Reviewed by Mary Anne Mohanraj
(2/9/00)

Okay, so you already know we're thrilled about the inclusion of two stories in Best American Erotica 2000 that were first published in Clean Sheets -- Marc Levy's "Maryann" and Bill Noble's "Big Hungry Woman" (Bill's one of our own fiction editors now, but he was a contributor first!). And we also published Ginu Kamani's "Fish Curry Rice," though I admit, we didn't manage to get that one first. Two of the other contributors, Linda Jaivin and Bob Vickery, have also appeared in our pages (Linda with an excerpt from Eat Me, and Bob with "Driver" and "Rocker Bruce"), so you'll understand if we're just a bit excited here. But I assume all you loyal CS readers know about the stories and authors above, so I'll go on to review the rest of the book, okay?

As usual, Susie has put together an excellent collection. Before you get to the stories, take a look at her introduction. She takes a stab at examining the trends in erotic literature for the last decade -- clearly, she's a braver woman than I. Her analysis is fascinating, from the beautiful-people-backlash (with stories focusing on the eroticism of the physically grotesque) to the recent idolization of youth (remember the David Steinberg essay on the "designated innocents"?). The collection may be worth buying for the introduction alone -- but there's more.

The book opens with Debra Boxer's "Innocence in Extremis." Now, I'm not sure if this story of a twenty-eight-year-old virgin is fiction or nonfiction, but in either case, it is entirely compelling. This woman's frustrated desire, her imagination and explicit fantasies, offer some of the hottest words I've read. Anticipation can be a wonderful, terrible thing -- and Boxer's story teases out every moment.

Many wonderful pieces follow -- one of my favorites is Shay Youngblood's "Triple X," where a teenage girl is taken to X-rated movies by her aunt, one very hot summer (the movie theater is air-conditioned -- only one of its charms, as it turns out...) Then there's Mark Stuertz's "Sophie's Smoke." I've never wanted to smoke, but if there's a story that could make me want to smoke cigars, this would be it.

I loved "Somewhere I Have Never Travelled," by Claire Tristram -- this young American woman in Japan seems as alien in that country as I sometimes feel... but her solution to her isolation is unique, and painfully exciting.

Some stories are obliquely beautiful, as with "It Will Do for Now," by Molly Weatherfield. Sometimes the stories are so strange and unpredictable that you can't help turning the pages, as with Nell Carberry's "The Manicure." And sometimes they're just charming and too true, as with William Harrison's "Two Cars in a Cornfield," probably my personal favorite in this collection, though it would be awfully hard to really choose.

Luckily, I don't have to. I got to read them all, and will read many of them again and again. I hope you decide to read them too.