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Rosanna Mclaughlin
Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Articles Available Online


The Pious and the Pommery

Essay

Issue No. 18

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

Issue No. 18

I.   Where is the champagne? On second thoughts this is not entirely the right question. The champagne is in the ice trough, on...

Essay

April 2019

Ariana and the Lesbian Narcissus

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

April 2019

‘Avoid me not!’ ‘Avoid me not!’                                   Narcissus   Let me describe a GIF I’ve been watching. A lot....

It’s not easy getting cucked Contrary to the consensus online, which sees a cuck in every message board, there are few worthy pretenders to the horns This is because real cuckoldry is a lifestyle and not a label; as a kink, it involves dedication, relish, and the same hierarchy of passion that might elsewhere distinguish a connoisseur from a minor foodie True cucks – cucks who are cucks because they get cucked on purpose – practice their own abasement with care They learn the customary etiquette of betrayal, the techniques for turning an intruder into an invitee A man who watches his wife have sex with others must be an adept of masculinity’s lowlier registers – pathetic enough for a rival to best him, but not too pathetic as to dip into the danger zone of the incel, who could never marry in the first place As you can imagine, much finesse is involved   Darryl, the tragicomic cuckold of Jackie Ess’ eponymous 2021 novel, is a white man in his forties living in Eugene, Oregon He enjoys well-done hamburgers, prodigious doses of GHB, and watching other men sleep with his wife, Mindy ‘It’s like seeing a guy hit a hundred home runs at once,’ he says, and the baseball analogy is apt Under so much of American culture (its sports, its politics, its economy), there exists the startlingly crystalline structure of male competition Only in cuckoldry, however, do you win when you lose Observing his wife have sex with Bill, a masculine ideal with pro-union politics, Darryl feels an ‘ecstasy of shame,’ an ‘ocean roar feeling’ These proclivities suggest a certain generosity of spirit, or at least libido – Darryl’s pleasure exists only in hot tessellation with the pleasure of others Still, the book begins with its protagonist a little bit morose: ‘How come I can’t be like Bill,’ the cuckold complains ‘How come I can’t be like Mindy’ Desire has turned into greed for his wife’s personhood This is how we know we’re back to the same old conventions of heterosexual marriage   Darryl goes to a nearby river to overdose

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Ten Years at Garage Moscow

Art Review

November 2018

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art Review

November 2018

When I arrive in Moscow, I am picked up from the airport by Roman, a patriotic taxi driver sent to collect me courtesy of...
Becoming Alice Neel

Art

August 2017

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art

August 2017

From the first time I saw Alice Neel’s portraits, I wanted to see the world as she did. Neel was the Matisse of the...

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fiction

May 2012

Reflux

José Saramago

TR. Giovanni Pontiero

fiction

May 2012

First of all, since everything must have a beginning, even if that beginning is the final point from which...

poetry

May 2011

Two Prose Poems From 'The Sacrifice of Abraham'

Alexander Nemser

poetry

May 2011

The Rabbis   As the purple light of evening descended, women sang blessings over silver candelabra, and a group...

fiction

Issue No. 3

Fifteen Flowers

Federico Falco

TR. Janet Hendrickson

fiction

Issue No. 3

To Lilia Lardone Summer was ending. The air already smelled like smoke, but it still looked clear, sunny. The...

 

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