The Gorgeous Girl

In the four years since Marie Wilson left us, critics and hoi-poloi alike have hailed her novel The Gorgeous Girls as one of the 21st century’s most astounding literary works thus far. Released in 2013 by HarperCollins, the book was brushed off at the time. In fact, its launch was so devoid of fanfare that Wilson is said to have remarked: “HarperCollins released my novel like they were dropping a boulder into the Pacific Ocean in the dead of night."

The one thing Wilson did praise her publisher for was an effective tagline: "Erotica for the thinking woman." A prominent critic of the time said the novel "distinguished itself through emphasis on intelligent prose, wit, and sophisticated engagement with sexual themes rather than purely sensational content."

But all that was not enough to put The Gorgeous Girls in front of our eyes when it first hit the scene and we are a nation poorer for the omission. But now, Huxley MacFarquhar of the New York Times has declared Wilson’s novel a "no-longer-hidden gem". Not to be outdone, Louise Swink-Chartrand of the Los Angeles Times has called Wilson herself a "diamond in the dirt." Swink-Chartrand's proposed biography of the author, titled "From Boulder to Diamond: The Marie Wilson Story" is set to appear next year.

Wilson's newly discovered brilliance continues to shine through, as the dirt on the gemstone gets blown away by the winds of acclaim and recognition. Lines from The Gorgeous Girls are increasingly memeified on Meta platforms and scrawled on public walls:

Wilson’s own social networking accounts have received massive amounts of new followers since her death. As the numbers climb, very-much-alive-and-struggling writers bemoan the trend. But as Wilson takes her place in the pantheon of great writers, comparisons to the giants abound: Ernest Hemingway, Enid Blyton, James Baldwin, Marguerite Duras. Yet, most agree that Wilson is in a league of her own.

The GG (as fans call it) has been likened to The Ravishing of Lol Stein (Duras), Cheri and The Last of Cheri (Colette), and most significantly The Great Gatsby, a classic that, fans note, bears the same initials as The Gorgeous Girls, if not the same level of literary expertise.

Wilson spent her early years in a small hamlet in the province of British Columbia in Western Canada. It’s been said that she walked several miles to elementary school every weekday, often without shoes (an unproven claim). The young girl came of age during the revolutionary 1960s, but the hippie enclaves and opium dens of her youth have all been replaced by condos and high rises. It is something of a miracle that her childhood home has survived.

Deep in the heart of her hometown of Coquitlam, Wilson’s OG house has recently been turned into a fashionable Airbnb. A second floor closet in Wilson's childhood bedroom boasts a small museum where visitors can learn that Wilson's barefoot girlhood is likely apocryphal. On display are a replica of her girlhood shoes. However, no teenage footwear is displayed, as apparently it was de rigueur to go sans chaussures in the "decade of love". But, aficionados will be pleased to find in the exhibit a pair of red sequinned pumps that resemble the shoes referenced in Part 4 of The GG. The relevant chapter begins with the opening line of a poem by Dorothy Parker: “Oh, both my shoes are shiny new…”

Because Wilson heads up every chapter of The Gorgeous Girls with a Dottie quip, fans often mistake Parker-isms for Wilson-isms and vice versa. Over the past year, as the novel has become the buzziest of all bestsellers, cocktail party chatter has been known to turn into heated arguments over who said what.

One guest may insist that Wilson proclaimed: “Ducking for apples - change one letter and it’s the story of my life,” while another will be quoting the well-known Parker witticism: “Old whores never die. They just fuck off."

Both are wrong. Parker "ducked" for apples, while a winning story by Wilson published to Vocal Media reveals who was an old whore, or at least who wrote those famous lines. Seeking to turn acrimonious events into good times, hosts everywhere are now playing a new parlour game: Mrs Parker or Mrs Wilson?

The honorific in Wilson’s case is a play on Parker’s famous moniker, as Wilson, by all accounts, never married, remained childless and was said to have been addicted to NyQuil in her later years.

Her HarperCollins author’s bio reads: “Marie Wilson was born to a paint merchant and an Olympic runner in Vancouver, BC. After studying painting and theatre at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, she moved to Toronto to put herself on the boards. Following appearances on some of Toronto’s best stages, she turned her attention to writing. Marie has published work in a number of magazines and newspapers, including NOW magazine and the Globe and Mail.”

While most of the bio seems to be true, it is a point of contention as to which of TO’s stages were the best, and debatable as to whether Wilson appeared on any of them. One thing for certain is that she worked alongside (or just slightly behind) Jackie Chan in The Tuxedo. Despite the fact that her one line landed on the cutting room floor, critics now proclaim her SOC performance a masterclass in acting.

(We reached out to Mr Chan for comment but he has yet to get back to us).

Whether she took the theatre world by storm or not is a moot point. Wilson’s true talent can be found in the pages of The GG and in the feature film screenplays she toiled over. Her western/horror script, Sideshow Bandit, is getting the full Tubi+ treatment next month when Jaden Smith steps into his director's boots for the first time. Following on its spurred heels comes A Girl Like I, a feature film Wilson wrote in the summer of ’22. Netazon (formerly Netflix & Amazon) is producing, with the Clooney twins set to star.

Recently, a manuscript being attributed to Wilson has been discovered in the attic of the Coquitlam Airbnb. The jury is still out as scholars around the world study this newly unearthed trove, swiftly dubbed the Wilson Papers (WiPa to fans). Did Wilson actually write it? If so, when and why?

The WaPo declares the WiPa “a hoax”. From their point of view, Wilson herself was “a sham who couldn't write her way out of a plastic bag." Aside from musing on the antiquated reference to "a plastic bag", Vanity Fair praises Wilson's output, writing that the WiPa is “undoubtedly born of Wilson's pen" and that it is "an important work of literary mastery.”

“Her work was unfairly overlooked," writes VF's literary critic, Kibosh Mangosteen. "The GG contains so much more than just hot sex (although there is plenty of that).” Mangosteen cites a passage from the novel as proof: In Part 2, Rose, the protagonist, learns that her husband has been spending all their money in strip bars while she and their kids have been living on Kraft dinner. Rose soliloquizes:

In a man's world it's better to be a porn star or a stripper than a mother. Certainly there have been no fins or sawbucks in my underwear, but then my breasts have spent years spouting milk, not tinsel. During the height of my breastfeeding days, I thought of having them tattooed: "Milk Not Cheesecake" (though for the right man I've drizzled them with raspberry syrup).

Upon seeing with her own eyes her husband tucking bills into G-strings, Rose ruminates:

In the maraschino-cherry glow of a sign that proclaimed The Best Party in Town, I shed every last vestige of love and respect I’d ever held for him - like a stripper taking it all off, a few stray feathers borne aloft on the breeze.

Wilson’s last days were spent in a shack on Pender Island in Western Canada. So little is known about her, as digital files have been corrupted, paper trails have been burned, trolls and AI have had their way. But thanks to some dedicated and resourceful folks we now know that Wilson was a genius - but not of the "very stable" kind.

As the next generation of aspiring writers dig deeper into the meaning of Wilson’s oeuvre (the best of it can be found on Vocal.Media), they can expect an earth-shattering lesson in the art of combining eros with emotion on the page, as well as a definitive definition of film noir, and - the icing on the cake (or the raspberry syrup on the cheesecake) - an incidental tutorial on how to correctly format a screenplay.

As of this writing, Variety has announced that the Wachowski Sisters are developing The GG into a TV series, reviving for the first time in years the hour-long dramedy format for cable television. Produced by Dizpple Productions (formerly Disney and Apple), this is yet another brush of dirt off the glittering diamond that was Marie Wilson. We also have that Swink-Chartrand bio to look forward to, that is, if there's enough reliable material on the subject to fill the pages. But perhaps that's not a problem, as most historians agree it was Wilson who said: “I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.”

- Bix Bentley for Reuters.

Resouces:

Wilson on Vocal

The GG

Sideshow Bandit

Old Whores Never Die