Breaststrokes: a novel
and a recipe for marrow ravioli
Hello, friends of the Onion Papers. Today’s newsletter is a special edition as I’m excited to say that my second novel, Breaststrokes, has a cover and will publish on 9th May 2024. I’ve loved writing this novel and I’m really happy to be able to share more details – and to celebrate with a good pasta! – with you.
Breaststrokes is a novel about desire and consent, told in five acts and over the course of one weekend. This is a novel I wrote to question the linear hierarchy of consent in our society – a response to the unchallenged duality between good and villain – through associations and repetitions. It wasn’t an easy novel to write; but life in a sexualised body isn’t any easier.
The novel follows Cloe, Gertrude and her sad-girl sourdough, sisters Mathi and Sarah bird. They are four women, whose lives will overlap on a Sunday to remind them there is never only one side to a story. I’m excited and nervous for you to meet them.
If you’d like to get to know them, I hope you'll consider pre-ordering Breaststrokes at one of the retailers listed here, such as Bookshop.org, Waterstones, or at your favourite bookshop.
I appreciate the month of May feels far away, but publishing is an odd affair.
So, why do pre-orders matter?
The lovely chat: it’s genuinely encouraging to know that some readers are looking forward to reading the book. Writing a novel is a years-long journey, and you’re the finishing line – oh, beautiful sight! – that energises me and makes me feel grateful.
The honest chat: I’ve got to pay my bills and to eat. Publishing is a capitalist business and pre-orders are a way for publishers and booksellers to gauge how much appetite there is for a book/an author. Most of the decisions that will impact how well a book does in terms of visibility and sales (think marketing and publicity budgets, placement in bookshops), are made before publication day. I realise this is a big ask, especially these days, but if you want an author to do well, then it’s important that you support them as early as possible with a pre-order.
The follow-up syndrome: authors only get to ‘debut’ once. This makes me worried about the future of the literary scene because, as with any craft, writers get better with practice. Yet, a consumerist world means that most of trade publishers’ resources are invested in debuts and brands, and this is when we authors need our readers to show up more than ever.
I’m often asked if there is a best shop to pre-order a book from. The short answer is no; each copy sold is helpful for an author’s career. Some retailers are especially key in the UK, like Waterstones; others are helpful with online visibility and the algorithm behind it, like, I dare say, Amazon; indie bookshops are crucial to our industry, in securing its humanity and diversity. That is to say that ‘no’ is the short and pragmatic answer, but if your current situation allows you to, then please consider pre-ordering Breaststrokes from an indie bookshop (you can drop them an email and ask for any title if the one you’re after isn’t listed), or via Bookshop.org.
Ravioli are some of my favourite pasta to make when I feel restless. It’s a work of patience and endurance, a test in plotting and adapting as things develop sideways, just like drafting a manuscript. Marrows are basically courgettes that have been left on the plant for a longer period. Their seeds are also used to grow new courgette plants.
When I feel scared about writing and publishing words, I often turn to Marguerite Duras. She said something that I think today’s recipe encapsulates well:
‘Finding yourself in a hole, at the bottom of a hole, in almost total solitude, and discovering that only writing can save you. To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome.’
― Marguerite Duras, Writing
Now, the recipe for marrow ravioli, dressed in a pistachio and basil oat cream:
for the ravioli dough:
00 flour
eggs, 2 full for 4 yolk ratio
olive oil, a few tears
salt, a pinch
for the filling:
1 marrow, skin on but seeds removed, cubed
white pepper
nutmeg
2 cloves, crushed
1 tbsp rosemary
1 tbsp mustard
Parmesan, as much as you’ll need to thicken the mixture
1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp of olive oil
for the pistachio cream:
100g pistachio, crushed
basil leaves, fresh and broken with your fingers
250ml oat cream
Preheat the oven to 180C, fan. In a large bowl, mix the cubed marrow, white pepper, nutmeg, cloves, rosemary and olive oil. Pour the preparation into an oven tray and bake until the marrow is soft enough to be mashed with a fork.
In the meantime, prepare the oat cream. In a milk pan, over a low heat, toast the pistachio for approx. 2 minutes. Add the basil and the oat cream; simmer until the texture thickens. You can pass a wooden spoon to test the consistency as you wait. Turn off the heat and set the cream aside for now.
Once the marrow is cooked, leave it aside to cool. In the meantime, you can prepare the ravioli: on a wooden surface, make a volcano with the flour. Draw a crater with the tip of your finger and crack a full egg inside. Start kneading, adding more eggs as you go. Use a yolk only when the dough feels wet enough but too sticky to be worked properly. Once you have a homogeneous dough, make a ball, and let it rest under an upside-down bowl for 30 minutes.
To finalise the filling preparation, mix the chilled marrow with the mustard, Parmesan and salt in a bowl.
To shape the ravioli, divide the ball of dough into smaller bits. Flatten each ball with a rolling pin and start passing the pasta sheets through the pasta machine. (I stopped at number 4, but your machine might be different.)
Lay out each pasta sheet (it should be long enough to be folded in two, lengthwise) and spoon portions of filling, stopping halfway. Fold the dough over the fillings, seal the two parts together with your fingertips, and cut the ravioli. If you have a ravioli stamp maker, it’s time to use it. Otherwise, you can cut them with a knife, or a small, squared Tupperware works wonders. What matters for the process to go (fairly) well, is to have a measurement reference – try to space the filling fairly.
Bring a large pot of water to the boil and cook the ravioli. In the meantime, warm up the pistachio cream. Once the ravioli are cooked, drain them and return them inside the pot. Over a low heat, pour the pistachio cream over the ravioli and mix gently. Serve.
(Tip for your dinner the following day: the marrow will lose a lot of water when you mash it into a purée. You can preserve the water in the fridge and use it the next day to give extra flavour to a courgette soup. I shared a recipe for one, with chickpeas and peas, here.)
If you’ve ever cooked something from The Onion Papers, or if you enjoy reading them, it’d mean the world to me if you pre-ordered my book. In any case, I hope that you’ll consider and enjoy reading Breaststrokes when May comes. Thank you.
Out-sweep, in-sweep, breathe; lunge, extend, breathe; breaststrokes.
Margaux
pre-order links for Breaststrokes available here.
Thanks for being here with me; the usual Onion Papers publication will resume with the next newsletter. TOP comes out every other Thursday, and you can give it some love by subscribing below or forwarding it to a friend.
Another way to support my work is to buy a copy of my novels via The Onion Papers affiliated bookshop. <3
beautiful cover!