Tag: rub-a-dub-dub

I collect excerpts from novels when it happens to be about bathing or bathrooms. You’ve got to have a hobby, but really this is why.

From In Milton Lumky Territory by Philip K. Dick:

The roar of water kept either of them from talking for some time. She had put bubble bath into the water, and it foamed up in massive pink layers as she waited for the tub to fill. At last there was enough water in the tub. He marvelled at the amount of water she needed. And she did not want it as hot as it was; she carefully switched on the cold until a good deal of the suds had been damaged. The whole affair struck him as inefficient, but he said nothing. He sat out of her path, a spectator.

In the tub, she laid back resting her head on the porcelain side. Suds covered her.

“Like a French movie,” he said.

“Now you see, I never would have thought of that,” she said.

“You should have gotten in while it was filling.”

“Oh really? I always wait. I’m afraid I’ll get burned.”

“Can’t you work the taps with your toes?”

“Oh my God, what a morbid idea. How bizarre. Like a monkey.”

All his adult life, while bathing, he’d operated the taps with his toes, getting in as soon as there was enough water to cover him. Just enough so he did not come in contact with the bare porcelain.

“There’s one difference between men and women,” he said.

“If that’s what you do, keep it to yourself.” Her hair had been tucked into a plastic cap, and that, too, was different. And she scrubbed her back with a long-handled brush, and her nails with a small nylon brush. Amazing, he thought. So many differences in such a simple act as bathing.

For half an hour, she remained in the tub, soaking. He had never stayed in for more than a few minutes. When the water got cold, he always hopped out. But she simply sat up, turned the hot water back on, and ran enough of it to warm the tub.

“You’re not afraid now,” he said. “Of getting burned.”

She looked at him blankly.

Some nice bathroom writing from the very funny Black Bag (2026) by Professor Luke Kennard:

Her soap appears to have been carved raw out of the side of a cliff; shampoo and conditioner in two enormous apothecary bottles I cannot imagine transporting for refills. Perhaps they are left outside the front door and refilled by an attendant with a horse-drawn vat. I pick up a wooden toothbrush and scan around for toothpaste until I notice a little black glass caviar jar marked Oral Care. The unguent inside is jet-black and is applied to the brush with a small wooden teardrop attached to the side of the jar by on length of twine.

It tastes like the sea at night.

My preference is for personal grooming products that look and smell like power toilet cleaners, but I am willing to concede, as I pick a literal piece of heather out of my eye after washing my face, that I have been following the wrong metaphors.

Don’t let Black Bag‘s Booker nomination put you off. Just give your hands a good wash after reading it and you’ll be fine.

There’s some truly excellent bathtub writing in Service, John Tottenham brand new novel. Here, illegally probably, is a sample:

I slid into the tub as it was filling up and once submerged increased the flow of hot water until almost boiling. Then, and only then, did I know something resembling contentment.

It is my duty as a novelist to describe my time in the bathtub, basking in the consolation of art and liquor — I should be summoning the sounds of cars rumbling by on the street outside, the strains of eerie violin sliding in, and the gurgling of water as it lapped against the overflow drain; I should be depicting the ant scurrying along the side of the bathtub, flirting with the spume-laced waterline, then darting back up to attempt egress through the deceptive crack at the bottom of the fake beige-veined marble tile; and I should be delineating the first exquisite sip of the Presbyterian, rich with the promise of relaxation, as it eased down my throat, and how I abstracted myself from these material surroundings and lost myself in the soothing world of Barbara Pym’s prose — not merely to state, dryly and diaristically, that I enjoyed spending time in the bath, but to reproduce the experience with telling details and evocative little flourishes.

Well, I did that. Honestly, I did.

And there’s more:

“Most of my reading takes place in the bathtub,” I added, hoping to impress her with an interesting personal fact.

“Really?”

“I often read for two hours or longer in there, sipping a cocktail, with classical music playing in the next room. It gives me more pleasure than anything else.”

“Anything?” she said, smiling again.

“Just about,” I said.

“Doesn’t the water get cold?” she asked.

“I adjust the taps with my toes and drain the existing water as I’m doing it.” It always amazes me when I’m asked this question; the answer seemed so obvious, but maybe some people didn’t read in the bath.

“Don’t your hands get wrinkled?”

“No, because they’re above the water level, holding the book.”

“Don’t you get faint?” That long smile appeared again.

“Sometimes, when I finally emerge. Where do you read?”

“Usually in bed…”

“Do you work here?” we were interrupted by a customer.

“Whatever gives you that impression? Never mind. What do you need?”

Just wonderful stuff. Everyone should read Service. He works in a bookshop and is miserable there. It’s Black Books but really bitter. Blacker Books.

This funny cartoon by fine artist and producer of direct-to-landfill tat David Shrigley has strong Mister Bob vibes.

This just in:

I finished Rub-A-Dub-Dub today. It has been a most treasured summer read for me. Brilliant and funny (I think I averaged one chortle per page). Hit me in the way the best Kurt Vonnegut books do: a humane portrait of the absurd, futile and grotesquely beautiful enterprise of being human.

So fuck this guy.

One chortle per page is good whack, by the way. The book is 281 pages, making it better for your abs than any kind of workout.

And this is the sort of thing I like to see:

Thanks to a Rub-A-Dub-Dub reader for telling me about the Society of Fat Mermaids. Fantastic.

There’s a moment of phone scrolling in the novel where Mister Bob plausibly stumbled upon this. Let’s choose to believe he did.

AJ sends me this picture he’s seen online because it looks like the character from my novel, especially in the book’s second act.

“The dude,” says a comment, “looks unbothered, moisturized, happy, in his lane. Thriving.”

“hot” says another.

“+1 on that dude,” says a third, “like, goddamn, hot.”

They’re not wrong. The artwork is a self portrait, so the praise leaves the artist blushing. The thread is nothing but a delight.

As it happens, Mac, the my novel’s cover artist based the canonical Mister Bob on himself too.

The overwhelming reaction to this artist’s sexiness made me think of that crappy review someone left about the book. How could anyone not love Mister Bob? Look at him. Clearly they didn’t stick around for the arc.

“Shimmering” is the word I used in the book trailer. Mister Bob is shimmering.

Some fan mail arrives for Mister Bob.

“I just wanted to pass on my thanks,” they write, “to Mister Bob for bringing Stendhal’s Scarlet and Black to my attention.”

To which I respond: “you’re very welcome. I will pass your message on to Mister Bob.”

I mean, he’s dead in 2024. But thanks to the magic of books, I have access to him through time.

Which is true.

*

Another recent mention of Mister Bob in real life.

Friend J is going to Portobello. “Look out for Mister Bob,” I say.

“Oh yeah,” he says, “I’m more concerned that I’ll be mistaken for him.”

*

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the book you need to buy.

I just got a rejection letter (yes, by post) for a novel I published over a year ago.

The novel is almost at the end of its life cycle. It’s been read, reviewed, reprinted, won a prize, and I’m halfway through writing the next one.

Nice going, publishers.

Little plot, plenty grot.

I obeyed the rule in Rub-A-Dub-Dub and I’m doing it again in the secret next thing.