THE EXQUISITE THING

by Joyce MacIver ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 1968

Those who remember Joyce Maclver as a little tadpole in The Frog Pond (purportedly autobiographical--1961) will certainly recognize her again grown up to a good six feet as Angelica Carthage. The grown up is strictly a facon de parler; the Angelica is a misnomer. And right in the beginning as she is wildly excited when her friend Libby is being smacked with a hairbrush, you know what's to come in Angelica's ""odd and overwhelming erotic life."" O ye whips and tingles, but first there's Mr. Bolton, an impotent widower, and Angelica's really revolting reprisals on him with his false teeth: then Tom who ties her up and almost burns her up; then Erika, an older woman in an artist colony; and finely the ""Exquisite Thing""--Gerald who stages a little scene right out of the Story of O just for her. . . . One emerges sadly from all this with the conviction that those who, like Angelica, must fantasize with literary appliances like this are really more deprived than depraved.

Pub Date: June 6, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1968

Categories: FICTION