Award-winning writer and high-flying sexual truth-teller Jong (Love Comes First, 2009, etc.) partners with 28 collaborators to create this fierce and refreshingly frank collection of personal essays, short fiction and cartoons celebrating female desire.
Kirkus – May 20, 2011
Review
The approaches to the still-taboo topic of feminine sexuality—at least, for women writers seeking approbation from the literary establishment—are, as Jong notes, “as varied as sexuality itself” and as exuberantly diverse as the contributors themselves. They range from such emerging talents as Elisa Albert and J.A.K. Andres to such luminaries as Rebecca Walker, Eve Ensler, Susan Cheever, Anne Roiphe and Fay Weldon, and represent a multiethnic, multigenerational swath of some of the finest women writers in the United States. Most of the pieces deal with the perennial themes of sexual coming-of-age, social and religious sexual hang-ups and lusty obsessions for male bodies (as well as female ones). Some deal with lesser-discussed—but no less important—subjects like procreative sex and eroticism in old age. Still others fearlessly explore fetishism, childhood masturbation, kink, sexual addiction and the excitement that, in the words of Linda Gray Sexton, comes from “the offering up of one’s body like a sacrifice upon the temple of the bed.” While sex is the source of life and some of the most powerful joys—and agonies—imaginable, it is also invariably linked to death. And that, writes Jong, “is part of our discomfort with it.” But the contributors to this collection never make sex facile. As they work against cultural expectations and literary double standards, they make women’s depictions of “doing it” just another aspect of a more fully realized human consciousness.
A smart, scrumptiously sexy romp of a read.
Publishers Weekly – May 23, 2011
Review
“In this no-holds-barred collection of essays by “real women” about “real sex,” Jong has assembled an eclectic group of authors…this collection is at its most profound when truth illuminates sex as a force in which these women found empowerment.”
http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-187576-2
Columbus Dispatch – May 22, 2011
Summer Reads
“The author of Fear of Flying collects writings by “real women on real sex,” which range from short stories and novel excerpts to essays and graphically illustrated cartoons, and which includes the author’s daughter’s essay, They Had Sex So I Didn’t Have To.”
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/arts/stories/2011/05/22/made-in-the-shade.html?sid=101
I need a little sugar in my bowl,
I need a little hot dog, on my roll
I can stand a bit of lovin’, oh so bad,
I feel so funny, I feel so sad
– Written By J. Tim Brymn, Dally Small and Clarence Williams
and Recorded By Bessie Smith on November 20, 1931
SUGAR IN MY BOWL: Real Women Write About Real Sex is a collection of the best original writing about sex from women writers of all ages, including Erica Jong, Naomi Wolf, Gail Collins, Susie Bright, Eve Ensler, Liz Smith, Daphne Merkin, Molly Jong-Fast, Fay Weldon, Anne Roiphe, Julie Klam, Jennifer Weiner and many others.
Topics range from “My Best Friend’s Boyfriend” by iconic writer Fay Weldon, to “Cock of My Dreams” by graphic novelist, Marisa Marchetto, to “Worst Sex” by New York Times columnist Gail Collins, to “Cramming It All In” by poet Susan Kinsolving, to “Going All The Way” by Liz Smith, to “A Fucking Miracle” by Elisa Albert, to “Do I Own You Now?” by Daphne Merkin. Erica Jong’s original story “Kiss” concludes the book.
SUGAR IN MY BOWL, the title taken from a raunchy blues song made famous by Bessie Smith and Nina Simone, shows the great diversity of the way women think and fantasize about sex. Ironically, the younger generation is far more repressed than the older—as Molly Jong-Fast shows in “They Had Sex So We Didn’t Have To.”
U.S. publication date is June 14, 2011. Pre Order a copy today: http://tinyurl.com/3c2oy6a
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SUGAR IN MY BOWL is a surprising look at female sexuality in our time.
The Contributors to SUGAR IN MY BOWL:
- A Fucking Miracle, By ELISA ALBERT
- Worst S-x, By GAIL COLLINS
- Peek-A-Boo, By ANNE ROIPHE
- Prude, By JEAN HANFF KORELITZ
- Sex with A Stranger, By SUSAN CHEEVER
- Everything Must Go, By JENNIFER WEINER
- Love Rollercoaster 1975, By SUSIE BRIGHT
- Absolutely Dangerous, By LINDA GRAY SEXTON
- The One Who Breaks My Heart, By ROSEMARY DANIELL
- Do I Own You Now?, By DAPHNE MERKIN
- Let’s Not Talk About Sex, By JULIE KLAM
- My Best Friend’s Boyfriend, By FAY WELDON
- The Diddler, By J.A.K. ANDRES
- The Dignity Channel, By JANN TURNER
- Miss Honeypot Marries, By BARBARA VICTOR
- Best Sex Ever: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis, By JESSICA WINTER
- Cock of My Dreams, By MARISA MARCHETTO
- Cramming It All In, By SUSAN KINSOLVING
- Reticence and Field Work, By MIN JIN LEE
- My First Time, Twice, By ARIEL LEVY
- Light Me Up, By MARGOT MAGOWAN
- Herman and Margot, By KAREN ABBOTT
- Somewhere I Have Never Traveled, Gladly, By MEGHAN O’ROURKE
- Skin, Just Skin, By EVE ENSLER
- Reading of O, By HONOR MOORE
- Going All The Way, By LIZ SMITH
- The Man In Question, By REBECCA WALKER
- They Had Sex So I Didn’t Have To, By MOLLY JONG-FAST
- Kiss, By ERICA JONG
