Turns Out, When You Write a Novel About Killing a Politician, People Tell You How They'd Do It

"When the people who are after me get here, they'll arrest me and put me on trial, or they'll disappear me to some black site. Or they won't bother with any of that and they'll just kill me. All of these seem like plausible outcomes, but in the novel's prologue, the narrator seems much more confident of her success: I am a fucking genius, a gorgeous fucking genius, and the only thing left to do is sit down and write."

"Murder Bimbo's first section, addressed to Justice Bimbo, presents one version of what's happened; a second section, written to the narrator's ex-girlfriend, recounts a very different series of events. In both versions, the narrator, a sex worker, is in a unique position: Because of her work, she has access to people in power that others lack, and in both cases, she takes advantage of it."

"This devious novel plays on the presumed reader's ingrained expectations about sex work and fantasies about political violence. The narrator is aware of what Justice Bimbo and her ex think about sex work, and she plays on those biases, a strategy that also implicates the reader."

Murder Bimbo is a debut novel featuring an unnamed female narrator, a sex worker who has assassinated a corrupt politician called "Meat Neck." The narrative is structured in three sections, each presenting different versions of events: one addressed to a podcaster called "Justice Bimbo," another to the narrator's ex-girlfriend, and a final section revealing closer approximations of truth. The narrator exploits her unique access to powerful individuals through her work and manipulates the biases of her audiences. The novel deliberately plays with reader expectations about sex work and fantasies of political violence, implicating readers in the narrator's deceptions while exploring society's complex relationship with service workers and those in power.

Read at Jezebel