First of all, if you ever intended to sit down on a beach somewhere and enjoy John Philip Sousa’s 1902 novel The Fifth String, stop reading now. This is going to be a spoiler-heavy review. (If you do want to check the book out yourself, the etext is available here.)

As you might expect from America’s foremost bandleader, the novel is about a musician. As you might NOT expect, it’s about a violinist. But it turns out that violin was Sousa’s first instrument, and always one of his best. So there.

The violinist in question is Angelo Diotti, a famous virtuoso arriving in New York to make his American debut. On the night before the performance, he attends a party and instantly falls in love with the daughter of a prominent banker:

He seemed hypnotized by the vision, which moved slowly from between the blue-tinted portieres and stood for the instant, a perfect embodiment of radiant womanhood, silhouetted against the silken drapery.

Don’t worry - I had to look up “portiere” too.

As a new blogger, mostly, what I’m worried about is picking the right subject. What is a female blogger to write about? Other media have rules for us womens, and I’m kind of lost without them.

If I were setting out to write a screenplay, for example, it would be incumbent upon me, as a female screenwriter, to write about out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The dialogue should be spry and witty, the characters quirky but attractive, the themes superficial. Write what you know, right?

Likewise, if I were a poet, I’d write about depression/oppression and die young, preferably by suicide.

I’m all about selling out and playing into stereotypes, but the one “female writer regulation” by which I cannot abide is the rule coercing vaginal novelists to entitle their books The Such and Such’s Wife or The Such and Such’s Daughter. For whatever reason, this particular commonplace really gets my goat… to vomit copiously on the carpet.