CIRCLE OF FRIENDS

by Lou D'Angelo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 1977

Pudgy, bald, bespectacled, and a virgin at 35, Willie Pannettone is a late arrival at New York's sexual revolution party. His hostess is Patricia (the only ""shiksa"" in Willie's inexplicably adoring bevy of office girls), who calls him ""Pan"" and initiates him into foreplay, straight stuff, and cunnilingus (""The taste and smell were nothing to brag about"")--all this while Willie's dominating sister Florence is conveniently hospitalized, having been mugged by one of the ""Ubangos"" who've ruined the Pannettones' Bronx neighborhood. But it seems that Willie has waited too long to become ""Super Stud"" (as Patricia puts it, ""Super Schmuck""); no real woman can match twenty years' worth of porno books, peeping-tomming, and sister-obsessed fantasies. Nor does his career revolution turn out well: a disastrous tie-in with a Mafia-based Italian consciousness-raising campaign. So, Willie's left with a duplicate of his old job, a date-book full of one-night stands, but nothing to brag about. And D'Angelo is left with some truly flavorful Italian-American scenas, some dirty-funny lines and moments, but an unconvincing hero in an inconclusive, ultimately irritating set of effortfully contemporary circumstances.

Pub Date: Aug. 5, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1977

Categories: FICTION