THE ROXY LETTERS

A series of mostly undelivered letters from a vegan Whole Foods deli maid and Goddess worshiper to her slacker ex-boyfriend.

“Dear Everett, Perhaps I’ve invited you to move into my spare bedroom against my better judgment.” Judgment is not the long suit of Poxy Roxy—so dubbed by her evil supervisor, Dirty Steve, during a bout with chickenpox. Feeling adrift, she turns to columnist Dear Sugar for advice. “The best thing you can possibly do with your life is tackle the motherfucking shit out of it,” says Sugar, and to Roxy, this means organizing a campaign to take down the Lululemon store that is moving into the space once occupied by her beloved Waterloo Video—because Lululemon is not a funky local business. Meanwhile, she's right across the street at the behemoth Whole Foods flagship store, which erased the character of this supposedly historic intersection when it opened in 1980. Well, it used to be a funky local business, before Roxy was born. Only animal rights is a stronger motivator for Roxy than confused anti-corporate nostalgia. “Thank Goddess that Spider House is still going strong, despite the fact that Starbucks stores have spread through the city faster than an STD in a retirement home.” A clitoral masturbation cult, romantic liaisons with a skateboarder and a drummer, a feud with her meth-head neighbors, the near death of her weiner dog due to choking on the crotch of her pleather underpants—the predicaments never stop for our millennial heroine. Lowry is the heir apparent to Sarah Bird, whose comic novels Alamo House and The Boyfriend School perfectly captured the Austin of the 1980s. Roxy would love them. We will always remember this as the book that taught us the word “kyriarchy.” Look it up.

Bursts with quirky spirit and gleeful comic energy.