Love Slave by Jennifer Spiegel {Prologue}

Jennifer Spiegel is mostly a fiction writer with three books and a miscellany of short publications, though she also teaches English and creative writing. She is part of Snotty Literati, a book-reviewing gig, with Lara Smith. She lives with her family in Arizona. Love Slave, with its slightly deceptive title, is a New York novel full of acerbic, witty, and heartbreaking moments--not to mention quite a bit of cultural critique and Gen X woe. The Freak Chronicles is a short story collection with two kinds of stories. There are Domestic Freaks, and there are Freaks Abroad. Stories are set in the U.S., South Africa, Cuba, China, and Russia. And So We Die, Having First Slept, a second novel, is about marriage, youth, middle-age, Gen X, and fidelity. Brett is older than Cash by a decade; both are world-weary--one from negotiating brain trauma and rehab and the absence of pretty boys, the other from addiction and road trips and even a Billy Graham crusade. Bath salts and babies work on their ten-year relationship, forcing them to begin again one way or another.