Elisa Faison joins Book Gang to discuss Skin Contact, her debut exploring the impact of an open marriage on a couple and their circle.
Elisa Faison joins Book Gang to discuss Skin Contact, her debut exploring the impact of an open marriage on a couple and their circle.
This week on Book Gang, Elisa Faison—acclaimed short story writer, debut novelist, and someone living openly in a nontraditional marriage—joins us for an unflinching conversation about her novel, Skin Contact. Elisa brings rare firsthand insight to the page, drawing from her own experience to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about open marriage that have long been absent in our fiction stacks.
In this episode, we’ll talk about writing from the inside of creative work and what it means to craft intimacy and connection in this refreshing story that hits all the romance story beats. Elisa reveals how she built the intricate structure of Skin Contact, her approach to nontraditional relationships on the page, and the craft of weaving multiple storylines into a resonant whole.
In this rich conversation, we discuss:
📚 The Writing Journey & Literary Beginnings: Elisa shares her roots as a bookseller and editor, the winding path from her initial idea for Skin Contact to securing her agent and book deal, and what surprised her most about the debut journey. She reflects on outlining, the evolution of the novel’s interconnected structure, and the pivotal moments that shaped the sale of her book, including the role book scouts play in her international sales.
📚 Love, Marriage, and Literary Complexity: Elisa discusses nontraditional relationship structures, including her own experience in an open marriage and what many stories get wrong about these dynamics. She shares the craft of writing intimacy and connection, the delicate dance between genre expectations and literary ambitions, and her perspective on how literature can challenge assumptions about love and commitment.
📚 Story Structure & Creative Identity: We dive deep into Frances’s job as a ghostwriter—how invisibility, credit, and creative ownership shape her story—and what drew Elisa to this lens. Elisa discusses the challenge of writing unresolved grief and how her own experiences informed Frances’s emotional journey.
📚 FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: 17 Literary Love Stories That Linger—Discover 17 unforgettable stories that explore connection and longing, curated as the perfect companion to Skin Contact in this week’s book list. Patrons receive a printable book list, five bonus book ideas, and a bonus spoiler chat with Elisa in their inbox today.
Meet Elisa Faison
Elisa Faison is a writer and freelance editor living in Carrboro, North Carolina with her partner and two-year-old twins. She has published stories in The Missouri Review, Electric Literature, Smokelong Quarterly, and more. Her story “Motherlove” was the recipient of the 2024 Peden Prize, awarded by The Missouri Review and judged by Rachel Yoder. Her story “Group Sex” was the third most-read story of 2023 in Electric Literature. Formerly, Elisa worked as a bookseller at Flyleaf Books and as the book reviews editor at The Carolina Quarterly. She holds a PhD in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Skin Contact, this week’s featured selection, arrives June 23rd from Cardinal Press.
NEW BOOK LIST: 17 Literary Love Stories That Linger (FREE TO BROWSE ON PATREON THIS WEEK)
NEW: Download the 2026 Summer Reading Guide (57-Pages of Bookish Fun With 70 Tried-and-True Recommendations): http://buymeacoffee.com/bookgangpodcast/e/535779
2026 MomAdvice Book Club Books (All 12 Selections)
Skin Contact by Elisa Faison
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason
Thirst Trap by Gráinne O’Hare
Moderation by Elaine Castillo
Love is an Algorithm by Laura Brooke Robson
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff
The Bright Years with Sarah Damoff (Podcast Interview)
The Burning Side with Sarah Damoff (Podcast Interview)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje
Slanting Towards the Sea with Lidija Hilje(Podcast Interview)
Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff
The Best Plus Size Romance Characters to Love with Julia Murphy & Sierra Simone (Podcast Interview)
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
Elisa L Faison (00:00)
Hi, I'm Elisa Fason. I'm the author of Skin Contact.
Amy’s Warm Intro: Hey, Book Gang! Elisa Faison’s mesmerizing debut, Skin Contact, explores the emotional complexities of a couple who enter into an open marriage, revealing how this bold decision reshapes their entire world and everyone around them.
As I prepared for today’s show, I discovered that while open marriages attract a lot of cultural attention, they remain relatively uncommon. Only about 4% of partnered Americans report being in an open relationship, while the overwhelming majority still practice monogamy. Yet researchers studying more than 24,000 people found that relationship satisfaction isn't determined by whether a relationship is open or closed. Instead, factors like communication, trust, and mutual agreement appear to matter far more.
That context makes this novel’s story concept especially interesting because it is also far less concerned with the logistics of an open marriage than with its emotional consequences. Rather than focusing on bedroom spectacle, the story keeps its attention firmly on a close-knit circle of family and friends and the ripple effects of one couple's decision within the relationships that orbit them. The result is a thoughtful exploration of commitment, trust, jealousy, friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves about love.
Skin Contact opens with Frances, a freelance ghostwriter, who is assigned to complete the memoir of a B-list child actor. She once took pride in her invisible role, but when the finished book appears in stores, she discovers her name has been omitted from the acknowledgments, and the actor claims the book “baby” as their own. This betrayal awakens a surge of anger and unresolved grief in Frances—grief deeply tied to the recent loss of her parent in 2020, a well of complex emotions that permeates throughout this story.
As her creativity feels dampened, their marriage slips into the mundane, and the pandemic isolating them, Ben and Frances contemplate opening their marriage. Ben, a professor, approaches it reluctantly and academically, checking out books to understand what it all means, as though it were an exercise that could be understood through the stories of ancestors. He knows he deeply wants his wife to be her old self, and as they begin to involve new people in their relationship, he sees the joy she once carried radiate again at this prospect.
Frances falls quickly in and out of love with people, while Ben struggles, which seems satisfactory for all involved until Ben’s luck changes. When he finds a deep connection with someone at his job, just as Frances makes the decision that she wants to start a family, they find themselves at a unique crossroads that will surprise you at every turn.
What I didn't expect was that the chapter would alternate with the people in this couple's orbit. Every relationship around them transforms in unique ways. Interconnected stories weave a moving tale that goes far beyond what sounds like a merely titillating account of marriage, to the people who navigate this unique marriage structure. I marveled at how Faison lined up these chess pieces with a booming cast to bring the story to its conclusion. For those of you who love a great audiobook, Elisa shared with her readers that this novel has a full-cast audiobook to bring all these perspectives to life, which I can only imagine will enhance these shifting viewpoints.
For romance readers, this hits the traditional romance beats you have come to love, but with a strong literary-fiction core that shifts like a kaleidoscope as the stakes come together. Even readers who have no interest in open marriage may find themselves drawn to the universal questions at the heart of the novel: How do we maintain intimacy over time in our own relationships? What happens when expectations collide with reality? And how do the choices we make within a relationship affect everyone around us?
To celebrate Elisa’s novel, I have put together a fabulous new book list you can browse for free on Patreon today, featuring 17 Literary Love Stories That Linger to add to your book stack. Discover unforgettable stories that explore connection and longing, including my God-Tier love stories that I wish every reader would read. Patrons receive a printable book list, five bonus book ideas, and a bonus spoiler chat with Elisa in their inbox today.
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast, and I’m so happy to have you. This show celebrates debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar book gems. It is my honor to continue my full immersion into the 2026 Summer Reading Guide as we celebrate some of my favorite books from this year’s selections.
This special guide is available for purchase, offering a handpicked collection of 70 carefully selected titles—upcoming releases, buzzy debuts, and new-to-me backlist treasures—across 57 pages designed to help you build your perfect summer stack. You will receive it as an instant download for $7, and that purchase allows us to keep our lights on at Book Gang.
This is my final reminder that next week, we will be celebrating Woodworking by Emily St. James for Pride Month. This moving debut explores trans identity and self-acceptance, set in a small town in South Dakota, and I can’t wait to discuss what we learn from this novel. Join us for our Zoom discussion on June 25th at 8 PM ET—membership is just $5 a month, with a 10% discount for annual signups.
Now, let’s meet this week’s guest: Elisa Faison is a writer and freelance editor living in North Carolina with her partner and two-year-old twins. She has published stories in The Missouri Review, Electric Literature, Smokelong Quarterly, and more. Formerly, Elisa worked as a bookseller at Flyleaf Books and as the book reviews editor at The Carolina Quarterly. She holds a PhD in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill0.
Skin Contact, this week’s featured debut selection, is on store shelves on Tuesday, June 23rd, from Cardinal Press and is available for pre-order!
If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a review on iTunes—it’s a quick, free way to support what we do. And to our patrons who keep the lights on at Book Gang: I hope you can always chase your own happily ever after in your book stacks and beyond. Thank you for supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI. Now let’s get chatting!
(Transition Music)
Amy Clark (00:05)
Elisa, I am so excited to have you here. I was going through your past work and what you have done before. I know you have a very rich history in the book world. And I was thinking, who better to tell us some ideas for our summer reading guide than you? Can you tell us a little bit about your time as a bookseller and what you've been loving lately?
Elisa L Faison (00:28)
Absolutely, and this is my favorite task. So it should be included in the love languages. Let me recommend a book to you. Yeah, I worked as a bookseller right after I finished graduate school, and it was so good. It's such a good job. You just get to read advanced copies of books. You get to read all the time, recommend. I, like at the time, was reading pretty much only books about marriage and open marriages and bisexual women and women who are going crazy after they became a mom. That was really big in 2021 and still is. So my favorite book I read at that time that is always my go-to recommendation is called Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason.
Amy Clark (01:04)
Yes, it was! It was a whole trend! Yes, yes. Well, I haven't, but I have seen the video with the author and Anne Patchett has recommended it on Parnassus Books. Okay.
Elisa L Faison (01:19)
She's amazing. And it's a good recommendation for right now because her, I think it's actually her third novel. Her next novel is coming out in September. Sophie, Standing There is coming up. And Sorrow and Bliss, probably one of my favorite books. Very hard to narrow it down, but I always recommend it.
I just also read a wonderful book that's a good summer read, Thirst Trap by Gráinne O'Hare. There's their, you know, if you like an Irish accent. The audio book is very good. It's excellent. It's three friends kind of grieving the loss of a friend and going through their 30 year old midlife crisis, you know. It's really, really great, beautifully written. My favorite book I've read this year so far is probably Moderation by Elaine Castillo, Castilla.
I'm not actually sure how to pronounce her name. It was so good. Secret romance. It's set in the... The main character is very kind of self-protective and sarcastic and kind of distant. And you just watch her ostensibly... It's a book about her getting this kind of new job at a virtual reality as a content moderator.
So it's kind of dark, but then it just turns into this really beautiful romance. It's really a great book.
Amy Clark (02:46)
Okay. Yeah. I just read one that had a very interesting AI slant. It will be in our summer reading guide, so you may encounter it when you open it up and it's called Love is an Algorithm. I don't think people knew what they were getting into. Like, I feel like the review feedback is kind of, I thought it was going to be dystopian or I thought it was going to be a romance. And I would say it's like more, a little bit in the lit fic space.
But it's about basically this couple who, one of them is starting an app that's a dating app that is supposed to help you find your perfect partner, but he meets this girl and she's perfect for him. And then basically he's like, well, if that's the goal of the app, then I don't really need it anymore. But what if, you know, through his own anxiety, this app could adjust to like, continue to create the perfect partner. Like I would adjust myself and like I would be able to ask the perfect questions. And he starts to use this coach called Bug in the app and they are starting to match better and better. You know, he's adjusting, course correcting.
And meanwhile, she's like an indie music artist and they are starting their own career. And basically her music isn't taking off and AI becomes an accessible thing with her music. And she decides to allow a little bit of adjustment with AI, it becomes a big hit, and then it starts to cloud. Like, is this relationship successful because of AI? Is it in spite of AI? Is AI, you know, is my career only because of AI? And honestly, it was so thought provoking and so unusual and not what I was thinking I was getting into. And I just kept talking to my husband, like, no matter what, our lives are transformed by this, whether we choose it in our life or not.
And I love these more high tech explorations. So when you're talking about moderation, I'm like, that almost sits in that same wheelhouse of where things are going in different ways.
Elisa L Faison (04:46)
Yeah, it does. That book sounds great. Yes.
Amy Clark (04:50)
It’s really good on audio. It's just such a genre bender. It was like I have no idea why I haven't seen more talk about it so I loved it. I absolutely loved it and I love this book so I want to talk about your book. Let's talk about it. So obviously this book I had the wonderful idea to just DM you like live and be like, I'm reading your book now and I'll get back to you. And I was like, I love this. I know it's such a weird time that you can actually just DM an author and be like, hey, I'm reading your book. I just wanted to let you know and give someone specific feedback about how special this book is. I want to start out with your writing journey. Can you tell me about the seeds for this story?
Elisa L Faison (05:18)
Yeah, I'm so actually excited to talk about that. So if you've said you'd looked at some of my other writing, you'll have seen that I have earlier published some of these as standalone short stories, some of the chapters from Skin Contact. So I started writing a short story in 2021, I think it was. I was working as a bookseller and I had another novel that was out on submission with a different agent at the time. I was waiting to hear, I was very anxious about it. It ended up kind of not going anywhere and we can talk about that if you want to or skip it.
Amy Clark (06:09)
Okay. Yeah, talk about it. Why did it not go anywhere?
Elisa L Faison (06:21)
So I wrote, maybe like everyone in the world. I wrote a novel in 2020 during COVID lockdown. Yes, you've met a lot of us. I was supposed to be working on my for my PhD. I really didn't want to be working on my dissertation. So I wrote kind of a I would say it's like a little bit more literary than like an average kind of rom-com, but it had like seeds of rom-com. It was just fun to write. I was kind of like also put, you know, poured some of my personal like feelings into it. I wrote it.
I was also interning at the time at Algonquin Books as an editorial assistant and my supervisor who was an editor there, she read it and she really loved it and she brought it to the team. And so there was some talk about publication there. She ended up leaving Algonquin and the agent who I just signed with ended up leaving the agency too. I know. So you can imagine how I felt. I was really devastated at the time. I was kind of dealing with the fallout of that and thinking like, you know, I gotta just write something else. And I was - this is getting so convoluted. Should I go back to…
Amy Clark (07:41)
No. No! It's not convoluted. Keep going. Keep going.
Elisa L Faison (08:03)
Okay, sorry. I was kind of waiting to hear about the other book. I was working as a bookseller and I was also just in the process of opening my marriage. So that was on a personal level. I was kind of opening my marriage and figuring some things out. I was reading a lot about marriage. I love a marriage plot. I always have. And I was finding myself kind of frustrated because a lot in 2021, 2022, a lot of things that were available about open marriage were memoirs mostly. And many of them ended up also being divorce memoirs or abuse memoirs.
And I read some literary fiction that included open marriage, bisexuality, and it all felt a little bit more like the sort of classic marriage in crisis, you know. No book that I had read in other And it didn't feel representative of sort of my experience of that discussion and...
And I was having a hard time too kind of locating my experience in some of the books I was reading about bisexual women. I found some really like some of my favorite books I read during this time and they were all women who identified as bisexual and then the books were always about them dating men.
Amy Clark (09:17)
Right, I know. I knew where this was going. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Elisa L Faison (09:29)
Right? Yes, they're all, you know, it's kind of a character trait, but it's not really explored. And so I started working on a short story kind of just see what that would look like, right? You know, see what does it look like to write something that felt more familiar to me, you know, different from my experience, but a bit more reflective of that. And that ended up being Mother Love, which is the first chapter of Skin Contact.
And so I finished that story. I had some really nice feedback about it. I thought, okay, let's just keep writing something else to distract myself, you know, from the submission process for the other book. I ended up pulling my novel from submission at some point and feeling a bit at a loose end. And I couldn't stop thinking about these characters that I had written. And so I wrote another story about both of them, and that was Group Sex. Which is also slightly different, but a chapter now in Skin Contact, kind of expanding, exploring what happened to them. I then thought, what about this other character? So it kind of all fell together piece by piece. After about three or four stories, I thought, okay, maybe this is a novel. So I tried to kind of piece together a timeline and even though I had the feeling that maybe this was a novel, it never reformed in my mind into a more traditional kind of novel structure. I ended up writing all of these and querying it ultimately again as interconnected short stories. So that's how I...
Amy Clark (11:06)
What was your comps? Do you remember?
Elisa L Faison (11:09)
Yes, I do. I think I comped it to, I think I comped it in structure. I think I mentioned Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, which is incredibly like shoot for the stars, by the way. Yes, but I mostly comped it to, I comped it thematically more than structurally. So my comps, I believe were Vladimir by Julia May Jonas, now a very fun show on Netflix. And Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman.
Amy Clark (11:39)
Okay, I haven't read that.
Elisa L Faison (11:47)
Yeah, it's great. And I think that's how I comped it. But then I said, know, it's kind of structurally more in this Visit From The Goon Squad interconnected short story kind of structure. And I just had this feeling when I was querying it that everyone was gonna say, no short stories don't sell, which they kind of did say.
But I thought they would all say, short stories don't sell. Let's go back to Mother Love and Group Sex and write this as a kind of third-person perspective, more focused story about Ben and I don't know what would have happened, I guess, if every single person had said that to me. But I was dreading that. I didn't want to do that. I really wanted the structure of the novel to mirror the kind of the feeling of flipping through a dating app, you know, or like having a crush on someone and getting really invested. And then, you know, it doesn't work out and you have to not see them again. Right. Or you see them from far away at the grocery store and you get a little glimpse. That felt really interesting to me to think about how the structure of a marriage novel could change in an open marriage story.
Then, you so my idea when I was putting it together as like one piece was to have the kind of other perspective chapters be different people Ben and Frances had dated. But then I kept being like, but what about the friends? And like, ooh, but what about their mom? You know, what about her grandmother?
After a while of doing that, I thought that felt just as accurate to me too. There's something about the process of opening your marriage that it does affect your community, your friends become very curious or concerned and it becomes a more public kind of undertaking. And I liked the idea of bringing all of those characters into the kind of like loving structure I was trying to put together.
Amy Clark (14:03)
Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking about so the interconnected short story aspect to the story is really why I wanted to bring you on because it was so fascinating to me. It wasn't what I was expecting and I hate short stories so I like if I knew it was going to be that experience I would be like probably not for me and I think this is yeah. I feel so bad, but also like I have been witness to people being told that certain things don't sell and then watching the ripple effects after.
So Sarah Damoff, for example, The Bright Years became, you know, an incredible novel that's gotten a lot of acclaim. I love this book, but she originally wrote that story in epistolary format thinking, I want it to be a book of letters. And it actually helped her draft because she could look back on her memories of what she created in these letters. However, guess what? The Correspondent has been a great hit. I don't know if you guys have heard of this book that everyone has been picking up. And so I'm excited to talk to her about like, she was guided that that would not sell. I actually think it's really wonderful that her book didn't come out simultaneously with that book because then it would, you know, of course, garner comparisons that were unnecessary and her book stood on its own. But it's interesting how writers are being guided that certain structures don't work. And I know many of my readers love interconnected short stories as a format. We've had other authors on here that I've really enjoyed it, but it's always like one of those happy surprise things for me as a reader.
Elisa L Faison (15:18)
Yeah. I'm so glad, I love them. I will pick up any interconnected short story. I think it makes me feel like an investigator. You know, I'm like, that's the guy from the other one. It makes me feel very involved.
Amy Clark (15:43)
Yeah. Okay, so this was a very hard fought book. Tell me about the day that you found out it sold and then how you celebrated or if you did anything special.
Elisa L Faison (15:54)
Oh my gosh. I, by the time it's... Oh, it was a crazy day.
Amy Clark (16:03)
Tell me about it.
Elisa L Faison (16:18)
So, well, by the time that it sold, I was staying at home with 11-month-old twins. So it was a different kind of time in my life than when I was really working on it and able to kind of pour myself into it. And I had quite a turn around book. I queried it. I started querying it in July and then it sold. got I was very lucky to have several offers of agents to choose from. I love my agent. She's wonderful.
And everyone is so wonderful that reached out to me. She sold the novel in September of that year. So it was very quick. Yes. And I knew it was on submission. It was on submission for about two weeks, which is so short. And it was like the longest two weeks of my entire life. I was just sitting around, like, refreshing my email, refreshing my email.
Yeah, my agent called me to tell me that she had a really good meeting with an editor. And it was not someone that we had submitted to. Interesting. A scout, which there's so many things you don't know about publishing until you're in it. I had never heard of a book scout.
Amy Clark (17:28)
Yeah. And what's a book scout for listeners? Explain what that is.
Elisa L Faison (17:34)
So it's kind of like an international spy of books. It's very cool. I want to be one. Basically, these are people who they kind of hear about manuscripts that are getting talked about and go ahead and inform, oftentimes, editors that they have contacts with in other countries. So they kind of get the word out to other editors, know, who should you pay attention to that might, you might hear their name down the grapevine at the London Book Fair or whatever. And they’re passing information and passing your manuscript around. Very interesting.
There's this, was, you know, this little fairy godmother out there for me, this book scout had gotten her hands on my manuscript and really loved it. And she had passed it along to her kind of editor that she worked with in the UK. And he had a very close connection with this editor here in the US who is my editor at Cardinal, Cardinal Books, Regan Arthur. And they ended up buying it together. So I had an interesting kind of joint deal with the US and the UK. And I'm with Federico Andornito at Scepter in the UK.
So it was interesting, I got the call my agent was going into talks with them husband Will is a nurse so he is home with the kids too like a lot of the time we kind of were sharing this like stay at home time and he was home, he was like, you need to leave, like go do something, like don't just sit here. I remember I went and took a yoga class, I had my phone down by my mat, I was like, what if she calls, what if she, she didn't. She called a few hours later with the offer for the preempt and oh my gosh, I was just over the moon, I was so excited and I was so tired, because I had these twins at home and yeah, I just felt insane. It was was really, really very special and affirming and overwhelming in the best way.
Amy Clark (19:47)
Did you get to do anything to celebrate after once you heard?
Elisa L Faison (19:51)
My gosh, I think I came home with a bottle of champagne or something and we stayed up too late, me and my partner, and I think we planned something to go out and celebrate later, but you gotta find the babysitter, you gotta do the whole thing. It took some time.
Amy Clark (19:53)
Nice. Yeah. Well, for anyone who's listening, who's like in the thick of the debut process, do you have any advice for them?
Elisa L Faison (20:14)
Gosh, the debut, the debut process, it has been so long. It's longer than I thought it would be, you know, a year and a half. I've been kind of waiting. And that all felt fine to me until about, until it turned 2026, right? And that's, you my debut that's when I started like just, you know, I did feel like I was like dating. I was just like refreshing email all the time, like checking my phone all the time. Like, is someone going to get in touch with me? Does someone need me to do something for the book?
And I think I would say the best thing that has happened to me is that I have just started writing another one. So a lot of people give that advice. But it has been the best thing for me. My brain is almost totally in the next book most of the time now. So it's a little bit less, less chaos-y in there for the Skin Contact debut.
Amy Clark (21:08)
Okay, well that's amazing. All right, so we're gonna dig into your plot. I just want to preface, I don't know anything about open marriage at all. This is actually maybe one of my first books that I have read about it. And I am a proud LGBTQI+ ally, like I'm here for all the people and that's very well known in this community. I have a child in the community and I'm also the sister to someone in the community and witness to a lot of different ways that marriages work and don't work, you know, frankly. And so this was my introduction to it. And this is going to be new for everyone who's listening. And so I wanna start out with the fact this is, I thought maybe it might be a little bit more scandalous or salacious than maybe what I was going to get into. And so I just want to assure the reader that that's not the kind of story. It actually hits the romance beats. Do you, did you realize you were doing that when you wrote it? Like that you're hitting all the romance beats with this? Okay.
Elisa L Faison (21:56)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, I just grew up watching, you know, the Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, rom-coms, you know, I'm a huge, huge fan. I'm a, you know, an occasional romance reader, huge rom-com fan. like I said, marriage plot. You know, I'm the girl who was like in the corner of your high school reading Jane Eyre and like crying. yes. Yes, I love a yes, it was very intentional to kind of hit some of those beats.
Amy Clark (22:34)
Yeah, because I wasn't expecting that. that's also like, so every way that this book hit, I was like, this is all a whole surprise. Like, I don't know what I thought I was getting into. And it was so like refreshing. But your story really starts with Frances. And she is mourning a loss at the beginning of the story. And she is a ghostwriter, which is just an interesting profession in general, but her labor is essential in the book world, but often invisible. And I think one of the smartest scenes you did is weave in that she writes a project for someone else and she goes, you know, to look at the acknowledgments and is not acknowledged in any way. And I wanted to talk about the ownership of this story and why you were drawn to maybe this professional lens as something for readers to take in about her backstory.
Elisa L Faison (23:40)
Yeah, I think it felt like the right profession for Frances. For me, on like a thematic note, right? She's someone She's starting to feel kind of erased in general. She is only 30, but she
Amy Clark (24:00)
Yeah, I remember that. Wait, how old are you? You're still very young, my friend. You're a child,
Elisa L Faison (24:13)
I am older, yes. I mean, I am 36. I'll be 37 soon. I'm still a baby, I do know. But you know, I in fact heard someone say like, do I want to read a book about a 30 year old? About this book? I know.
Amy Clark (24:19)
I know, I will say I don't want to read books about 20 year olds. I'm sorry if you wrote a book about a 20 year old. I don't really care about that anymore. It's like a whole bunch of mess I'm not used to. And also I'm seeing it through the lens of a parent now because my kids are in their twenties. So like, I don't, I don't want to know what kind of mess is going on with that.
But the thirties, I feel like that's okay. That's still like stretching me a bit because I'm nearing 50, but I remember my thirties being of like my 20s a little chaotic and messy as well.
Elisa L Faison (24:50)
You can still feel chaotic and messy, but you're also kind of getting this messaging that you're like an adult now, right? You've sort of turned the corner. You're no longer sort of like the hot demographic. And I think, especially for women and something that Frances is feeling, this feeling that you're looking in the mirror and you look the same, right? But like, those are those gray hairs are there, like have I always had that wrinkle or like, that kind of stuff starts to happening, it starts to happen. And it's something that Frances is really focused on, particularly because, you know, her mom has just died in the first pages of the book. And so she's kind of feeling like she's suddenly going through this incredibly adult thing. She feels too young for that to have happened.
And I think one of the early things that she says is that she walks around and fewer people are looking at her. She's not really commanding attention from that kind physical, sexual standpoint as much as she once did. So she's feeling like she's getting erased. Her mom is gone. And she, in her profession, is a ghostwriter, right?
There's this sense that she's putting herself out there, putting this work out there, and not getting recognition. And one thing I wanted to explore thematically in the book is not just how that kind of experience of aging as a woman can make you, or anyone. I think we talk about it a lot for women, particularly, can make you feel erased or not acknowledged.
But something I was interested in is women's work in general. You know, Frances has a kind of creative career and she has a career outside of kind of wifehood, motherhood. But it's something I wanted to think about across the book. And there are other characters who feel very mired in wifehood and motherhood and how much invisible labor is done to keep your house functioning and keep your children safe offer a safe environment for your child to feel like they can push boundaries or be the focus, be the center of attention. So that was something I wanted to think about with ghost writing.
Amy Clark (27:16)
Yeah, that, you know, talking about the aging thing, it reminds me of Slanting Towards the Sea. So Lidija Hilje's book also, that her catalyst and spoiler alert, if it just happens at the beginning, but her catalyst is finding a gray pubic hair, right? And this sends her in a spiral, right? It's like, I was like, I've never seen that represented in a story. In fact, I don't even know if I ever thought about it. But it is like so transformative.
Yeah, now you will confront it, okay? We have marked this as a pivotal moment, but you know, there's a lot about aging that we aren't told or we don't know about, you I'm navigating menopause now. Like, nobody's told me anything about that, but we all learn this. We all have to go through this experience and maybe we see the women that are older in our lives also going through these same kinds of transformations. So you're right. She's going through a lot of changes. She has the grief. She's lost a parent in 2020 and that really also adds another big layer to her story. How did you approach writing grief that you have on the page. It's ongoing throughout and also why is grief also the catalyst for her wanting to do new things in her marriage?
Elisa L Faison (28:32)
That's such a good question. This is a little sidebar, I guess, quickly. I wrote a very short story and the editor responded, you know, why are you always writing about grief? Why is all of your writing about sex actually about grief? I thought, this is not about grief. And I looked in it, and it really was. Yeah, wow, gosh, it really something that I think the grief aspect of Skin Contact, it's of course something I did intentionally as the catalyst, right? It's very positioned that Frances is pushing back against her grief by sort of wanting to feel more alive, right, and dating again and kind of reviving a certain part of herself that she's afraid of losing. But it also just like seems to flow out of me.
I'd also in some, you know, sometimes I think I'm just sitting there and suddenly I'm writing about grief and started writing this book in 2021 and my mom died in 2021. So a lot of that is reflective of just what I was feeling at the time. You can tell I've put a lot of my emotions into the book, even though, like to be clear, fiction. But yes, but I don't know how you can write, I don't know how you can write anything. I mean, this next book I'm writing now is like completely you know you would look at it and be like that's not Elisa's life but it's just myself you know you kind of process your emotions on the page or or maybe they feel realer when you write them out at least it does for me but my experience of grief you know shaped me and continues to and it doesn't take its own shape. Like it changes and sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not there. I had a very different relationship with my mom than Frances has with hers in the book and a more complicated one. So, you know, sometimes it comes out as like regular total sadness and then sometimes it's anger and sometimes it's just like a kind of blankness and I hope that in the book it doesn't read as a linear, you know, kind of process. Like this happens and then there's, you know, Frances's response to it, you know, I think it just changes and weaves and that was what I hoped would come forward in the book about it.
Amy Clark (31:10)
Yeah. I feel like it's like humming in the backdrop, right? You know that that's in there. It doesn't go away for the person who's grieving someone that they've lost, especially, you know, in this time period, there's so much to grieve, right? It's not just this. I mean, this is a time of transition for so many people who were going through the pandemic. So it really just layers on several different kinds of things. We were all mourning different things. So that's something that no matter if you've lost a parent or not, can tap into what did you lose? Like that's something book clubs could talk about is what is the grief that you were carrying or what grief are you still holding? I mean, many of us have not processed a lot of things that have gone on and it's just kind of humming in the backdrop of our lives. So I can see that for Frances in the story. Now we're going to talk about how they open up the marriage. So this is you know, a process that I found really intriguing are the ways that this couple in particular have two different approaches to it. I think that Ben strikes me as an academic. So he's getting books. He's trying to figure out why this would be presented. It seems very much like let's just be very analytical about it. And Frances is moving very emotionally and she's jumping into things very quickly, whereas he is, you know, being more measured, more grounded. So what details did you have fun seeding into this marriage and the playground that you wanted to create for them as they are trying something different in their marriage? Now how many years have this couple been married just for the backdrop for the reader?
Elisa L Faison (32:40)
Hahaha. They've been married, I guess I don't have an exact firm number, but I would say they've been married five, six years, a significant number. And they've known each other since college. That's clear in the book. They've known each other since college. They've been together since just after college. So it's a long relationship by the time they open up their marriage.
Amy Clark (33:01)
A while. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so let's talk about their different approaches.
Elisa L Faison (33:22)
It was so fun to write those approaches. And I'm so happy that you picked it up so clearly. I had someone, because I have been open, that I am in an open marriage. So I had someone read the book who doesn't know me or my partner very well and say, gosh, I'm really sorry. I really related to Ben more than Frances which made me laugh so much because I wanted to just say, those are both me.
I had fun picking my own self apart and kind of like how I approach things emotionally and how I approach things analytically. I'm a researcher also, and so I had fun a little bit making fun of Ben and how concerned he is with saying the right thing and doing the right thing. And I try to add little details and he's always kind of modifying his behavior or his word choice to kind of say the exact right word and making sure very, I really, I'm trying to think of a different phrase in this, like politically correct, which I think is a, you know, complicated phrase, but he very much wants to be correct in how he refers to things and things about things.
And yeah, Frances is just going, like flying with her with her heart, breaking her heart, you know, roving through. I think she is a very kind of intellectually probing person, but she wants to understand her emotions, right? She wants to understand why she feels certain ways, she doesn't necessarily want to know the right way to do something.
Amy Clark (35:12)
I love it. Well, I loved that you had these like two different approaches and I think that's interesting that, you know, those are both held within your own heart. Because, you know, obviously, one might think that there are two different approaches to this task. But yeah, I love that aspect of it. You know, I do think that would be difficult to maybe write the intimacy into the scenes and make it not a spectacle, right? I think that maybe some readers are going into it. Maybe some readers are going into it for the spectacle and then they're finding out that there's like so much more of an emotional layer to the story. Can you talk to me about how you wanted to really build that for the reader, this experience? And also knowing that many of us don't know anything about any of this, you know, what do you think is being told maybe incorrectly in stories that you've read?
Elisa L Faison (36:13)
Great question. I mean, I love the spectacle question. One thing that felt really important to me is that the reader felt in an intimate way. I think the best stories about marriages are often first person perspective. You often are right with one of the participants of the marriage. In really great marriage books like Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. You get both sides and the perspectives are both incredibly different, but it's sort of two first person stories where you as a reader feel really included.
And as I mentioned earlier, you know, I felt resistant to the idea of looking at Ben and Frances' marriage through a kind of third person perspective that would let me jump around between characters the way I was, but keeping it a bit more distanced. To me, that might've offered a bit more spectacle, to be kind of situated outside and seeing these sex scenes just as like a movie, right? Like with a description of exactly what's happening. That's something I have to work on when I edit is that you write a sex scene and you're describing, there's only so many words for certain things. So you have to be really intentional. And yeah, right?
It can, like the first time you draft a sex scene, it can be really embarrassing to read back and very kind of like movie language, like exactly what you would see from the outside. And so one thing I try to do when I edit is to focus in on the feeling, the emotion of the character who is, you know, who we're embodying and kind of reading that. I think almost all of the sex scenes are in the first person or many of them are. I wanted to do that because I wanted the reader to feel involved in the intimacy and not like that they're kind of like rubbernecking on the scene.
As regards to like setting up the open marriage, you know, something that I have seen in other books about open marriage is that there's kind of often a long chapter or scene where they're kind of making the rules or they're setting the boundaries for themselves and for the reader. And that's super important, right? it wasn't necessarily something that I wanted to make so explicit in Skin Contact, so I don't really have that scene. There are some scenes where they argue about boundaries and rules later on. I wanted the reader not to have it kind of like laid out like a plan in front of them. I just wanted them to like be with these characters at certain kind of specific or key moments to feel their way through it.
The same way that I think that the characters have to feel their way through it. You can sit down and make a big plan and it turns out it doesn't feel good or it doesn't feel right and then you have to rethink it and figure out what really works and feels good. You know, that's the difference with Ben and Frances too. You know, Ben wants to read the books and make the plan. Frances needs to kind of feel her way through it more and I think both are important, right? You need both of those.
Amy Clark (39:31)
Yeah, it's so interesting when you talk about the spice scenes. Obviously, I have gotten the chance to talk to a few romance authors and one of my favorites was getting to talk to Julie Murphy and Ciara Simone who co-write very spicy romances together. They have a thesaurus where they like put words, yeah, to carry around with them. But if they hear like a word and they're like, that would be a great one for thrust or whatever, like you have like a few new words and come into play. And I think like some of these words are like things that you often, especially if you're doing romance, I mean, you're you have the same exact scenes, you know, but how do I tell this in a brand new way? Every single book.
That's hard to do. I mean, there's only so many ways to tell a story, but you have to find a new vocabulary, whether that's like watching movies or being inspired by other writers or, you know, just coming up with your own new vocabulary that's just for you. I think it's really fascinating.
Elisa L Faison (40:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to avoid using too many words by just being like, here's what they're feeling at the time, or here's what they're thinking at the time. You've to go inside.
Amy Clark (40:53)
Yes. Well, this novel alternates chapters beyond our central couple. It's almost like getting a little bit of gossip to be in the reader's orbit outside of like, what do other people think? How does this change their viewpoint on their own relationships, other decisions? Do you have any particular viewpoint that was a favorite to write for this story?
Elisa L Faison (41:03)
Yeah. I had so much fun writing everyone's perspective. This is quite outside of the sort of main couple, but probably my favorite chapter to write was one from Annie's perspective, she is Lily's friend who's pregnant. I thought her perspective to me was one of the more fun, funny ones to write, but I had a great time writing her friend, Gina. She has a chapter in which she's just so irritated with Frances, always talking about her open marriage. And I really loved writing that one because I love you know, we're in Frances's point of view quite a lot, not all the time, but I really liked writing her from the outside perspective, because she comes across very differently in those chapters. Yeah, I had fun making fun of her a little bit.
Amy Clark (42:15)
My gosh, I love this so much. Elisa, if people pick this book for their book club, what would you like to see them discussing from the story?
Elisa L Faison (42:27)
Please read it in your book club. Talk about anything you want.
Something that I was trying to figure out when I was writing, I really wanted to include the perspectives of Frances's grandmother and mother, in addition to Frances. And something that I hope that something I hope you might talk about in your book club is different generational opinions or different generational perspectives on fidelity and adultery and boundaries and partnership. And I really wanted to explore the differences in what feels like a successful marriage or a successful relationship with Frances's grandmother and her mother and herself.
And I also wanted to explore what has to be hidden. Privacy and publicity in the kind of open marriage. What is kept to the chest? What is kept private in a relationship? Is that all, you know, is it always good to keep things hidden? Or can it be productive to kind of air out your dirty laundry, right? There's a lot of different opinions in the marriages that I write about, about what should be shared, what shouldn't be shared. And the fact that there's really not an answer to that question, right?
Everyone does it differently. Everyone thinks about these things differently. And that's generational and inflected through many other forms of identity too.
Amy Clark (44:06)
Yes. Well, I'm so glad that we have this book to think about those kinds of things and patrons, if you are part of our community, you get to enjoy a spoiler chat with Elisa. It's on the other side of the paywall. It's $5 and that keeps us commercial free and gives space to debut novelists like her to come and tell their stories.
But before we get to that part, I just get to ask you like what you're feeling proud of, whether it's with your career or with anything else in your life and also to share how wonderful I am thankful I am that I took a chance on a book that would have probably never been in my stack. The interconnected short stories. Yes, I do actually like that. I like learning about other people's experiences. I do really enjoy traveling to other places through literary fiction. This is such a great book for people who are trying to understand this kind of scenario. Thank you. And I would love to hear what you're feeling proud of right now.
Elisa L Faison (45:13)
Thank you. I feel so professionally proud, right? I'm so proud of this book. I'm so proud. Gosh, anytime someone finds even one thing they like about it, I feel so proud. Or one thing that they thought about when they read it. I feel incredibly proud of that. I'm very proud of the next work that I've been doing. I hope that you will see, you know, another novel from me that I've been working hard on.
You know, maybe, gosh, this is maybe gonna just be the most boring answer. I just have these two beautiful two and a half year old twins. I'm just so proud of them. They are becoming imaginative and empathetic and sweet and kind. And I am so proud to have raised them and to have done that alongside this other pursuit. I feel very lucky to have been able to do both of those things at the same time.
Amy Clark (46:08)
Moms always say how proud they are of their kids in this section and I'm really proud of you and your kids. That's awesome.
Elisa L Faison (46:12)
Yeah, it's so boring.
Amy Clark (46:17)
It's so good though. I can always see that in my writers and how much they love their children because I'm always like, but also about you. Like this is really about you and what a special thing that their mother is an author now and I know how hard fought it was. So it has been a pleasure to get to host you in the space listeners. If you want to follow us on the other side, I'll meet you over there with Elisa.
Elisa L Faison (46:28)
Thank you.
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