Review
"Once again, Bruce Jay Friedman proves that wit and irony are sometimes the only appropriate response to the sexual imperative. Sexual Pensees is at once funny and salacious. Keep it by the bedside."
— Jay McInerney
"Sexual Pensees is essentially a confection, consisting of little anecdotes and pastiches about Friedman (or some stylized version of him) having sex and thinking about having had sex. Some of the tiny haiku and koan-like reminiscences are on the order of Woody Allen: "It annoyed him that he had lost a woman he cared about to a herring czar." Others bear a certain philosophical acceptance: "With the help of Viagra, he returned to sexual form, so to speak, at age seventy. Oddly enough, he had mixed feelings about this sudden renewal." The book is illustrated with drawings that look a little bit like outtakes from the original The Joy of Sex, and the whole thing is infused with a sweetness and a distinct lack of young-man's urgency."
— Meg Wolitzer in Nextbook
"Friedman does the essential task of rescuing sex from the three P’s- porno, prurience, and pomposity…. These are funny tales of people at their most naked, letting it all hang out, even if they happen to be fully clothed. We’re never more ourselves than when we’re doing the sexual dance. It’s not just for men, or for women, but for adult people who want to laugh, even cry, about what other adult people go through when it comes to topic A. It’s like a blast of fresh air in our polarized, insane times where gay-bashing preachers are outted and sex is once again a dirty word. The drawings, by Andre Barbe, are done with taste and wit and a nice dollop of French perversity.
— Ken Krimstein, Culture Catch
— Jay McInerney
"Sexual Pensees is essentially a confection, consisting of little anecdotes and pastiches about Friedman (or some stylized version of him) having sex and thinking about having had sex. Some of the tiny haiku and koan-like reminiscences are on the order of Woody Allen: "It annoyed him that he had lost a woman he cared about to a herring czar." Others bear a certain philosophical acceptance: "With the help of Viagra, he returned to sexual form, so to speak, at age seventy. Oddly enough, he had mixed feelings about this sudden renewal." The book is illustrated with drawings that look a little bit like outtakes from the original The Joy of Sex, and the whole thing is infused with a sweetness and a distinct lack of young-man's urgency."
— Meg Wolitzer in Nextbook
"Friedman does the essential task of rescuing sex from the three P’s- porno, prurience, and pomposity…. These are funny tales of people at their most naked, letting it all hang out, even if they happen to be fully clothed. We’re never more ourselves than when we’re doing the sexual dance. It’s not just for men, or for women, but for adult people who want to laugh, even cry, about what other adult people go through when it comes to topic A. It’s like a blast of fresh air in our polarized, insane times where gay-bashing preachers are outted and sex is once again a dirty word. The drawings, by Andre Barbe, are done with taste and wit and a nice dollop of French perversity.
— Ken Krimstein, Culture Catch
Product Description
Bruce Jay Friedman has been described as a “comic genius” (P. J. O’Rourke) “an American original” (Kirkus) and as having “a voice that is equidistant from those of Wilde, Salinger, and Woody Allen” (Publishers Weekly).
In Sexual Pensées, he casts a baleful and knowing eye on the “sexual dance”: the way men and women think and feel about sex, how they behave – nobly and disreputably – in and out of bed. The book reveals the deepest feelings of a young woman in Manhattan, a young man, a Hollywood starlet, a film producer – and icons ranging from Flaubert to Mario Puzo. A blend of poetry, haiku, and erotic memoir, it is a book about sex unlike any other, and will appeal to men and women who look upon sex not just as a solemn enterprise, but also as sheer and often outrageous fun.
In Sexual Pensées, he casts a baleful and knowing eye on the “sexual dance”: the way men and women think and feel about sex, how they behave – nobly and disreputably – in and out of bed. The book reveals the deepest feelings of a young woman in Manhattan, a young man, a Hollywood starlet, a film producer – and icons ranging from Flaubert to Mario Puzo. A blend of poetry, haiku, and erotic memoir, it is a book about sex unlike any other, and will appeal to men and women who look upon sex not just as a solemn enterprise, but also as sheer and often outrageous fun.
About the Author
Bruce Jay Friedman has published eight novels, four story collections, and three works of nonfiction, as well as writing a half dozen plays and receiving several screenwriting credits, including Stir Crazy (1980), Doctor Detroit (1982), and Splash (1984), which won an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. His work The Lonely Guy’s Book of Life (1982) provided the basis for Steve Martin’s film The Lonely Guy.
André Barbe, a Parisian artist, has been widely published in France in L’Express, Le Monde, Investir, Le Figaro, L’Echo des Savanes, Magazine Littéraire as well as internationally in Die Welt, Die Zeit, and L’Anamorfico. He has published sixteen books and often animates for film and television. He has mounted one-man exhibitions in Glasgow and at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée de l’Erotisme à Paris et à Berlin, and the Museo d’Arte Erotica à Venise.
André Barbe, a Parisian artist, has been widely published in France in L’Express, Le Monde, Investir, Le Figaro, L’Echo des Savanes, Magazine Littéraire as well as internationally in Die Welt, Die Zeit, and L’Anamorfico. He has published sixteen books and often animates for film and television. He has mounted one-man exhibitions in Glasgow and at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée de l’Erotisme à Paris et à Berlin, and the Museo d’Arte Erotica à Venise.
