called “Women,” and how come a woman can't write a book called “Women”? So that was just a total joke, and then it was just what we called it. I think it has worked for the book gaining its popularity just because it's so broad, so vague, so simple. And toward the end of the book, there is a scene with the mom saying the word “dyke” in a kind of — I don't think it's derogatory, it's just of a different generation way. I don't know if the word is in the book other than that. I don't really say that word. I like the word, and I think it depends on who's saying it and how.