Customer Reviews

Amorous Woman (Neon)

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4 star:		(2)
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I was a complete novice to Japanese culture and customs before I read this book. What's so marvelous about this debut novel from Storey is that it's so lushly descriptive that the narrator's experiences are nearly palpable. The sensual delights are both sexual and seductive. Whether it's the cherry blossoms in Kyoto or a tantalizing meal or a potential lover's hands, Storey's talent for words and genuine appreciation combine to capture the reader and nestle them into the middle of the surroundings. The plot is smooth, the characters are both appealing and intriguing, and the novel as a whole sizzles. Not to be missed!

Eminent erotica writer Donna George Storey has such a gift for offering the reader the right details. Amorous Woman, as other reviewers have illustrated, is an epic story; but the author paints with a light hand, weaving a fast-moving yet exquisite narrative out of the most essential, resonant, perfect details. The effect is breathtaking--not to mention reminiscent of the "less is more" beauty of some schools of Japanese art. And so, after reading the book's 350 pages, we feel as if we've lived and breathed with Lydia for a decade. This masterful blending of the epic and intimate is truly striking.

Donna George Storey's 'Amorous Woman' is an enticing and delicious journey into the often-misunderstood world of Japanese erotic culture. Clearly, the author knows her stuff and moreover she was blessed with excellent source material for inspiration, Ihara Saikaku's 17th century novel 'The Life of an Amorous Woman'. Long considered a classic of Japanese erotica (but quite tame in it's language by today's standards), it's prose offers a vision of the Japanese woman as a fully realized erotic being, quite a feat for it's time.

Such is the case with Storey's main character Lydia, a Japanese soul in occidental clothing. Lydia is complex and vulnerable, highly likable and fully believable, a complete foil for Storey's vivid and compelling tale of sexual and personal transformation. Lydia's character is the glue that holds this book together, and she's so well drawn that at times I felt like I was reading an autobiography rather than a piece of fiction.

This is very much the thinking person's porn, written with an insider's understanding of the complexities and rituals of Japanese culture. The sex scenes are hot and descriptive, and touch upon a wide variety of situations from plain vanilla to midlevel kink. One can certainly use this as a one-handed reader if they choose to do so, but it's really more than that. The immersion into Japanese culture is vivid and entertaining in and of itself, making this a much more robust work than your average fantasy-fodder.

Extremely well done. I'd love to see more from this author. Two thumbs and one......errr.uh....well, anyway, two thumbs UP!

Donna George Storey could write anything she wants; she is that good. And, since I know her through a writer's site, I can say that she has in fact written in a variety of genres, from the briefest, most poetic flash fiction to the most complex medical non-fiction. She's brilliant (BA Princeton, Ph.D Stanford), multi-talented (a wonderful cook who writes an erotic food column that highlights two of her favorite gifts) and world traveler (Japan being of course her specialty).

Thus, it is not surprising that Storey's erotica far transcends what some may think is the essence of the genre--sexual titillation. Instead, erotica is Storey's way of mining the deepest, most complex areas of the human psyche. Which is to say, only a truly skillful and astutely insightful writer could have written Amorous Woman.

The novel is a character study of a woman on a journey in every sense--physical, spiritual, sexual, and intellectual. By the end of the novel, Lydia has completed what I think of as Part I (though the book is written in 12 sections), and I hope for future installments of her life's quest. But even if this is all we get to ever see of Lydia, it is a rich banquet indeed.

Others here have described the numerous delights of Japanese culture which Lydia encounters during her nine years in Japan (mostly Kyoto). And of course there are her sexual episodes--many of which are fantasies-- expertly and sensitively drawn. There is also quite a bit of humor, from Lydia wondering whether her hairbrush will "respect her in the morning" to, during a sex act in which she imagines all Japan is rooting for her to achieve orgasm, she envisions a cheering young man begging "Please, honorable Miss Foreigner, have an orgasm so I can get back to my studies and enter a national university."

The novel is so rich, so adroitly paced, so full of delights that it is easy to at times forget that Lydia is, as she says, "...the ... troublemaker, indulging dangerous whims, sabotaging myself at every turn." And though she was inspired by a 17th C figure of Japanese literature, Lydia is as authentic an individual as one is likely to meet in fiction of any genre. She goes through quite a lot during the course of the novel, and she has a great story to tell. Perhaps she is wiser. Certainly she is experienced. But Lydia has yet to slay all her demons or slake all her thirsts. It would have been far too easy to allow her to do so, and Storey is far too scrupulous to do what's easy.

The only easy thing about this novel is reading it--because it's too hard to put down.

"Amorous Woman" is such a great contribution to the erotica genre! The sex is great fun, of course -- well-written, varied, & titillating -- but the "in-between" parts are satisfying too. This is a compelling coming-of-age story that doesn't flinch from the hard knocks of life -- unrequited love, unwanted pregnancy, the loss of parents -- while always embracing what is positive and pleasurable about the business of living. It's also a wonderful novel about Japan, and about a particular time and place in Japan. Storey's done her research: the settings in & around Kyoto, her descriptions of Japanese food, the niceties (and not-so-niceties) of social interactions in Japan, the particular ambience of Japan in the 1980s -- it's all spot-on. Best of all, the protagonist, Lydia, is just immensely likable. As she fell in & out of relationships & beds, I was always rooting for her. Looking forward to more work from this talented & entertaining author!

Self-confessed `Amorous Woman' Lydia has returned to the US after several years in Japan. Her knowledge of the language and customs enables her to teach business students how to behave in Japanese work and social situations. Her two students, Tim and Brad, invite her for a drink. She's attracted to them both, and when they ask her about her time in Japan, she tells them a simple yet emotionally complex account of love, lust and loss.

Framed as a story within a story, Lydia details everything from one sexual high (or low) point to the next: Her first sexual experience, stage-managed by her cousin; her seduction of college boys in Japan; meeting her Japanese husband through the formal omiai; her marriage; her lesbian kiss with a manga artist; her infidelities as her marriage collapses, and the train of events that leads her to return to America.

Lydia's story is told as a modern-day parallel of a 17th century bawdy tale of a courtesan who became a nun. The original Amorous Woman retired to a convent but flirted with two handsome young men who came to seek her advice. Tim and Brad fulfil these roles as Lydia describes the freedom - and alienation - of living in a culture so incredibly different from her own.

Lydia's remark "The true threat of the Amorous Woman [...] was her sense of adventure" is the thread that runs throughout the book. Lydia's desire for knowledge and freedom makes her an outsider in her own country; her attitude to sex is frank and sometimes shocking, making her an outsider to `normal' society. Lydia is like a woman of the Heian era, when sexual mores were very different to those of modern society. As an anachronism, and the embodiment of many a male fantasy, she struggles to understand her own desires.

She alternately confronts and runs away from self-knowledge. A brutally honest character, she doesn't shy away from exposing even the most humiliating and ill-judged actions to the reader. This is not a coy book - it's savage and realistic and at times absolutely heart-rending.

It's not just the use of first person that brings this story to life. The author's - and therefore Lydia's - firsthand knowledge of living in Japan breathes throughout the story. It's subtle and underplayed as well as blatant, treading that fine line between the two cultures of Japan and the US in written word as well as in deed.

The prose is seductive and sensual, yet simple and straightforward. It's heartbreaking, yet it celebrates life. The narrative, like Lydia, is two things at once. Fantasy and fact are woven together throughout the story, a combination typified by the scene in which a Japanese professor of folklore draws a sketch of Lydia on a bridge by a waterfall where an imaginary kappa, a type of demon, lurks waiting. The professor is also likened to a tanuki, another type of demon, and the symbolism continues in the next scene where Lydia seduces the professor. The novel blurs the edges of reality and fantasy, presenting a third and individual state - Lydia's reality.

Amorous Woman is a modern version of a medieval Japanese woman's private memoirs. The caustic and unflinching observations are balanced with moments of deep passion and incredible beauty, reminding me at times of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book. To that end, some readers may view Amorous Woman as a piece of self-indulgence. To others, it may seem courageous.

Yes, there's sex in this book - a lot of sex. Some of it is kinky, some of it is arousing, some of it is tender. The reader is placed as a voyeur, like Brad and Tim. Whether this is a comfortable or uncomfortable position to be in depends very much on the individual reader. You could read Amorous Woman for titillation, the way you'd read any other work of erotica, but to mistake it as an example of this genre would be to do this book a disservice.

This is a truly remarkable story. It's not for everyone, but look past the apparent superficiality of the catalogue of sexual exploits and you'll discern deeper meanings and the subtle layering of culture and Otherness. Amorous Woman is an astonishing and powerful tale told with grace and style. Easily one of the best books I've read this year.

To read the work of Donna George Storey is to read the work of an erotica master. Amorous Woman is a romp of exquisite description and seduction. We follow Lydia, eager to learn what new adventures she will reveal to us. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am anxious to know what Donna has planned for her next book. If there's an Erotica 101 - Amorous Woman should be a required read.

The cover of the erotic novel Amorous Woman has a seductive-looking Japanese woman tempting you to come hither and read the story that is clearly for "adults only" (as the cover warns). The prologue has the title character, Lydia, looking at her reflection in an airport mirror and swearing off sex in any form as she departs Japan for the United States, her homeland. Lydia isn't Japanese--she's a blonde American--but the reflection she sees (or imagines she sees) could very well be the Japanese woman from the book's cover. Lydia is in love with Japan, and her move there was an attempt not just to become Japanese, but to become part of Japan itself. Yet she'll always be a gaijin, a foreigner.

Lydia had moved to Japan to teach English, and to immerse herself in the Japanese culture. What follows is her sexual awakening, one that is driven by a fantasy life that barely stays one step ahead of Lydia's sexual reality. In fact, one feeds off the other. And don't forget, this is an erotic novel, and nothing is left to the reader's imagination. Yet, Amorous Woman is so much more than just the sex. Lydia's sexuality awakens, true, but so does her yearnings for romance, her lost father, and for just plain more out of life. This leads to a self-destructive lifestyle, as far as relationships go, that escalates to a point of no return.

The book begins with Lydia back in the States, telling her story to two young men who are her students (now she's teaching Japanese to Americans set to work in Japan). We get to hear the story along with them, and learn what happened to drive her out of the adopted country she loves. And what a story! Author Donna George Storey holds a Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Stanford, and like her character Lydia, spent time in Japan teaching English. She knows the territory. Storey's writing is very descriptive, and brings you right into Lydia's fantasy world of Japan. From the traditional marriages, to the fine restaurants (serving exotic, dangerous dishes like fugu), to the "love hotels" where married people go to cheat on their spouses and live out their wildest fetishes, to the hot springs resorts in the mountains north of Tokyo:

The bathhouse was deserted, the water smooth and glassy. Hot spring baths in Japan usually follow a guiding fantasy, transporting the bather to a rocky grotto, a tropical garden or terrace with the perfect view of Mount Fuji, even if the mountain itself is an image set in mosaic tile. This inn was more ambitious than most. The soaring cross-beamed ceiling, glowing pedestal lanterns, and swimming pool-sized cedar tub brought to mind the cathedral of a cult that worshipped both purity and indulgence. I was more than eager to make my own offering on its altar.

Lydia affairs aren't only with the men of Japan, but with Japan itself. And we get to go along for the ride. But what eventually makes the love affair end, what drives her back into the arms of America? What happened in Japan to have her swear off sex forever? The answer to those questions is why this book is a page turner--and not just because of the hot, steamy sex scenes.

But does the Amorous Woman really change her ways when she gets back to the States, and live a chaste life? Or will the old pull of sex draw her back into a self-destructive lifestyle? Will she ever find love again? Will the two young businessmen she is telling the story to revive her amorous ways by the end of the tale?

Maybe this isn't the last we've heard from the Amorous Woman. It's definitely not the last we've heard from Donna George Storey.

Great Sex and Writing

This story, told as a narration from the foreplay of a threesome in San Francisco, chronicles the adventures of a young woman as she first discovers sex, then travels to Japan on a voyage of discovery. The majority of the action takes place in Japan, with settings that range from exotic, to mundane to curiously Japanese. The main character, Lydia, an American woman who also goes by the alias Meg, starts out as a demure and studious girl but, with the helpful nudging of a wild cousin, soon discovers sex and pursues it in earnest as both a hobby and a vocation.

Lydia's time in Japan sees her move from the seduction of young men, to a struggle to be the perfect Japanese bride, and learn and internalize the customs of the land. Though she seems to be pursuing this with complete sincerity, in the end it comes to nothing. She leaves home, works as a full service hostess and becomes a kept woman before the final action that brings her back to America, and the opening scene.

The characters in this book especially Lydia, are compelling in their own humanity and moral uncertainty. The sex is great, and quite graphic. Further more, there is an underlying story of discovery, betrayal and searching that brings it all together as a great book. The writing is first rate and the pace is enjoyably varied. All in all a very good read.

Luminous descriptions of Japan's scenery and culture interweave with sensuous stories and fantasies to create a compelling first novel of discovery from a young American woman's perspective. Donna George Storey's artful picture of desire is one you will want to revisit again, to enjoy a deeper connection with its intimate views of life, love and lust in Japan.