2009-10 - Bookends

Book Reviews featuring  Sheryl LeSage and William Proctor-Artz

So, then: Macho Sluts. Did that get your attention? It got mine back when I first saw the book in the early 90’s. Pat Califia published it in 1988, but I first encountered it on a low shelf at Bookstar, and the title was so arresting that I couldn’t help but pick up a copy. Let me tell you, Internet Generation, it took a bit of fortitude to hand a book with a title like that to the cashier. I didn’t realize it then, but the book was - and is, 20 years later - one of the foundational texts in the sex-positive and BDSM communities.

The new edition (Arsenal Pulp Press, $17.95) might surprise those folks who remember Califia as a lesbian: he’s now a man, so the updated Foreword is written by Patrick, not Patricia. But the stories will still make your short hairs curl up and cringe. And let me be clear: this is a book of smutty, slutty, dirty, scary, freaky stories. Some of them are woman/woman, some man/man, and one is, um, sort of hetero, kind of.

One is a sci-fi vision of matriarchy - but it’s nobody’s idea of cheerleading for single-sex power structures. As should be obvious by now, this book is not for everyone. It’s offensive in many places and kind of horrifying in others. There’s not much about it that most readers would call gentle or loving, although there is a great deal of affection that comes through in many of these stories.

All things considered, I’m glad I had the guts to fork over the cash for it a couple of decades ago. And surprisingly, it hasn’t really become dated or passé. The stories still seem pretty fresh. I don’t know if that’s more a damning comment on the state of political sex writing today, or a compliment to the author. If nothing else, in a world full of smirky poseurs, Patrick Califia is a genuinely challenging writer, and we just don’t have enough of those these days.

And on a completely unrelated note, Colette Moody has published her second book, The Seduction of Moxie (Bold Strokes Books, $16.95). I was looking forward to it, having thought she was the clear winner in the apparent “lesbian pirate novel sweepstakes” a few months ago. Fortunately I was not disappointed.

This book is hilarious. I snorted and laughed out loud in several places: the dialogue is quick and silly and has exactly the right feel for a story set in the Roaring ‘20s. The romance is sweet, the evil character(s) get what they deserve, and the heroines find true love and triumph in the end. Oh, but you knew that; it’s the rule in all romances.

What’s fun about this book is the cheap gin, the New York Speakeasies, the well-meaning but airheaded roommate, the blowsy landlady, the cross-country train rides, the sexual frustration, and the eventual and quite satisfying end of said frustration. Moody is definitely a writer to watch.