A surprisingly introspective, appealingly spicy, and thoroughly original dominatrix story.
A novel focuses on the double life of a Manhattan woman.
By day, Cristela Maria Davila is a leasing agent, showing apartments to prospective tenants, but in the evenings, she becomes dominatrix-for-hire “Mistress Clara.” She works at “Belle’s House of Unusual Pleasures,” a BDSM dungeon for customers wishing to indulge their kinkiest fetishes and participate in erotic role play. Clara endured a rough childhood. Her impoverished single Venezuelan mother provided for her and her brother, Alex, through welfare checks and food stamps. The novel thoughtfully examines how that upbringing both affected Clara’s financial perspective and informed her perceptions of men. With chapter headings named for both vices and virtues, the book chronicles Clara’s devilish exploits alongside her co-workers at the dungeon—Virginia, Justine, Sin, and Daisy—all contributing unique intimate histories of their own. Through the interactive, colorfully described fantasy sessions with her clients, Clara begins to become empowered by her simulated dominance of the men who hire her. She separates herself from other classic service providers as her role play, while physical, hypersexualized, and arousing, remains strictly noncoital. In keeping Clara’s narration smooth and her personality curious, clever, and warm, De Soprontu tempers the more risqué scenes with a character who initially enjoys the extra income but eventually embraces the theatrical thrill of the spectacle. A story of sex, identity, and renewal, the novel effectively intertwines Clara’s past and present lives in a way that makes her tale a simultaneously compelling, intriguing, and effortlessly entertaining read. The provocative nature of the story will, naturally, appeal to readers of erotica, as the author never skimps on potent passages of steamy dialogue and racy scenes between Clara and her cohorts. Often their interplay expands outward to include threesomes and foursomes or activities that feature sex toys, clothing, and even food (readers won’t look at a snack cake the same way again). Yet through Clara’s intimately social interactions, De Soprontu imparts views on themes of poverty, class differences, race, identity, self-preservation, strength, and deliverance, all tightly bound within the intricate, acutely psychological opera of dominance and submission interplay.
A surprisingly introspective, appealingly spicy, and thoroughly original dominatrix story.Pub Date: July 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73319-500-3
Page Count: 332
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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