Different take on gender roles
Author Alex Dunkin’s latest book Homebody explores gender roles in a world where homosexuality is the norm. This is the Adelaide-based writer’s second book in the past two years and originally started as a research piece focused on historic novels such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Mr Dunkin said it was interesting to create a world where homosexuality was normal and heterosexuality was not as common.
“The removal of modern-day challenges to LGBTI people posed by he tero norma t iv ity creates space to explore the ideas of what exactly tradition means when presented away from our social norms,” he said.
Homebody is focused on Aaron who is a homemaker but finds that marriage to his husband David is beginning to disintegrate.
Aaron begins to look outside his home at the world around him and discovers what it is like to not be in the position of homemaker.
But he must make a choice, whether he will continue his new-found freedom or go back to his role as devoted husband.
Homebody was illustrated by Adelaidebased artist Dylan Pimm and was recently released as a self-published novel. Mr Dunkin’s first novel Coming Out
Catholic was published by Primz last year and followed the story of a young man who sought to reconcile his faith and his sexuality.
Mr Dunkin said writing Homebody was slightly more challenging than Coming
Out Catholic because it was not only hard to come up with a new idea but it was difficult to work without a publisher.
“I had to learn about all the processes that happened behind the scenes,” he said.
“(But) after the first book was released I suddenly had a new eagerness to produce a new work.”
Mr Dunkin said he gained a lot of inspiration for Homebody by just speaking to people and different artists.
“I’ve been quite lucky to have artists around me,” he said.
“I’ve always worked at having a career as a writer in some capacity and I really enjoy the research component that’s required for novels.”
Mr Dunkin said when it came to writing it was important to surround yourself with people who were not afraid to provide you with critical feedback.