THE BEST AMERICAN EROTICA 2001

Name: THE BEST AMERICAN EROTICA 2001
Author: Susie Bright
ISBN: 0-684-86914-4

edited by Susie Bright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

As with a photo album whose every picture dissatisfies some member of the family, every user returning to this volume after...

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The eighth in Bright’s series of hit-or-miss pillow books has a little something for everybody, but not much of anything for anybody.

Noting in her Introduction how far the genre has come since her 1993 inaugural volume, which could have been titled The Only American Erotica, the editor cites the explosion of erotic fiction on the Web—a phenomenon that makes contemporary erotica “the fastest-growing fiction genre ever seen.” Given the endless fields she’s gleaning, however, the 22 stories chosen as the most “arousing yet literary” of their kind are a disappointing lot. It’s not just that the sort of literary values you might associate with the O. Henry Prize winners are in short supply, or that the most obviously literary stories (with the happy exception of Charles Flowers’s sharp, funny boxing memoir) aren’t very successful as either lubricant or lit. What turns some readers on (Todd Belton’s prodigiously expanding breasts, Cara Bruce’s exotic dancer seduced by a female client, Dodie Bellamy’s adventures of a woman who really is from Venus, James Williams’s paean to “Jason’s Cock”) will send others looking for greener pastures. As in earlier volumes, the leading principle of selection here, pace Bright, isn’t “sincerity” but variety; Bright seems determined to leave no sexual preference or practice unrepresented, and the result reads less like The New Yorker than like National Geographic. There’s masturbation (Matt Bernstein Sycamore), serial sex (Damian Grace), sex before waking (Hanne Blank), sex professionals (Nathan Englander, Wendy Becker, M.J. Rose), hopeful young love (Dani Shapiro), remembered old love (Jack Murnighan), and the usual generous helping of gay, lesbian, and interracial couples and multiples.

As with a photo album whose every picture dissatisfies some member of the family, every user returning to this volume after the initial survey can expect to reread one or two stories devotionally and ignore the rest.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-684-86914-4

Page Count: 288

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SANTA CRUZ NOIR
edited by Susie Bright

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BIG SEX, LITTLE DEATH
by Susie Bright

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THE BEST OF BEST AMERICAN EROTICA, 2008
edited by Susie Bright

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.