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SEX FOR AMERICA

Name: SEX FOR AMERICA
Author: Stephen Elliott
ISBN: 978-0-06-135121-1

POLITICALLY INSPIRED EROTICA

edited by Stephen Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008

More fun to talk about than to read.

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A collection of stories and cartoons about the intersection of sex and politics.

What could be more like an inverted wonderland world than the contemporary political scene? In Jerry Stahl’s “L’il Dickens,” Dick Cheney becomes the object of homoerotic desire, his trysting taking place in a back room off a gun shop in Wyoming (also used as the Vice Presidential Emergency Operations Center). In Mistress Morgana’s “An Open Letter to the Bush Administration,” the drop in the bondage and S&M business is blamed on the war in Iraq: Bush is “taking the fantasy out of torture and domination and making it real.” In James Frey’s “The Candidate’s Wife,” the unmet sexual needs of the wife of a conservative, born-again senator are explored. In Charlie Anders’s election-night scenario, “Transfixed, Helpless, and Out of Control,” a sweet young thing is tormented equally by a suede flogger and by reminders of four more years of polluters rewriting environmental legislation and surveillance conducted in the name of Homeland Security. Elsewhere we’re confronted with the grim realities of war, as in Nick Flynn’s “A Crystal Formed Entirely of Holes,” which begins with a woman kissing a hole made by an AK-47 in her lover’s bicep; other “holes” eventually become metaphors for loss here. Fantasy is also an element of the collection. In Alison Tyler’s “Measure A, B, or Me,” a couple becomes aroused by a political poll, and, in Michelle Richmond’s “Milk,” a woman blissfully breastfeeds tribal guerillas though, unknown to them, she has been ingesting a toxic substance she passes along through her milk.

More fun to talk about than to read.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-06-135121-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2007

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT IT
by Stephen Elliott

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ADDERALL DIARIES
by Stephen Elliott

- BOOK REVIEW
MY GIRLFRIEND COMES TO THE CITY AND BEATS ME UP
by Stephen Elliott

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OWEN FOOTE, MONEY MAN

by Stephanie Greene & illustrated by Martha Weston ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2000

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In his quest for easy moolah, Owen learns that the road to financial solvency can be rocky and fraught with work. Greene (Owen Foote, Soccer Star, 1998, etc.) touches upon the often-thorny issue of chores and allowances: Owen’s mom wants him to help out because he’s part of the family and not just for the money—while Owen wants the money without having to do tedious household chores. This universal dilemma leaves Owen without funds and eagerly searching for ways to make a quick buck. His madcap schemes range from original—a “free” toilet demonstration that costs 50 cents—to disastrous, as during the trial run of his children’s fishing video, Owen ends up hooking his ear instead of a trout. Enlisting the aid of his stalwart, if long-suffering, friend Joseph, the two form a dog-walking club that becomes vastly restricted in clientele after Owen has a close encounter with an incontinent, octogenarian canine. Ultimately, Owen learns a valuable lesson about work and money when an unselfish action is generously rewarded. These sudden riches motivate Owen to consider wiser investments for his money than plastic vomit. Greene’s crisp writing style and wry humor is on-target for young readers. Brief chapters revolving around a significant event or action and fast pacing are an effective draw for tentative readers. Weston’s (Space Guys!, p. 392, etc.) black-and-white illustrations, ranging in size from quarter- to full-page, deftly portray Owen’s humorous escapades. A wise, witty addition to Greene’s successful series. (Fiction. 8-10)

Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2000

ISBN: 0-618-02369-0

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Clarion Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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GRAVITY

by Tess Gerritsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 17, 1999

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A strongly plotted thriller about a plague-like epidemic on a space station. Superb research lifts Gerritsen to the top of the ladder as Michael Crichton and Robin Cook wave from below. Gerritsen’s tale doesn—t have the mystical touch that Stanislaw Lem would have added, though the essential mystery here is a fairly mystical monster, a multicellular microscopic organism called the Chimera. A geologist, trapped in a submersible 19,000 feet deep in the Gal†pagos Rift, ties in with an outbreak on mankind’s first internationally built space station (ISS), orbiting earth. The ISS, five years in the assembling and twice as long as a football field, is manned by an international team of scientists whose work, in part, focuses on testing the effects of weightlessness on microbes and viruses. When tested on earth, such cultures can grow only on flat slides. In space, without gravity, they grow three-dimensionally and assume unbounded shapes. Someone has hoodwinked the space doctors by having them test an absolutely unknown organism that has been lifted from bubbling thermals on the ocean floor. This creature has hideous properties that allow it to take on the DNA of any host it enters, be such lab mouse, frog, or human. Thus, any vaccine that might kill the amazing Chimera, whose DNA is part frog, part mouse, and part human, would kill the host as well. The story builds to a Liebestodt of dancing horror as fatal globules of infected blood erupt weightlessly from the dying, float about the ship, and clog the air filters. Meanwhile, the main romantic interest turns on a couple in the process of divorce, astronauts Emma Watson and Dr. Jack McCallum. Doc Gerritsen (Bloodstream, 1998, etc.), a former internist who creates chilling viral disasters, knows all the natural gates and alleys of the human bio-novel as well as she does the musculature of suspense.