The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in My Year Without Sex

“At the age of thirty-five, it was time to meet myself unmediated by romantic and erotic obsession,” writes memoirist Febos (Body Work) in the opening pages of this bold account. After two decades of moving from one relationship to the next, with only a “few brief periods of singleness” in between, Febos went through a particularly devastating breakup and decided to abstain from sex and dating for a year. “I liked the idea of choosing celibacy not as a last-resort treatment for depression, not as a deprivation, but as an attempt to grow my world,” she explains. She examines the history of abstinence in religious and cultural contexts through the work of writers including Virginia Woolf and Octavia Butler, and explores what it meant to her, as a queer, 21st-century feminist. The results, Febos found, were freeing: she relished waking up alone, reading and writing on her own schedule, and pursuing her interests unmediated by the concerns of another. Though she’s wary of acting “as an evangelist for celibacy,” Febos convincingly makes the case for serial daters to slow down and reflect on their past relationships free from the cloud of a current entanglement. As fascinating as it is liberating, this is not to be missed. Agent: Ethan Bassoff, WME. (June)