STILL SHE HAUNTS ME
Katie Roiphe
(Dial Press) $23.95

Back in 1993, Roiphe’s book The Morning After criticized the brand of
feminism then popular on college campuses for idealizing victim status and encouraging
the cry of rape after consensual, though possibly bad, sex. She argued that
the specter of AIDS and the multitude of warnings about date rape conflicted
with sexually suggestive media images and the free-love politics of the ’60s
and ’70s, and this conflict caused “rape-crisis feminism.” Incest, sexual harassment,
and rape are widely overreported and exaggerated, in Roiphe’s view. As expected,
feminists vilified Roiphe, declaring, more or less, “If you’re not with us,
you’re against us.”

Still She Haunts Me is Roiphe’s first work of fiction. It’s based on the curious relationship between Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for the title character of Alice in Wonderland. Literary scholars have long debated whether Dodgson molested Liddell, and Roiphe–who has long been interested in Carroll’s work (a chapter of The Morning After is entitled “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party”)–exploits this area of uncertainty to produce a real work of fiction.

In Roiphe’s account, Dodgson is portrayed as a man for whom fantasy and photography are the only means of escaping a general lack of confidence. Alice, on the other hand, is a nymphet who is confident, who understands what she is doing with Dodgson. Alice knows that Dodgson wants her, which awakens her own desire. Ultimately, the book reaffirms Roiphe’s own ideas about sexuality. She implies that Alice is responsible for the seduction; that she is in charge and wants Dodgson to look at her in a sexual way. And it is precisely this, a sexually lucid Alice, that reiterates Roiphe’s determination that woman need to be accountable for their sexuality. As a work of fiction, the book is not bad, but the ideas that Roiphe has been pushing since 1993 were better expressed in nonfiction form. HEATHER RODGERS

VERTICAL INTERCOURSE
Paul Reed
(Black Books, San Francisco) $16

Under the pseudonym Max Exander, Paul Reed has written five volumes of gay
male erotica. Under his own name he’s written nonfiction books about how to
persuade your lover to use a condom and how to deal, personally and globally,
with AIDS-induced grief. So it’s not surprising that Reed’s third novel, Vertical
Intercourse, is about both the pleasures of sex and its physical and emotional
consequences.

The first-person narrator of this novel, who is about to turn 40, is undergoing a particularly gay-male version of the midlife crisis. Having buried three lovers who died of AIDS and said goodbye to friends who left San Francisco because they found it too depressing, the narrator finds himself almost peerless and feeling alone. He starts to go to a therapist, the enigmatic Dr. Emma Kiljoy, to talk about his malaise. Much of this book consists of conversations between the narrator and Kiljoy.

Though the genre of “the therapy novel” usually either bores or irritates, this one doesn’t. Reed’s prose is free of the sappy jargon that often infects the genre; his prose is clear and direct. And the protagonist, rather than being a whiny victim, is a savvy, slightly cynical man who is genuinely interested in improving his life. He doesn’t want to become callous, but after 20 years of AIDS, he is emotionally exhausted and has a touch of survivor’s guilt. In the course of the book, old friends continue to die of AIDS and cancer, and young friends begin to test positive for the virus they thought was passé. Despite his previous exhaustion, the narrator remains committed to helping sick friends. He even takes the emotional risk of starting a relationship with a new boyfriend. So in some odd way, this is an optimistic book. It’s a sobering account of long-term survival, of deciding to live when part of you wants to die with your dying friends. REBECCA BROWN

DISPATCHES FROM THE TENTH CIRCLE: THE BEST OF THE ONION
The Onion
(Crown Publishing) $9.95

First of all: With a doff of the hat to full disclosure, it should be stated
that The Stranger is completely biased toward the brilliance of The
Onion due to the hard fact that our own founder and publisher, Tim Keck,
helped found The Onion way back when. In other words, this review is
nothing more than one big salt lick. Please enjoy. Second: Rather than slap
together some words as to just how brilliant The Onion is, I would rather
let some of Dispatches‘ hysterical headlines speak for themselves. Hence:
“Loved Ones Recall Local Man’s Cowardly Battle With Cancer”; “Fun Toy Banned
Because of Three Stupid Dead Kids”; “Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs: ‘Oh,
Shit,’ Says Humanity”; “Twelve Customers Gunned Down in Convenience-Store Clerk’s
Imagination”; “NFL Star Thanks Jesus After Successful Double Homicide.” And
finally, a point-counterpoint editorial: “It Was Then That I Carried You” by
Jesus Christ/”Bullshit, Jesus, Those Are Obviously My Footprints” by Jim Steinhauer.
BRADLEY STEINBACHER