The Garden Of Love [Paperback]

One of the most surprising things I discovered after reading "My Dream Date (Rape) With Kathy Acker" was that Michael Hemmingson was a well-known erotica writer. I found this amazing because the sex in that book was decidedly un-erotic.

The first novel here, "The Comfort of Women," is nothing more than a long "Penthouse Forum" letter. There's almost no plot or purpose -- it is one sex scene after another, as the main character moves from relationship to relationship. Each woman comes with a new proclivity. The second half of the novel details the man's relationship with one woman and their descent into the underground scene, but the writing is lazy and it felt like Hemmingson simply flipped through a porn catalog, noted anything outrageous, and stuck it in his story. It becomes incredibly boring.

"The Dress," the second novel, is more in line with what I thought an erotica novel would be. Namely, something sensual and sexy and not just necessarily "dirty." When it begins, "The Dress" features a man who likes to buy his girlfriend sexy outfits to wear. This is something I, and I'm sure millions of other men, have done, and Hemmingson gets across perfectly that little thrill of picking the outfit out and watching your girlfriend/wife wearing it, attracting attention, deliberately but secretly turning you on.

Unfortunately, the novel leaves this subtle eroticism behind for more violent and perverse sexual activity -- basically replaying what happened in "The Comfort of Women," as the couple takes on other partners and find their lives spiraling out of control.

I've read a lot of Hemmingson now and his pattern of storytelling is impossible not to notice. He puts troubled people together, they begin to explore their perversions, there is scatology galore, they expand their perversions, to a point that it is out of control, and then someone has a tragic ending.

I'm also not quite sure what the obsession is with scatology. I've yet to read a book from Hemmingson that didn't feature it, and "The Comfort of Women" is like a love letter to it. There has to be other ways to express that people are engaging in outre sexual activity.

"Drama" feels more like Hemmingson's short fiction and less like an erotica novel. It's definitely the best novel here. Like most of Hemmingson's work, it shows troubled people trying to connect to each other, who use sex in a self-loathing way. Unlike in the other two stories, the characters live and breathe. It's just a little disappointing that Hemmingson couldn't think of somewhere else to end his story other than the characters indulging their self-hate with debauchery.

"Drama" is worth a read, but I can't recommend the other two novels here. You would probably be better off finding "Drama" on its own and leaving the redundant and tired other novels alone.

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