Reviews for Polite Sex: A Novel

The average rating for Polite Sex: A Novel based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-07-16 00:00:00 Joseph Smetanka This novel has much in common with other sagas of adult life in the city for my generation--Three Junes ( winner of the National Book Award) is one that comes directly to mind--it bears a great deal of similarity, in milieu and in the characters' dilemnas, ( Polite Sex was published much earlier). Angels in America also comes to mind: the crisis of the spiritual, the crisis of sexual identity, the crisis of coupling altogether ---the struggle to form new kinds of bonds when conventional marriage seems out of reach or out of the question: the themes are dealt with in a comic manner here, whereas in other novels, and plays, the same were more tragic. It is truly a rendering of City Life for the Baby Boomer generation in the seventies, eighties, and nineties--now history, for my generation are no longer struggling with these issues. We are in our fifties now, these questions have been answered or abandoned, by time. It's beautifully, musically cadenced, deft, bright, fun to follow, like a great long piano piece, and it represents. A very fine novel.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-09-02 00:00:00 Anthony Derisi Two Louisiana girls graduate from college and move to New York City to grow up, find their riches, and get far away from the humdrum town that they didn't want to live in anymore. While Emily has the higher plan, to act and be somebody, it's Clara who finds celebrity by going the lowbrow path all the way. Nevertheless, Emily has issues with men, issues with women, and probably never should have tried to tame New York. However, this entirely disjointed story loses any strength it might have got from the author because he left the best scenes out. I'm the type of reader to lets an author tell the story his way, but Wilcox left me wondering just who these ladies were and why they ever wanted to leave their little world behind.