is also an assistant editor of Machete, an imprint of Ohio State University Press. Her short stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, The Masters Review, and have won the Mari Sandoz/Prairie Schooner fiction award, and the New Ohio Review's nonfiction contest.
Cochran applied the Page 69 Test to her debut novel, The Gulf, and reported the following:
In The Gulf, page 69 opens chapter 9: Lou, the novel’s protagonist, has just had an argument with her partner, Heather, and is going to work off some steam by doing restoration work on the crumbling old mansion, Parson House. She’s hard at work when her closest friend Danny drops by unexpectedly, claiming all he wants to do is see how the work is coming along.Visit Rachel Cochran's website.
In some ways, the Page 69 Test works here. Lou’s flaws, vulnerabilities, and unhealthy coping strategies are on full display, as are the primary tensions in her life–divided loyalties toward Joanna (the old-friend-turned-first-love-turned-worst-enemy who’s hired her to work on Parson House) and Heather (her current love, who represents Lou’s home and family). The question of whether Lou will be able to leave the past–and especially Joanna and Parson House–behind in order to build a healthy future is what drives the book, and page 69 is a great example of all the ways Lou’s stubbornness and obsession make that question more complicated for herself.
But page 69 is just a setup for what’s coming around the corner: Danny’s real motives in coming to talk to Lou after her fight with Heather. The Gulf is set in a small town, among a cast that has mostly known one another for years. As anyone who grew up in a certain type of small town knows, there’s both warmth and stagnation in that kind of familiarity. Danny and Lou have been friends since childhood, and in some ways they know too much about each other. This book is all push-and-pull in its interpersonal dynamics, and Lou quickly starts to suspect that Danny is handling her, trying to influence her thinking. At the same time, he’s easily able to get under her skin, to say important truths that actually resonate, that linger with her long after this scene–even if they do send her lashing out defensively in the moment.
In many ways, The Gulf is about a tug-of-war between the past and the future, a struggle in which Lou is caught in the middle. As her questions about the past grow and grow–particularly about the recent death of Joanna’s mother Miss Kate, which Lou is slowly starting to suspect wasn’t an accident as the local police claim–Lou’s desperation for answers clashes with her fear about what she’ll discover about her hometown, her old friends, and even herself.
Writers Read: Rachel Cochran.
--Marshal Zeringue
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