THE PASSION OF MOLLY T.

Sanders, never the most tasteful of potboiler-makers, continues his descent into sheer dumb vulgarity—following The Seduction of Peter S. with a neanderthal political/sexual thriller about the feminist threat of the future. It's 1987, and the more militant National Women's Union (NWU) has replaced NOW as the most visible feminist activist group. But activism turns into terrorism at the Canton, W. Va., NWU chapter—after Norms Jane Laughlin, chapter president, is murdered by local bigots: her lesbian lover, Molly Turner, teams up with her cop brother-in-law Rod Harding (the local Alan Alda) to take vigilante vengeance. And soon Molly and Rod are leading the Women's Defense Corps (WDC), the NWU's paramilitary division—bombing porno-magazines, lynching rapists, etc. Meanwhile, however, there are nasty Washington, D.C. power-struggles going on amongst the NWU's top brass; by 1990 slimy Constance Underwood has emerged as NWU queenpin—but her position is threatened by charismatic Molly Turner's increasing WDC notoriety. Meanwhile, too, would-be Presidential candidate Senator Dundee is basing his campaign on backlash against the WDC violence—with secret help from sexual spies, the Justice Dept., and sneaky Constance (who's easily sexually manipulated, being something of a nymphomaniac). And Molly's terrorist rise is also threatened by her devoted sister, Rod's wife Ann—who begins plotting against bisexual Molly when she finds out about the sleazy Rod/Molly love affair. Eventually, then, everybody's murdering everybody else: Rod kills his Stepin Fetchit sidekick—who knows too much; Molly shoots Constance; assorted enemies knock off Molly, making her a martyr; but it's Ann, now as ruthless as the other sisters; who becomes Dundee's 1992 running mate. . . with plans for White House murder ahead. Virtually all the women here are lesbians or nymphos. The men are cartoon-slime or flat and faceless. The plot's a melodramatic mess, with totally implausible, naive future-politics at every turn. And the trashola prose features regular dollops of sub-literate laziness (including non-words like arousement and assertation). But, though limply idiotic as suspense and uncommonly vile as an attempt at misogynistic titillation, this is sure to sell fairly well—like Peter S.—thanks to the Sanders byline and the below-the-belt, lowest-common-denominator approach.