Bounce
by Preston L. Allen

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Book Reviews of Bounce

Book Review: Like John Hawkes
Summary: 5 Stars

Preston L. Allen's Bounce, on the other hand, is of another sort. It is voluptuous, true, but it is not escapism. It is written in another tradition, that of the late John Hawkes, in that the sex is married to the story; one aspect does not survive without the other. These are well developed characters and situations in this book. These are not interchangeable sex partners as you might find in a "lighter" book. The reader is hard pressed to imagine the sexual positions and arrangements in this story occuring to any other such characters except for the ones therein described. Red and Cindique couple as they do with the funny, fake, almost-French language in the "More Please" scene because Red's religiosity has to be suppressed and Cindique's libido, shattered by her ex-husband earlier, has to be repaired and then drawn out; the situation is real and appropriate only for them; this is not something that the reader can "try at home" so to speak. We enjoy the scene because we are seeing how a man in Red's position would seduce a woman in Cindique's. Likewise the scene in the stairwell, with its lushness, its deliciousness, its sensory titillations, is the sequel to Red's timidity challenged in the previous scene. Note that it is Cindique who asks him, "We're really going to do this. Can you handle this?" This is secret language between lovers; it is as if they are not performing for us. We are only eavesdropping. Note your reaction when Red decides to explore forbidden territory in his love making. You are as surprised and excited by it as Cindique is. Male, female, or transgender--you have become her. This is called transference, I think; the writer has made the observer become the observed. That is excellent craftsmanship and storytelling.

Finally, the book is deceptively simple reading, but its music is irresistible. You will come away from it with a sense of having walked for a short while in the shoes of another. Its literary merit resides in the questions it raises about the nature of trust, betrayal, indecision, regret, and our self-protecting images of ourselves. You will be thinking about these questions long after you have finished the book, for they resonate in the human experience.

Odin Svensen, Columbus Ohio

Summary of Bounce

Erotica Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Erotica
• Literary