As fiction, however, aside from an occasionally amusing irony, Jones' fragmentary debut is mostly just dank and...
"'You're daring. Most people cannot even imagine life the way you live it.'"
So says ex-husband Woody to Lewis Jones, the "sexually free" woman who narrates these flat vignettes of unusual bedroom behavior in Detroit and N.Y. As a young woman in the Fifties, Lewis is apparently mistreated by men. So she then takes the advice of an older woman: "'Disconnect your brain from your pussy, girl.'" Lewis marries wealthy allergist Woody, who provides drugs and money for "orgyettes." Assorted threesomes and foursomes ensue—featuring bisexual transvestite "Kitty" (Lewis' soulmate), Vietnamese painter Ciarra, happy homemaker Prince (anal sex with a champagne bottle), and others. There's also a somewhat more intimate session with beautiful Flower, a 375-lb. lesbian whom Lewis lectures on liberation. ("'You think of yourself as a stud bitch?...A dyke? I haven't heard such old-timey words in years.'") Then, in this small book's second half, Lewis attempts to combine sex with love for the first time in years—committing herself "for life" to gorgeous quadriplegic writer Brook, paralyzed since an athletic accident at 18. But, though happy to procure sexual partners for Brook (and to service herself with "Oh Baby," her Japanese vibrator), Lewis is fatally possessive in her new nursing/loving role, refusing to accept Brook's attachment to other people. And the outcome is nasty violence—after which Lewis blames the whole rotten mess on permissive ex-hubby Woody. ("'You fuck!' I screamed out at him, spreading my legs farther. 'You gave me away. Remember that time you watched Kitty and Robb fuck me?...You never loved me.'") Fanciers of sexual psychopathology may find this blend of hedonism and victimized self-pity clinically intriguing.As fiction, however, aside from an occasionally amusing irony, Jones' fragmentary debut is mostly just dank and affect-less—with neither a firm fix on the empty central character nor enough style to conjure up a compelling erotic dream/nightmare.
As fiction, however, aside from an occasionally amusing irony, Jones' fragmentary debut is mostly just dank and affect-less—with neither a firm fix on the empty central character nor enough style to conjure up a compelling erotic dream/nightmare.Pub Date: April 1, 1984
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2024
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
