Holding out Book

In the smartest, funniest, and sharpest novel since Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying", the women of America are mad as hell-- and they're not going to DO IT anymore! What would happen if a bold, successful female executive called upon the nation's women to withhold sex until a highly placed spousal abuser was brought to justice? It would rock the country-- and her life-- that's what! Updating the story of Lysistrata-- who persuaded the women of Athens to withhold sex from their husbands to end a war-- Anne O. Faulk has written a brilliant and Rabelaisian cautionary tale. "Holding Out" is a love story for the 1990s that goes to the very heart of male-female relations. Lauren Fontaine is a thirty-six-year-old financial wizard and single mother with a wicked wit and a tenacious sense of right and wrong. Like many other women, she is outraged when the wife of the chief justice of the Supreme Court commits suicide after years of spousal abuse-- and the "good old boys" in Congress refuse to impeach the offender. Unlike most of them, she does something about it. When Lauren suggests that every woman in America refuse to have sex until the judge is removed from the court, her proposed sex strike sweeps the nation, and she soon finds herself pitted against almost every man in the country-- and unwittingly placed at the center of the most controversial event in the history of the women's movement. Through it all, Lauren must come to terms with her own burgeoning (and perforce sexless) relationship with a handsome, world-famous writer, as well as her changing assumptions about women. She must deal with a financial scandal in her own office, the problems of her son as his mother becomes a national heroine, and the consequences, ranging from funny to tragic, for the women around her of her sex strike-- all without losing her sense of humor. Combining a sexy, modern heroine with an original, imaginative, and poignant story, "Holding Out" is a delicious page-turner that marks the debut of a sophisticated and major new talent. "Holding Out" is so fresh, so funny, and so controversial that it's not only sure to cause a major stir but to prompt readers to wonder: Anne Faulk, Where have you been all our lives?