Why is each story introduced by a quote from Mae West?
EK: I could give you a lot of academic reasons, but the main reason is that she was cool. She was a dumpy, short woman who decided she wanted to be a sex symbol, so goddamn it, she became a sex symbol. She created that image for herself and miraculously everyone bought it. Because she was smart, funny, and irresistible.She wrote almost all her dialogue for her movies, and she didn’t direct her films, but she picked directors who would do what she said. She created the person she wanted to be, and then she created a demand for that person. That fit in with what I was exploring in terms of identity and women. How do you make yourself fit into the world? How do you make the world fit you? And I love her sense of humor, her brassy non-feminist feminism. RH: There’s a real take charge attitude in her personal and professional life that your characters strive for. EK: With moments of success and many, many moments of failure. But they do try to be the masters of their own lives the way she w
