In this episode, Peta chats with LK Bowen, author of the suspenseful novel For Worse. LK shares how her vision impairment influenced her writing, turning disability vulnerability into a powerful narrative tool. Discover how her personal experiences shape her gripping storytelling, offering a unique perspective on crafting suspense through a disabled lens.
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Website: https://www.authorlkbowen.com/
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Instagram: @petahooke
Website: www.icantstandpodcast.com
Email: icantstandpodcast@gmail.com
Episode Transcript:
Peta [00:00:03] Hello and welcome to the I Can't Stand Podcast, the podcast answering your questions about what life is like when you have a disability. My name is Peta. I have cerebral palsy and I'm your host. This week I have LK Bowen on the podcast talking about her debut novel For Worse. LK just like her protagonist in the book has vision impairment. So I found it fascinating reading a thriller, suspenseful novel about a disabled woman and how her disability interplays with the situation that she's in. I was on the edge of my seat, or should I say wheelchair. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and I hope you do too. So without any further ado, let's get into it.
LK Bowen [00:01:12] Hi, my name is L.K. Bowen and I'm the author of my debut novel, which is called For Worse. It's about a woman who is vision impaired like I am. I have retinitis pigmentosa, so it is my protagonist. Her name is Elly, and she is trapped in a marriage in which her husband is using her disability to sabotage her, and she is growing increasingly frightened. And she turns to support for a group that she finds on the web. Two ladies chatroom called Divorced Women over 50, or DWOF. Although it's supportive and fun and enlightening, it doesn't help her get out of her trap. For that, she needs to find another type of chat room, which she finds on the dark web. A chat room for women who have found an interesting and somewhat sinister way to navigate a bad marriage.
Peta [00:02:08] Oh, we love a cliff-hanger. What a good way to get everybody intrigued to read the book. And boy is a great book. I highly encourage everybody to go out and read it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But tell me, what was the inspiration behind your book For Worse?
LK Bowen [00:02:28] Actually, I wanted to write about my own experience, losing my vision. I have, a degenerative retinal disease, and, so my vision is narrowing. I see the world as if I'm looking through a mailbox slot. It's sort of rectangular, but getting smaller year by year. I started writing because I wanted to write an essay about what it was like to see the world in sections. A tantalising snippet at a time. At the same time, I started getting really immersed in domestic thrillers. I was reading all these fabulous domestic thrillers, and at the same time I started to let my hair go grey, and I was looking for a chat room that I could sort of find women who were doing the same thing. So I found this chat room and they, the women there were incredibly vivid and vibrant and funny, and I thought, what a great way to tell a story. And before I knew it, I was writing a book which amazed me.
Peta [00:03:30] I mean, and there's a lot to writing a book. Not everybody can write a book. There's a lot to it. Right? You know, it's you need discipline to do it right. So you must have been really enthralled with characters and, really exploring this new world that you've developed. I want to delve deeper into the character of Ellie. What was the process in you developing her complex story and background?
LK Bowen [00:03:59] Well, Ellie is is me. Basically. The things she says about going blind, about being disabled, about being considered a marginalised member of society are things that I have experienced and felt. Do you know? And my anger, my fear, my, my frustration at being thought less than because I couldn't see, just made me. Crazy and I think. You know, it took a while for my disability to impact my life. I think I was 50 when I stopped driving and 50 something when I started using a cane, and it took me a long time to relinquish my denial. You know, about I'm not really you know, I'm not disabled. But once you accept that, you have a limitation. You then begin to deal with it in a very or I did a very pragmatic and practical manner. So for Ellie, she was doing the same thing. Once she decided that she did not want to live with her husband anymore. The questions for her were, can I do this? Should I do this? Does it make sense for me to leave a safe and secure, on the surface, relationship with the guy who can drive me anywhere or help me when I'm sick? Pick up the glass that I dropped on the floor, you know? Or do I deserve to take the plunge and find my courage and find my backbone, as Ellie did? And decide to leave and decide to to make it on my own.
Peta [00:05:47] Yeah, I think it's pretty common for disabled people. Non-disabled people, I'm sure think that, you fall apart, which, of course, there is always grief connected to disability, whether you're born with your disability or you're acquired later on in life. But at some stage, you just have to get on and figure out how you got to live life and what strategies are you going to employ. And I can really see that in Ellie that she has to just decide to pick yourself, because in the end, our life first and foremost is about what we want. But before I delve deeper into that, I want to ask you, why did you decide to go with fiction rather than non-fiction? Because clearly Ellie is so connected to you and your identity.
LK Bowen [00:06:36] As I say, I was reading a lot of domestic thrillers and I wanted to try my hand at that particular type of suspense. There's just a lot of ways in which a vision impaired woman in the house can be preyed upon, and I thought that would be a terrific way of. Bringing in suspense and I. I didn't want to write about my personal situation, because it was personal.
Peta [00:07:07] That's fair. And I think vulnerability is something a lot of us have in the back of our minds, because inherently we are vulnerable in some way or another. You know, and I think that's where I found at reading Ellie's experience and the vulnerability that she has to confront all the time. How what sort of messages do you want people to take away for what life is like being visually impaired and the unique challenges you face as a disabled person?
LK Bowen [00:07:41] So it's not just that. I'd like people to understand the interior life of someone who has to think about every move, about going outside, about, you know, you mentioned vulnerability. Of course, one is very vulnerable when you can't see or can't walk or can't hear. There's a lot of vulnerability there. But. There is also. Should you choose a lot of agency. And I wanted people to see as Ellie gradually gets her agency. And so I would like people who view people with disability to maybe view them differently. You know, as not people who are to be pitied or who I should be feared as something other. Because a lot of times people look at people with disabilities and think, boy, I don't know how they do that. I sure couldn't do that. But the fact is, if you had two, you would.
Peta [00:08:35] Yeah. Of course. And that's a common frustration many of us have, regardless of where we live in the world. I think that's a very common thing that we're still fighting against, unfortunately. As you've discussed, Ellie does decide to pursue a divorce from Jeff for a variety of different reasons, including emotional manipulation, lack of support, and her desire for personal growth and independence, as we've mentioned. Can you discuss how these factors have influenced her decisions and what you aimed to convey about the complexities of ending a long term relationship, especially when facing additional challenges like disability?
LK Bowen [00:09:19] I think anyone who ends a decades long marriage is fearful. Perhaps there are feelings of shame or guilt. If you couple that with the particular vulnerability of a person who has a disability. Who suddenly doesn't have a person to drive her everywhere, who suddenly doesn't have a person, you know, to to help her get around the house as things close in and get darker. Then you're looking at something that's that's very fraught. And I think. Ellie. Is so brave at the end. Where throughout the book, she's questioning her competence and she's questioning her ability to do the things that she knows she needs to do by the end of the book. She's by God. Competent. Confident. And she's about to do this incredibly difficult thing. It's difficult for anybody to leave a marriage. So I think her leaving is a real testament to her desire to not be oppressed in a marriage that makes her unhappy with a Uber controlling spouse. That she decides it would be safer to say stay. But I can't live that lie anymore. You know, I have to speak to my truth. I have to live my own reality, and whatever that's going to be is what it's going to be. I think that feeling of, freedom and relief that that she feels, having made her decision. Is, I think, one anyone could relate to.
Peta [00:11:11] And as you say, you know, it's it's a real testament to Ellie's internal strength with what she has to go through. Because in the end, as much as Jeff. Was horrible to her. In the end, he was a form of support system that she wasn't sure that she could cope without. One other support system that she did end up developing was, as you said, the divorced woman over 50 chat room, which was a vital support system for her in the story, reflecting themes of self-acceptance, independence and community. Can you elaborate on the parallels you see between the experience of disabled individuals and women undergoing divorce, and why they support systems are so crucial?
LK Bowen [00:11:59] I'm fortunate enough to have a very vibrant group of women who have been friends with me for 20 plus years, plus a fabulous sister. So I have a solid group of women who rally around me. For whatever reason, you know, joys and sorrows, triumphs and catastrophes. I don't know. I think it takes a village to do anything for for me. That's how. That's how I roll when I wrote the book. You know, if ever I couldn't go on another page, I'd send however many pages I had to my readers, and they'd say, this is great. Need a little more of this? Could use a little less of this, you know. And then I got the, the oomph to go on. And Ellie had Jane and she had the chat room and she had her sister. So she had quite a nice group of, of women who were able to, to be there for her. I have a friend who has muscular dystrophy and we support each other in our complaining. You know, in our knowing how to, deal when someone trips or falls. Or maybe we want to be left alone at that point. Or maybe we do need a hand. You know, it's really, important within the disability community to support each other with as much humour and guts as you know it takes. To manage and also to, to kind of inform our friends who are not disabled. There's a real difference between. Helping us. To remain dependent and helping us to become independent. And I think people have an instinct to help, and that's great. And we don't want to, you know, we're not gonna step on anybody's instinct to help. But you got to leave a person some dignity and integrity and the ability to have agency over their own body, no matter what predicament they're in. I get it. You know, I have a lot of, typically abled friends who have said to me. What do we do? Do we say, can we help you across the street? Or do we not? And I say, you can say it, but just say, do you need help and not. Oh my goodness. Can I help you? You know, just ask it like a question, you know, like you'd ask somebody who's about to drop their bag of groceries and not with any overlay of, oh, you poor thing.
Peta [00:14:40] Your book is very layered with intricate relationships, and that's no different with Ellie's family dynamics that she's faced with throughout the book. What are the key themes and messages you are hoping to highlight? Buy at those complex, complex relationships.
LK Bowen [00:14:58] I would hope that, people can look at this and say, you know what? I am not my true and best self in this relationship. And I've tried. I'm not saying Bale without trying. I'm saying try. But if you are really being under someone's thumb, or you are not feeling expressed or you are unhappy, go. I had two women write me letters who say that they were in relationships with people who were controlling, like Jeff. And my book triggered for them the understanding that they were in that that's what they were in. And it was time to leave. And I found that incredibly powerful. But I also want to, mention, Ellie's relationship with her 20 year old daughter, Hannah. There's a scene in the book where Hannah and, Ellie sit down, and Hannah is just broken up with her boyfriend, and, she's upset because he was a really good guy, and she really wanted to fall in love with him, and she couldn't. And she was. She's worried about, you know, the fact that technically, we're supposed to all marry our fathers. You know, she's worried that she's going to marry her, her father or be him. And one reviewer said that that interaction between mother and daughter really struck home for her. That was a conversation that just resonated with her. And I can't tell you how many times that chapter nearly got excised from the book.
Peta [00:16:27] Talking about your writing process because I, I'm always interested to hear how people managed to do it. What were the most significant or some of the significant challenges you faced while writing for worse? And how did you overcome them?
LK Bowen [00:16:43] I had written, screenplays with my husband and plays by myself. But this is my first novel. And when you're looking at 300 pages, it's a little daunting. And, I would often get stuck. And the only way I could get out was to do something else. Go for a walk. Do the dishes, think about something else, and go to bed. And in the middle of the night, I'd wake up and, you know, you have your pad next to you, and you just write down whatever you're thinking. Hopefully it's not gibberish in the morning, you know? I think you have to walk away from what you're going to roll over in your head about and think about something else. I had a teacher who once said, let it think about you instead of you thinking about it. I view writing. As climbing a rock wall. I have never climbed a rock wall. Just to be clear, the two of us. Right. But, you know, you're you're going up the wall and there's a rock that you have to get to, but you don't know how you're going to get to it. You don't know what you have to lean in on or reach. And that's the way I view writing. You know, I'm not an outliner. I can't hover over my story and outline it. I have to be sort of down in the trenches with it. So, I always view the next story point that I have to get to as the next rock on the rock wall.
Peta [00:18:10] As far as, because as you say, Ali is partly inspired by you and your experience with your disability. So how did you balance it to remain it as fiction versus non-fiction? As we discussed at the start.
LK Bowen [00:18:26] Well, Jeff Mosley, I mean, he's such a, you know, I, I was interested I was first going to make him just a straight out sociopath, but that didn't interest me as much as a narcissist because I started reading up on narcissistic behaviour, which is sort of the rung below sociopath. You know, the difference between the two, according to my therapist, is a sociopath. Sociopath cannot love. They simply manipulate people like pawns on a chessboard. But a narcissist can love. And I thought that was an interesting distinction because Jeff does love his family. He is just incapable of expressing that love in a positive way. So putting a person with a disability, with an overly controlling, obsessively controlling, person I thought would be an interesting struggle. It was a lot of fun to have him, be so intrusive in in her life. And she didn't know because she couldn't see him.
Peta [00:19:31] As a writer, I'm sure you have many writers that you admire their work and they inspire you. Do you have any, people that you can recommend us to go out and read if we haven't already? But surely disabled writers.
LK Bowen [00:19:46] So I recently read a book by Andrew Leland called The Country of the blind a memoir at the End of Sight. He has retinitis pigmentosa, as do I. He's about 20 years younger than I am. I think he's in his 40s. And, he seems to. His disease appears to be progressing pretty quickly. He talks about blindness in literature, in art, in politics. He talks about the politics of disability. He talks about the National Federation of the blind, which is an amazing organisation that has, immersive blind programs where people learn how to make their own food and navigate cities, use power tools. oh. And he talked to a lot of people who say that going blind is harder than being blind, that once you're blind, it's over, you're blind, and then you can not worry about it anymore. And he talks about sitting next to someone at one of these programs he was in, and he said, hi, my name is Andrew and, I'm going blind. And the guy said, awesome, I'm already blind. It's great. Leland's book was the first book that I read that made me. Change how I go about the world. I used to be a it's going to be such a hassle. I'm going to have to take the cane and I'm going to have to ask for help, and I'm not going to be able to see that now. I'm like, get out of the way. This is my life. Our disabilities are not. Us being less than it is condition with which we navigate our lives that are full and loving and smart and gainfully employed, and all the things that you could wish for anybody else's life. It just sometimes takes us a little bit longer to do stuff. And I want to say here and now that it's a wonderful companion piece to my own book, For Worse by Elk Bone, which is fiction, about a woman who, is losing her sight. And Andrew's book is non-fiction. So between the two, you can get a pretty good idea of what it's like to be inside a retinal degenerate like us.
Peta [00:21:54] Very well said. I totally agree with you. What disabled life can they lack? And I hope it is for many people listening to us today. To finish up this amazing conversation that we've had. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers, especially for those of us who are disabled looking to represent our experiences in their work?
LK Bowen [00:22:17] Well, first of all, the thing about writing is you got to write. Just write. Just write. Just do it. And I think, you know, we were talking about community. I do think that when you are writing, it is important when you get to page 20 or 50 or 110 to have a friend say to you, yeah, yeah, it's working, it's good, or this part's boring. When I was at Thriller Fest, I saw a lot of panels. And I sat in on all sorts of groups and, people were worried about marketing and people were worrying about, book covers and people worrying about all sorts of things. And the advice from every single solitary writer there was, just sit down and write your next book. So that's my advice. Just sit down and write your book.
Peta [00:23:11] Thank you for listening to this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And thank you to L.K. Bowen for coming on the podcast. If you missed last week's episode, you can always scroll back. I spoke to Sprung Ensemble, a disability led creative theatre group up in New South Wales. As always, can I encourage you to leave a writing review wherever you listen to your episodes? Follow the show so it automatically pops up in your feed every Tuesday, or share the show with a friend that you think might enjoy it. You can always get in contact with me. My email address is icantstandpodcast@gmail.com Or you can message me over on Instagram. My handle is @petahooke. Thank you again for listening. And until next week have a good one guys. Bye. I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Wurundjeri people and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, of which I record the podcast today. And I pay my respects to both elders, past and present, along with and especially to those in the First Nations communities who are disabled themselves.
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