The writer of any literary book about sex has a problem right off the bat. He — in the case of the following books, all writers are male — has immediately set the reader up to expect dirty parts, with which the linguistic feats in between must wimpily compete. Should the author simply wish to comment on sexual mores without stirring anyone's loins, he faces an uphill battle; he has produced a cookbook without any recipes.
It seems churlish, then, to announce that Robert Olen Butler's latest book, Intercourse, is anything but sexy. Its title and cover — entwined limbs, a hand aimed straight at a buttock — are enough to prevent anyone from thumbing through it on the bus, so you'd figure on some kind of upside. There isn't one. Intercourse opens a speculative window on the thoughts of 50 famous couples in the middle of sex, and, while that's a fairly nifty idea, the brief encounters never get much hotter than the one between George and Laura Bush. (Laura thinks about decorating, George about the tar on his boots. It may not be true, but it's the best PR they've had in years.)
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Right now, Olen Butler may be best known as the author of a weird, widely circulated e-mail in which he complained about being dumped by his girlfriend in favour of Ted Turner. The man is no hack, however; he also has a Pulitzer Prize to his credit, though he doesn't exactly seem to be angling for another. I mean, a rooster getting his freak on with a chicken? Santa Claus and an elf?
Some of the historical couplings are mildly funny, in a ghastly way. Olen Butler makes no real attempt to get inside people's heads, but still, a little verisimilitude couldn't have hurt. I know, for example, that Richard Nixon was probably not much of a player, but can one really imagine him erotically torpedoed by Pat "in her Republican cloth coat," holding poor Checkers aloft? And did Joe McCarthy really obsess about reds under the bed all the time?
A voyeuristic dog also appears in Napoleon's boudoir as he goes at it with Josephine. Quoth the hound: "Another itchy begins down in my snozzle and I wonder if I need to do some licking there." I think you have the idea, but trust me, it gets worse. Good taste prevents me from recounting the supposed musings of Adolf Hitler, or an American slave named Hannah; these are particularly incongruous in a book as ridiculously flossy as this one. Better to stick with the boffage between Mary Todd Lincoln (whose craziness in bed, it is hinted, may have made up for her craziness while clothed) and her husband, Abe, a game and stolid woodsman: "she rail-split my log a long time ago," he groans.
Twenty-one years ago, anti-porn activist Andrea Dworkin wrote quite a different book called Intercourse. One is reminded of this by the surprising mention of Ms. D in Chuck Palahniuk's new, um, novel, the provocatively titled Snuff. Now, this is the first time I have ever dipped into Palahniuk's tender and heartwarming oeuvre. His reputation precedes; suffice to say that if he were a creative-writing student today, his teacher would notify the dean, and not in a good way. He's best known for Fight Club, later made into a movie starring the pre-humanitarian Brad Pitt, in which men regularly gather to beat each other senseless. He's also known for Guts, a story about "masturbation accidents," which has so far caused scores of listeners to faint at public readings.
His new novel sees 600 men lining up for the chance to have on-camera sex with Cassie Wright, an aging and suicidal porn star, in a giant gang-bang which everyone is sure will kill her (the aim is, no kidding, a vaginal embolism). We listen in on several of these men as they wait their turn, throwing back Viagra as they would Jelly Tots. There is "Mr. 600," a silverback porn vet himself; "Mr. 72," who thinks he's Cassie's son; and "Mr. 137," a former television detective fallen on hard times.
