Likened to Henry Miller and heralded abroad as "king of the erotic thriller," the author of this unblushingly pornographic novel published earlier this year in the U.K. is previously credited with such quixotic titles as The State of Montana
and The Erotic Novels Boxed Set. From the opening lines of his latest ("She said pussy. I said cunt"), the author purposefully sets out to arouse and exploit the prurient proclivities of voyeuristic readers. Unfolding as a series of (generally) alternating parallel narratives, the novel chronicles the psychosocial evolution of two sexually obsessed main characters, both addicted to vicarious phone and cybersex. Jack, a rather sophisticated London bookseller and writer, is contrasted with Milduta, a comparatively innocent young Estonian woman raised from early childhood by her grandparents. Emotionally scarred since his student days after discovering that a French girl he is tutoring has betrayed him by having sex with a rival classmate, Jack is doomed to a repetitive pattern of possessive relationships with a series of female partners only to be ultimately rejected. Milduta develops a talent for fellatio, which she performs on a rather undistinguished ménage of men she meets in bars. Inevitably, she is deflowered before she encounters Jack via the Web and the unraveling of their Freudian threads is set in motion. Although the steamy New York City tryst promised at the start is strangely missing, this blatantly prurient, edgy, perverse morality play will hold even the most jaded reader to the shocking end. (Nov.)
Corrections:
The review of Supreme: The Story of the Year
(Forecasts, Oct. 28) incorrectly identified the creators of the graphic novel's drawings. The artists are Rick Veitch and Joe Bennett.
Ohio Angels
(Seven Stories), reviewed in Fiction Forecasts on Sept. 30, is Harriet Scott Chessman's first novel, not her second, and was published originally by Permanent Press in 1999.
