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Neptune & Surf
A trilogy of erotic novellas.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
9 people want to read
About the author
Marilyn Jaye Lewis
42 books12 followersMarilyn Jaye Lewis is the author of the award-winning book Neptune & Surf and the co-editor of the international best-selling erotic art book, Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography.
She has received many citations and awards for her erotic fiction, including finalist in the William Faulkner Writing Competition and winner in the New Century Writers Awards for her novel Curse of our Profound Disorder.
Her short stories and novellas have been published worldwide and translated into French, Italian, and Japanese.
Lust: Bisexual Erotica represents her erotic short stories from 1997-2003. And the forthcoming Ribbon of Darkness is her collected works of short erotic fiction from 1996 - 2007. Anthologies she has edited include Hot Women’s Erotica, That’s Amore!, Stirring Up A Storm, Zowie! It's Yaoi! and Entangled Lives.
Her popular erotic romance novels include When Hearts Collide and When the Night Stood Still.
Upcoming novels: Freak Parade, A Killing On Mercy Road, We’re Still All That, and Twilight of the Immortal.
She has received many citations and awards for her erotic fiction, including finalist in the William Faulkner Writing Competition and winner in the New Century Writers Awards for her novel Curse of our Profound Disorder.
Her short stories and novellas have been published worldwide and translated into French, Italian, and Japanese.
Lust: Bisexual Erotica represents her erotic short stories from 1997-2003. And the forthcoming Ribbon of Darkness is her collected works of short erotic fiction from 1996 - 2007. Anthologies she has edited include Hot Women’s Erotica, That’s Amore!, Stirring Up A Storm, Zowie! It's Yaoi! and Entangled Lives.
Her popular erotic romance novels include When Hearts Collide and When the Night Stood Still.
Upcoming novels: Freak Parade, A Killing On Mercy Road, We’re Still All That, and Twilight of the Immortal.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 27, 2016
Sex is not simple. Marilyn Jaye Lewis' story collection, Neptune and Surf, offers readers a rich and wildly imaginative sampling of sexual shenanigans: public couplings, steamy birchings, violent ravishments, lewd tenderness. There is the soapy buggery of the pregnant woman in the shower; the butch nun's strap-on penetration of her recalcitrant pupil as her victim recites New Testament verses; even a lasciviously-inclined Great Dane.
What is most impressive about this book is the skill with which Ms. Lewis navigates the complex emotional landscape of sexuality. Her characters wander from shame to lust, from confusion to power, from anger to love, drawn to the flesh but never with complete understanding. Her nuanced portraits make the stories believable, even when the plots seem extreme or contrived. The shy, horny black sailor, the tough but tender-hearted half-Chinese hooker, the self-indulgent gangster's moll, these people linger in the reader's mind long after the details of their erotic encounters have faded.
Ms. Lewis' style is crisp and evocative. One smells the popcorn at Coney Island, hears the snap of the birch cane, shivers with Victoria, exposed and violated on the bridge above the swirling winter
river. The shortest of the three tales in the volume, "Gianni's Girl", is switch-blade sharp, laced with seductive danger. The deadpan dialogue crackles with barely suppressed violence. The plots of the
two novellas, "Neptune and Surf" and "The Merry Cure", use numerous temporal shifts which Ms. Lewis handles deftly, with admirable clarity. On the other hand, a more linear treatment might have made these stories even more effective. By the time the reader reaches the climax of "The Merry Cure", she has experienced so many thrilling trips to the past that the present feels a bit flat.
The sexual scenarios are inventive and explicit, described with eloquence and grace even at their most raw. Occasionally, one has the sense that a flashback or daydream is gratuitous, interjected purely for the purpose of adding yet another sex scene. In most cases, though, the sex unfolds organically, propelled by the psychologies and histories of the participants. Even within a single scene, there may be many moods, as the emotional balance shifts and mutates. Gentleness morphs to savagery. Terror melts to passionate arousal. The effect can be a bit overwhelming, leaving the reader with damp and breathless, head spinning.
That is the nature of sex, though. It touches us at every level. It makes us dizzy. It awakens our fears and insecurities, delusions and creativity. In the erotic realm we are both beastly and divine, and sometimes both at once. Ms. Lewis' work captures this truth, with sympathy and considerable craft.
What is most impressive about this book is the skill with which Ms. Lewis navigates the complex emotional landscape of sexuality. Her characters wander from shame to lust, from confusion to power, from anger to love, drawn to the flesh but never with complete understanding. Her nuanced portraits make the stories believable, even when the plots seem extreme or contrived. The shy, horny black sailor, the tough but tender-hearted half-Chinese hooker, the self-indulgent gangster's moll, these people linger in the reader's mind long after the details of their erotic encounters have faded.
Ms. Lewis' style is crisp and evocative. One smells the popcorn at Coney Island, hears the snap of the birch cane, shivers with Victoria, exposed and violated on the bridge above the swirling winter
river. The shortest of the three tales in the volume, "Gianni's Girl", is switch-blade sharp, laced with seductive danger. The deadpan dialogue crackles with barely suppressed violence. The plots of the
two novellas, "Neptune and Surf" and "The Merry Cure", use numerous temporal shifts which Ms. Lewis handles deftly, with admirable clarity. On the other hand, a more linear treatment might have made these stories even more effective. By the time the reader reaches the climax of "The Merry Cure", she has experienced so many thrilling trips to the past that the present feels a bit flat.
The sexual scenarios are inventive and explicit, described with eloquence and grace even at their most raw. Occasionally, one has the sense that a flashback or daydream is gratuitous, interjected purely for the purpose of adding yet another sex scene. In most cases, though, the sex unfolds organically, propelled by the psychologies and histories of the participants. Even within a single scene, there may be many moods, as the emotional balance shifts and mutates. Gentleness morphs to savagery. Terror melts to passionate arousal. The effect can be a bit overwhelming, leaving the reader with damp and breathless, head spinning.
That is the nature of sex, though. It touches us at every level. It makes us dizzy. It awakens our fears and insecurities, delusions and creativity. In the erotic realm we are both beastly and divine, and sometimes both at once. Ms. Lewis' work captures this truth, with sympathy and considerable craft.
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August 25, 2016Content note: Though I've read my share of erotic literature, I am not generally a fan of the concept. I am also not a fan of writing which eroticizes rape, sexual assault or misogyny in any form. I am not the kind of reader who can simply brush that off as 'it's just part of a fantasy of control,' or 'it's fantasy, not reality--the author isn't really suggesting people behave this way!!' The same goes for incorporating unsafe sexual activity in one's erotica, which in the age of AIDS and increased restrictions on women's choices, is not something I can view as acceptable to encourage or validate. So this review is from someone who isn't really 'into' this particular scene. That being said:
Crap. This is one of those books I'm actually embarrassed to admit I read. At least the back flap acknowledges that the 'themes' include gang rape, so I guess anyone who wants to make the same mistake I did in reading the book anyway can consider herself forewarned.
These three novellas include quite a lot of nonconsensual sex, all of which is written about in a profoundly disturbing manner. By profoundly disturbing I mean I was creeped out by the casual tone with which the author's described incredibly violent assaults, and the inherently offensive nature of writing which uses forced sex acts and other acts of violence as tools of erotica. Even by the standard of mainstream erotic writing, which is pretty grotesque, the violence here is outstanding.
I was also squicked by the repeated descriptions of unsafe sex in this work, including anal sex sans condoms. I could not help but note that the two novellas which feature unprotected anal intercourse (both quasi-consensual and totally nonconsensual) take place in 1955 and 1927. I suspect the author chose these eras specifically because these settings dodge the specter of HIV exposure through these actions, allowing the reader and writer to shield themselves from how dangerous unsafe sex acts are in our modern reality.
I'm also annoyed by the review on the front cover of my copy which states this author was attempting 'literature' here, not just smut. To me, literature requires character development and a plot. Not just a bunch of pornographic writing loosely centered around some people with names. The piece about the gay nuns in this book sort of rises to the realm of a decent story, but even I can't get all the way to 'literature' there.
There is such a thing as good erotica--this isn't it. (Also such a thing as good literature and...no.) I was going to give it one star for the decent prose quality at least, but the offensive content made me want to cancel that out.
Crap. This is one of those books I'm actually embarrassed to admit I read. At least the back flap acknowledges that the 'themes' include gang rape, so I guess anyone who wants to make the same mistake I did in reading the book anyway can consider herself forewarned.
These three novellas include quite a lot of nonconsensual sex, all of which is written about in a profoundly disturbing manner. By profoundly disturbing I mean I was creeped out by the casual tone with which the author's described incredibly violent assaults, and the inherently offensive nature of writing which uses forced sex acts and other acts of violence as tools of erotica. Even by the standard of mainstream erotic writing, which is pretty grotesque, the violence here is outstanding.
I was also squicked by the repeated descriptions of unsafe sex in this work, including anal sex sans condoms. I could not help but note that the two novellas which feature unprotected anal intercourse (both quasi-consensual and totally nonconsensual) take place in 1955 and 1927. I suspect the author chose these eras specifically because these settings dodge the specter of HIV exposure through these actions, allowing the reader and writer to shield themselves from how dangerous unsafe sex acts are in our modern reality.
I'm also annoyed by the review on the front cover of my copy which states this author was attempting 'literature' here, not just smut. To me, literature requires character development and a plot. Not just a bunch of pornographic writing loosely centered around some people with names. The piece about the gay nuns in this book sort of rises to the realm of a decent story, but even I can't get all the way to 'literature' there.
There is such a thing as good erotica--this isn't it. (Also such a thing as good literature and...no.) I was going to give it one star for the decent prose quality at least, but the offensive content made me want to cancel that out.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews