What, precisely, is ``bad sex''? Gathering contemporary writers from England, Ireland, Canada, Africa, and the US, Hoyland (Fathers & Sons, not reviewed) comes up with 21 quirky scenarios. Plots, for the most part credible, are more varied than one would imagine. The volume itself is masterfully orchestrated. Early stories are calm and tender, focusing on relationships in which sex plays a small part. Lisa Appignanesi's ``Beast'' captures the unique point of view of a husband whose feminist wife has just published a book about masturbation. In ``Strange Attractors'' Jane DeLynn tediously but perceptively chronicles the way people keep toeholds on dying relationships: Her narrator doesn't like drugs or alcohol but uses them ``for fear that we would no longer be able to converse at all if our bodies were not being affected by the same constituency of chemicals.'' As the collection progresses, the texts gradually become more explicit. Some can be discreet, if not charming—Victor Headley's ``Christmas Present,'' for instance, whose narrator, embroiled in a relationship built solely on sex, sees himself as a worthless stud. But in the stories that follow, the intensity increases, S&M imagery appears, hints of murder surface. (It's impossible to read Ian Breakwell's pseudo-diary, ``Fade To Black,'' without cringing.) Then, just when you want to toss this book away, the stories become gentle again—but now they are anything but innocent and contain some wonderful humorous touches. The married lover in Catherine Hiller's ``Some Rules About Adultery'' carefully stages three afternoons of bad sex in order to end a two-year affair. Mary Scott's ``D.I.Y.'' portrays a promiscuous woman, wanting a break from men, who goes on a ``women only'' tour, only to discover her trip-mates are all paired off. In perfect closure, the protagonist of Molly Brown's ``Choosing the Incubus'' finds her human lover pales beside her demonic nightly visitor. The title might be a turn-off, but the texts themselves are surprisingly enjoyable.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1994
ISBN: 1-85242-307-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
A presold prefab blockbuster, what with King's Carrie hitting the moviehouses, Salem's Lot being lensed, The Shining itself sold to Warner Bros. and tapped as a Literary Guild full selection, NAL paperback, etc. (enough activity to demand an afterlife to consummate it all).
The setting is The Overlook, a palatial resort on a Colorado mountain top, snowbound and closed down for the long, long winter. Jack Torrance, a booze-fighting English teacher with a history of violence, is hired as caretaker and, hoping to finish a five-act tragedy he's writing, brings his wife Wendy and small son Danny to the howling loneliness of the half-alive and mad palazzo. The Overlook has a gruesome past, scenes from which start popping into the present in various suites and the ballroom. At first only Danny, gifted with second sight (he's a "shiner"), can see them; then the whole family is being zapped by satanic forces. The reader needs no supersight to glimpse where the story's going as King's formula builds to a hotel reeling with horrors during Poesque New Year's Eve revelry and confetti outta nowhere....
Back-prickling indeed despite the reader's unwillingness at being mercilessly manipulated.
Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1976
ISBN: 0385121679
Page Count: 453
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1976
PERSPECTIVES
A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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