The good parts The best erotic writing in modern fiction

What Blair deems the best erotic scenes in the last 50 years of American literature have been collected in this ambitious anthology, with some of the 46 sexy pieces excerpted from such classic novels as Saul Bellow's 1954 groundbreaking The Adventures of Augie March and Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire. There are contemporary scorchers as well, like Mary Gaitskill's "Processing," or A.M. Homes's "Chunky in Heat." Once-shocking stories such as Harold Brodkey's meditation on a young woman's first orgasm, "Innocence," blaze beside lyrical entries by Michael Chabon, Susan Sontag, Don DeLillo and William Styron. Amy Bloom's "Only You" follows a quirky encounter between a married North Carolina woman and her cross-dressing lover. Pat Califia's "What Girls Are Made Of," from the aptly named collection Melting Point, is a dark and stylish peephole look into the s&m lesbian scene involving women named Poison, Killer and Bo. Other high points include a romantic but realistic excerpt from E.L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate and a sultry passage from The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos. In their original context, these "good parts" would have climaxed a narrative; here, they produce a rich, sometimes overstimulating effect. Nevertheless, taking into account the current glut of uneven erotica anthologies, this is a refreshing entry: a quality literary collection of beautifully written pieces that happen to be about sex. Not simply titillating, this book's range of voices, eras and settings provides a fascinating and revealing history of how sexuality in America has changed over the last half-century. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Blair's maiden voyage reprints 47 excerpts from novels and stories in support of the proposition that contemporary literary fiction (most of the selections are from the past ten years) has ``good parts'' as torrid as yesteryear's tawdry paperbacks. The distinguished table of contents'which includes Saul Bellow, Harold Brodkey, Frederick Busch, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Mary Gordon, Oscar Hijuelos, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Jane Smiley, and Susan Sontag'might seem to clinch the case even before page one if erotic titillation weren't so often inversely proportional to more traditional kinds of goodness. Not surprisingly, none of the A-list authors imagines a scene nearly as scorching as the likes of Kathy Acker, Pat Califia, A.M. Homes, Joan Mellen, Dale Peck, Dani Shapiro, and Scott Spencer (though William Styron does his best in a scene from Sophie's Choice). It's certainly true that modern American fiction is a lot more frank in its eroticism than the Victorians' reading matter, and it may well be that explicit sex scenes help fiction achieve more ends than one. Nonetheless, an anthology of spicy scenes, in which erotic psychology is bound to get upstaged at least occasionally by hydraulics, may not be the best place to make that case.

Chapter One {{KATHY ACKER}} "Kathy Goes to Haiti" Novelist Kathy Acker is an audacious original. She consistently subverts traditional narrative with unrelenting anarchic energy and passionate post-punk feminism. Her writing is daring, sexy, and smart. This excerpt is from her novel Literal Madness. He gets up to go to the bathroom. Kathy hearsm him piss. "Come here."     She walks into the bathroom and sees him sitting on the toilet. "Sit on me."     She sits down slowly, her back facing him. His cock slides up her asshole. His hands grab her tits.     She wonders if he's still going to the bathroom. "Shit and piss," she thinks to herself, "Fuck and suck what and not."     Everything's everything else. Kathy's crouching behind the window, watching the gray cat stalk someone she can't see. "Let's go to bed," Roger says.     He takes Kathy's hand and leads her to the bed.     Lays her back down on the bed. "This bed makes too much noise."     "It's just a lousy bed."     "Let's move it away from the wall."     "Do I have to get up?"     "No." He pulls the bed away from the wall so the wood headboard doesn't bang against the wall and lies down. His head is on Kathy's cunt. He sticks his tongue in Kathy's cunt and licks. Then he raises his head. His dark brown beard hairs are rubbing the lighter brown wet cunt hairs. Roger's beard hairs are partly white from sucking Kathy.     She moans.     "Now do you like my beard?" Roger asks.     "I always liked your beard."     "But now you see why my beard's so special."     "Oh shit." Kathy's heat's rising. She's about to come again. Roger doesn't want her to come again from his tongue. He rises over Kathy and sticks his cock into her cunt.     Kathy doesn't exactly know what's happening. Roger and Kathy fuck and then stop fuck and then stop fuck and then stop. They're actually fucking slowly and in a steady rhythm. Kathy's cunt is so sore that Kathy comes whenever Roger's cock is inside her. Yet they're fucking slowly enough that she's not becoming hysterical. Fucking is not fucking and not fucking is fucking. No one can tell who's coming or who's not coming. No one knows and forgets anything.     "Will you really come to Le Roi tomorrow?"     "I said I would," laughing.     "What haven't you done in bed?"     "I don't know. If I knew, I'd do it. Oh, I've never really gotten tied up and beaten or tied up and beaten someone, though I've thought about it a lot. Have you?"     "Oh yes. I once went with a girl the only way she could get off was if I tied her up and hit her. Otherwise she didn't want it, no way. I tied her wrists behind her back. I hit her hard. When she was ready she'd be writhing and shaking and then she'd want it so bad."     "You didn't like it?"     "It was OK. I didn't care for it that much. Did you ever ass fuck?"     "Jesus Christ, we were ass fucking when we were on the toilet. Couldn't you tell?"     "I was so hot, all I could think about was getting my own. I don't even know if you've been coming."     "I've been coming enough. I'm satisfied."     "I want to fuck you up the ass when I know it."     "I like to fuck women. I don't do it much anymore though I used to."     "I like when women make love with women."     "Have you ever made it with a man?"     "I wouldn't let a man near me. I know what I want," Roger says.     "What do you want?"     "Are you really going to come to Le Roi?"     "I said I was going to. Jesus Christ, I'm here 'cause I want to see as much of Haiti as possible."     "I'd love to have you make love to my wife. That's why I want you to come to Le Roi."     "Waaiit a minute. I don't go for women all that much and I definitely only go for women I want. I don't even know Betty. I'd like to meet Betty 'cause she's an American and 'cause she sounds pretty damn lonely, but that's it."     "Maybe you and her will get something together. I want to find a woman who'll make love to my wife. That's what Betty needs."     "Roger, even if Betty and I do do anything, that's between me and Betty. It's none of your business. What goes on between you and Betty doesn't concern me. Jesus Christ, I don't even know Betty yet."     "I don't believe you're going to come to Le Roi tomorrow."     "How do I get to Le Roi?"     "Everyone in town knows where Le Roi is. You can ask anyone. There's a bridge and there's a big red chimney. The big red chimney's Le Roi."     "On the way to the airport?"     "Yes."     "I guess I'll find it."     "What time will you come?"     "About one o'clock."     "Ill wait for you. My father's rebuilding the factory. He has three new rum tanks. I'll show you the rum tanks, and then I'll take you in to meet Betty."     "Are you sure it'll be OK with Betty? I don't know if she wants to meet me."     "The only way Betty ever meets people is when I introduce them to her."     Roger and Kathy look at each other. Their lips meet. Roger sticks his cock into Kathy's overfucked cunt. Roger comes. Kathy feels every inch of his cock spasm back and forth as clearly as she sees the white ceiling above her. Roger's orgasm makes Kathy hot.     They stop fucking. Roger's cock is hard again. Roger wets his finger and sticks it into Kathy's ass. His finger moves around easily. He sloshes some saliva on the asshole and eases his cock into Kathy's ass. Kathy doesn't feel any pain at all.     Roger's moving his cock back and forth rapidly. Kathy's coming like a maniac. All of her ass and intestinal muscles are shaking. "Oh oh oh," Kathy cries. Kathy stops coming. Roger's still shaking away. Kathy feels a little pain. Kathy and Roger both come again. Copyright © 2000 The Reference Works. All rights reserved.