The Girl In the Pipes by Megan Mary Moore

A searing feminist novel exposing society’s demands on women and their desire for freedom

When two young women find themselves in bodies they feel are deficient and no longer think themselves able to respond to society’s exigencies, they uncover a secret desire for escape, either in an imaginary world or in total disappearance.

The Girl In The Pipes by Megan Mary Moore introduces readers first to young Marley, a poetry student who becomes the victim of a car accident, leading her to be paralyzed for a year and clinging desperately to any small hope that she could be pregnant in the future. This experience, feeling like it’s stripping her of her dignity as a woman, brings her to a place of deep reflection about herself, her relationships, and the meaning of life. Since the beginning of her relationship with her boyfriend Michael, she has always tried to satisfy his demands. Now in a state of absolute weakness and dependence to others, she is unable to fulfill them.

Marley’s existence has always been characterized more by fantasy than by reality: her love and phantasm for Michael, whom she loves having sex with only when he is disguised as a clown; her secret conversation with the animatronic at the park; or even her poetry. This desire to escape reality culminates when she starts having conversations with the girl living in the drain of her bathroom, suggesting that she join her in the pipes and asking if she wants the presence of any boy there. 

In the second part of the book, Dani’s experiences converge with Marley’s. As a plus-size influencer whose life depends on her public visibility, she is struck by an illness that shakes the very foundation of her life—her appearance. 

Megan Mary Moore’s novel is a raw, psychologically evocative narrative that uncovers women’s struggles with reflection, exploring what it means to confront today’s society as women and their need for true identity and authenticity. By revealing without filter the thoughts and feelings of these two characters, The Girl In The Pipes captures the burden that today’s society places on women, leading them to an intense desire to escape this hard reality even if it means disappearing entirely.

The Girl In The Pipes underlines the idea that women are reduced to simple bodies in the eyes of men and that the erasing of these bodies can lead them to freedom. The girl talking in the bathroom pipes for Marley and kitchen drains for Dani appears as the understanding and comforting presence women need to confide in, able to offer them the perfect world and liberty they so long for. 

Even as Jillian, the trapezist girl who used to work with Michael, one day built her own rope in between two buildings because she thought she could fly and finally decided to fly toward freedom. Flying away from the heaviness of always being on the scene, looked at by men as a simple flying body. The cost of visibility is great. The cost of losing your identity may be greater, perhaps even cultivating a desire to disappear from sight altogether. 

This book is raw, gross at times, and needle-sharp in its discussions on the physical and inner existence of women.