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'08 Authors Insider Tips


Everything About Epublishing
by Angela James
Epublishing: A Different Way


FictionCraft
by Louisa Burton
The Publishing Biz
Critiquing: To Give and ...
Commerical vs. Literary...
Antiformalism for Fun &..
So You Want to Write a Novel


The Write Stuff
by Ashley Lister
5 Steps to Success
Inspirational
Opening Passages


Two Girls Kissing
by Amie M. Evans
Be a Finisher ...
Listen to Your Characters
Conferences: Act Now ...
Starting an Erotic Story
Exercises & Writing Prompts
Revising & Rewriting


Guest Appearances

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by Lisabet Sarai

How to...Influence Editors
by Alison Tyler

Marketing your e-Book
by Brenna Lyons


2008 Smutters Lounge

Ashley Lister Submits
by Ashley Lister
Role Play
Busy Doing Nothing
Picture of a Fish & Chip...


Cooking Up A Storey
by Donna George Storey
Tie Me Up, Please …
The Smut-Writer’s Holiday
Never Trust the Narrator ...
Compare and Contrast
Following the Pen
Naked at the Farmers Market


Get All Worked Up
with J.T. Benjamin
Raising Daughters
Jamie Lynn
Utopias
Lust
The Good Old Days


Pondering Porn
with Ann Regentin
Masturbating on SSRIs
Sex and Disability
Besides Ourselves


Sex Is All Metaphors
by Jean Roberta
Sex Is All Metaphors


Provocative Interviews

Between the Lines
with Ashley Lister
Talking with Debra Hyde
Jeremy Edwards


Erotic Hot Spots
by William S. Dean
Interview with Tilly Greene
Interview with Devyn Quinn


Getting Graphic
with William S. Dean
New Times for Readers...
The Future in Words ...
Interview with Fantagraphics


On Writing Erotica

The Accidental Pornographer
by Lisabet Sarai

The End of Innocence
by Lisabet Sarai

Get Them Off in High Style
Helena Settimana

So, You Want To Write Erotica?
by Hanne Blank

Serve the People!
by Yan Lianke

Book Review by Donna George Storey



Serve the People! by Yan Lianke“Serve the People!” doesn’t seem like a title any US publisher would choose for a book with an erotic theme. In China, too, one would expect something more like The Golden Lotus or The Prayer Mat of Flesh.

However, for a novel set in 1967, at the height of Mao’s Cultural Revolution when assumptions of every kind were dramatically overturned, such a title is richly, ironically appropriate. In such a chaotic time, “Serve the People” could get a man hard and a woman wet—that is, if the man is orderly to a Division Commander and the boss’s wife happens to use a placard with that very slogan to summon him to her bedroom for a special personal service.

The prologue of the novel promises its events are based on a true story. With that titillating tidbit, we are introduced to Wu Dawang, an exemplary soldier in the People’s Liberation Army who can recite word-perfect 286 quotations and three classic essays by Chairman Mao. Born a poor farmer, his intelligence gets him the notice of a minor official, who offers Wu his daughter’s hand on the promise that he will advance in the party ranks and provide his family with the good life. Unfortunately his wife seems disinclined to love him emotionally or physically, although she is perceptive enough to choose the moment right before his orgasm to exhort him to work ever harder for his promotion. Thus, Wu is a virtual novice in the ways of love when his superior’s beautiful, city-bred wife, Liu Lian, begins her—ultimately successful—campaign of seduction.

Serve the People! is not quite what I’d call a one-handed read. However, it is a sexy book. I’ve rarely read such an insightful exploration of the transgressive power of eros in a politically repressed time. During the Cultural Revolution, just having a “selfish” thought or desire was dangerously—and deliciously—subversive. As Wu Dawang and Liu Lian explore each other’s bodies they are doing more than breaking marital taboos. They are also discovering they have private lives as they encounter powerful feelings of hatred as well as love, the pleasures of dominance and submission, and most electrifying of all, the experience of relating to another human being with honesty and trust.

There are, however, plenty of lyrically sensual moments in the novel. In the following scene, Wu worships his lover’s body with a reverence which had until then been reserved for the teachings of Mao.

“In thanks for this bowl of soup and for the gift of love whose depth he’d not yet fathomed, he then slowly undressed her until she stood—like a jade pillar—naked before the bed. Although they’d lived for days as husband and wife, although they’d made love more times than he could remember, this was the first time he’d admired, with such lingering calm, the whole of her—her marvelous, nude form, illuminated by the single, oblique strip of sunlight that a crack in the curtains had let in. He considered her hair, her pink and white complexion, her body, as flawlessly fair as the moon and stars and unblemished by a single mole or imperfection, her breasts, still as gravity-defying as a twenty-year-old’s. Her stomach had not a single line across it, not a whisper of a crease or mark or blotch. A hand skimming over the silky skin under her breasts—as white as if it’d been dusted with crushed Osmanthus petals—might have imagined it was touching a moonbeam.”

Perhaps the most satisfyingly climactic scene is when the lovers destroy the icons of the Cultural Revolution in a veritable orgy of desecration—one tearing up Mao’s Selected Works, the other gouging out the eyes of his portrait—as they fight to decide whose love is greater. When Liu Lian “wins,” she forces Wu to admit defeat in a parody of a self-criticism session:

“Three times he admitted she was the greatest counterrevolutionary the world has ever known, a poisonous viper hidden in the breast of the Party and a devastating time bomb ticking away deep in the ranks of the Revolution. He then went on to say, again three times, that her love for him exceeded his for her a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times.”

Such counterrevolutionary passion cannot last, of course, and Yan lets us know this from the start. But his ending is still full of surprises when we learn that the most intensely private and self-indulgent months of Wu Dawang’s life might indeed be a service to “the people” after all.

Ironically, Yan Lianke’s novel also provided a personal service to me. As I laughed over his clever mockery of Mao’s slogans, I remembered a retirement dinner for a professor I attended back in my days as a graduate student in Asian Languages. One table of Chinese speakers was particularly festive that night, professors and students alike hooting and doubling over in laughter. Later, I asked a friend who had been seated there what was so amusing. She told me that one of the new students from China, a sweet-faced woman in her thirties, had been bringing down the house by quoting slogans from the Cultural Revolution in the most absurd contexts. “It’s hard to explain if you don’t know the sayings,” my friend said, “but she was very funny.” Over a decade later, thanks to Serve the People! I think I finally can appreciate my colleague’s comic performance, worthy no doubt of Jon Stewart. Yet, Yan’s novel made me see something else—that the laughter was also mixed with great loss and pain.

For all that Serve the People! tackles weighty historical issues, even a Western capitalist will find it a smooth and enjoyable read. If you’re interested in a sensual, moving, and bitingly clever portrait of a fascinating time in Chinese history, you’ll want to dive right in to “Serve the People!”

Donna George Storey
April 2008


Serve the People! by Yan Lianke

(Grove Press; February 18, 2008; ISBN-10: 0802170447)
Available at: Amazon.com / Amazon UK


______
© 2008 Donna George Storey. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written


About the Author: Donna George Storey taught English in Japan and Japanese in the United States and has finally found the work of her dreams writing erotica. If you’re really nice, she’ll bake you a batch of her Venetian cookies, with layers of marzipan, jam and chocolate, that take a ridiculous amount of time to make and are (almost) better than sex. Her work has been published in dozens of journals and anthologies including Clean Sheets, Fishnet, Best American Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica and Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica.
Her first novel, Amorous Woman--a semi-autobiographical tale of an American woman’s love affair with Japan and a number of sexy men and women along the way—was published by Neon/Orion in 2007. It’s currently available at Amazon UK and from her web site (DonnaGeorgeStorey.com) in the US. Stay tuned for a big US launch in June 2008.
For more of her musings on sensual pleasure and creativity stop by her blog: Sex, Food and Writing



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'08 Book Reviews

Anthologies

Best Fantastic Erotica
Review by Ashley Lister

Best Women's Erotica '08
Review by Ashley Lister

Bound Brits (ebook)
Review by Ashley Lister

Deep Inside: Extreme ...
Review by Cervo

Dirty Girls
Review by Rose B. Thorny

Hide and Seek
Review by Ashley Lister

J is for Jealousy
Review by Ashley Lister

K is for Kink
Review by Ashley Lister

Lust Bites
Review by Ashley Lister

Sex & Candy
Review by Ashley Lister

Possession
Review by Lisabet Sarai

Seriously Sexy
Review by Ashley Lister

White Flames
Review by Lisabet Sarai

Yes, Ma'am: Male Submission
Review by Angelika Devlyn

Yes, Sir: Female Submission
Review by Angelika Devlyn

Novels

The Art of Melinoe
Review by Ashley Lister

Gothic Heat
Review by Ashley Lister

The Hidden Grotto Series
Review by Lisabet Sarai

The House of Blood
Review by Lisabet Sarai

Incognito
Review by Donna George Storey

Nicholas
Review by Victoria Blisse

One Breath at a Time
Review by Angelika Devlyn

Phantasmagoria
Review by Ashley Lister

Serve the People!
Review by Donna G. Storey

Sunfire (eBook)
Review by Lisabet Sarai

Templar Prize
Review by Angelika Devlyn

The Wicked Sex
Review by Ashley Lister

Wild Kingdom
Review by Angelika Devlyn

Gay Erotica

Best Gay Romance '08
Review by Vincent Diamond

Lesbian Erotica

Best Lesbian Erotica '08
Review by Donna George Storey

Best Lesbian Erotica '08
Review by Ashley Lister

The Night Watch
Review by Lisabet Sarai

Non-Fiction

America Unzipped
Review by Rob Hardy

Best Sex Writing '08
Review by Rob Hardy

Bonk: The Curious Coupling
Review by Rob Hardy

The Humble Little Condom
Review by Rob Hardy

The Not So Invisible Woman
Review by Ashley Lister

Who's Been Sleeping in...
Review by Rob Hardy