cares. Her obligation to her genitals is sonoverwhelmingly serious an undertakingnthat it becomes sadly grotesque, like thenromps of a cheap, tired clown. And becausenKate, the non-person, generates no feelings,nher erotic entanglements create no excitement:nno empathy, no curiosity, no lust.nWe have already relegated the myth ofnDon Juan to the psychiatrist’s couch; he isnconsidered nowadays a symbol of lonelinessnand pathos, a figure of scorn. Does theirn”liberation” mean that women havenstruggled hard and finally achieved theirnmuch desired parity with men in this role asnwell? The protozoan-like heroine gropesnher way from body to body, her triumphantnmoment of sexual egalitarianism occuringnwhen one of her co-workers — one hesitatesnto call him her partner, eveii less loyer—ncomplains : “You’re only interested in bed.”nThe Liberal DelightnWhy should women, portrayed by novelsnthis shoddy and this Salable, yearn tonultimately emulate that which they sonvocally profess to reject? The numerousnfemale writers who might be considerednspeakers for the “new woman,” or at leastnas apostles of the newly sexually liberatednwoman, are ideologically and morallynconfused. What comes to mind is the old>ncliche: “It’s repulsive, it’s immoral, andnI’m not getting any.” Critical of so-calledntraditional male sexual behavior, theynyearn to usurp it for themselves, yet innaddition demand that we take themnseriously both as representatives of thencontemporary woman and as writers asnwell. But both of these demands sound like anpoor joke.n—Mary Ellen FoxnDr. Fox specialized at Yale in XIX centurynwoman’s literary fate, and didn’t find it toonhideous.n”Effective, witty, immensely readable . . . Kate’s aphrodisiac odyssey is a classic of its kind.”n—Cosmopolitan.n”It’s new and fun to read an erotic book written by a woman, about a woman who takesnextraordinary joy in sex instead of suffering it as misery.” — Betty Friedan (William Morrow’snpublishing ad).n”Talk was that Gael Greene’s first novel would be the sexiest by a woman yet, and talk wasnright.” — Saturday Review.n”A sizzling sexual odyssey. Kate is a strong, twentieth-century heroinenTribune-New York Daily News.nChicagon”If this is what happens when you let them out of the kitchen, I’m all for it.”—Jimmy Breslinn(William Morrow’s publishing ad).n” . . . erotic, cinematic, and bluntly honest . . . there is an archetypal, elemental womannseething through all acting-out . . . viscerally enjoyable and credible.” —Library Journal.nChronicles of Culture l»nnn
January 1975April 21, 2022By The Archive
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