Fearful Symmetry: 8 [Hardcover]

Greg Bills (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1996

Peter Keith moves into his new southern California condo and enters the intensely exotic and erotic world of neighbors Chaz and Muriel Lambent, from whose powerful allure and dark desires he may not be able to escape. By the author of Consider This Home. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the manner of Sade, though with neither the reach of his genius nor the edge of his madness, Bills (Consider This Home, 1994) explores, in a sexually charged novel set in Southern California, the philosophical and erotic aspects of sadomasochism and bondage. When recent design-school graduate Peter Keith, gay and 25, moves next door to Chaz and Muriel Lambent, he finds himself enmeshed in their bizarre psychosexual world. Soon voyeuristic curiosity leads to mutual seduction. What subsequently unfolds is a tale that is, as narrator Peter puts it, "violent, lurid, and baroque." Graphic sex scenes mix and match bodies, sex acts (including a full-body shave) and appurtenances such as olive oil, leather masks and silk-sheathed chains. Peter rebels against his neighbors' domination when he uncovers their penchant for animal and human sacrifice. Interspersed with this main story line is Muriel's Scheherazade-like "Tale of the Angel and His Bride," told to Peter, and Chaz's claim that he and Muriel are "The Blond Ones," products of German genetic engineering. A bloody scene of mayhem and disaster caps the action in clear fashion, but what Peter finally discovers about himself and his relationships remains opaque. He hopes, as the novel closes, to "learn what kind of life might persist after a heart's illicit union with the celestial"-not to mention after a body has been spoon-fed with wrists and ankles shackled and a black rubber hood pulled over its eyes.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Fans of erotic fiction in the style of Josephine Hart's Damage (LJ 2/15/91) will appreciate this tale of sexual obsession by the author of Consider This Home (LJ 2/1/94). When Peter Keith meets his new Southern California neighbors, Chaz and Muriel Lambert, he is instantly attracted by their physical beauty and charm. Like poisonous spiders weaving an impossible-to-resist silken web, the Lamberts gradually ensnare Peter in an initially dazzling and later frightening world of sexual games that veer menacingly toward a violent end. Bills effectively ratchets up the level of tension as Peter's sexual need for both the Lamberts begins to conflict with his growing belief that something is sickeningly wrong. As all attempts to end the relationship fail, Peter must confront the darkness at the heart of the Lamberts' lives. Bills occasionally overwrites, so that Peter sounds both hopelessly naive and insufferably pretentious. Although the publisher is positioning this novel as a "literary" erotic thriller, not all readers will call it such. For large popular collections.?Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1ST edition (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525940812
• ISBN-13: 978-0525940814
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,996,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars candy for the mouth and ears. exquisite passivity., December 7, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Fearful Symmetry: 8 (Hardcover)

Okay-so the cheezy jacket copy lured me in. But once I read the book, I was struck both by the beauty of its prose and the emotional complexity of its characters, not to mention its plot. Bills's main character, Peter Keith, is one of the best depictions of pathological passivity I have read--and unlike other authors who explore this theme (Dennis Cooper, Mary Gaitskill), Peter is likeable and sweet, if at time incredibly irritating. The couple he gets involved with--Muried and Chaz Lambent--brought a woodie to this bisexual reviewer's hog. In all seriousness, I enjoyed this book very much. As a stylist, Bills is non-pareil. I was also rather interested in his portrait of Orange County, particularly the horrid town of Irvine, which is almost a fourth main character in the book. And did I mention that a kitten is integral to the plot? But perhaps best of all, it's ultimately not one of those tedious postmodern pseudo-erotic excursions into text; this is actually a novel, with all the virtues implied in the term. Read it now

3.0 out of 5 stars Boy meets Couple, May 16, 2004

By 

Avid Reader (Franklin, Tn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fearful Symmetry (Mass Market Paperback)

Semi-gay Peter Keith moves next door to a couple straight out of Kinkyville. Chaz and Muriel are the ideal couple, if by ideal you mean wearing masks, playing games fit for deSade, sharing a young neighboy boy and living the good life.

Keith falls for both of them and makes love to each of them, singularly and together. The games begin casually, a greeting or an invitation to drop over, a telephone call, a furtive vision of kinky domestic life. They pick up steam as the neighbor is caught in the increasingly reckless and wild activites that now include bondage, violence, masks, knives, sex (with both) and that always open invitation to do more.

This is about a lot of very amoral people who wouldn't know right from wrong if it was wrapped up like a present. What was supposed to be a coming of age tale became a kinky, heated, revelatory expose of strange suburban happenings. The ending, though shocking, is almost a denoument.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars two-and-a-half stars, actually., June 29, 1998

By 

L. C. Burrill ([e-mail]) (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fearful Symmetry (Mass Market Paperback)

Not since Disneyland opened has anything made Orange County so compelling--and it's about time. This most unreal of California milieus merits more than the cynical dismissals of the hip and _FS_ serves up erotic dissonance in heaping spoonfulls of dread and psychosis Orange County style. The story itself you've probably read countless times before--it felt like it to me anyhow--memories of Tartt's _The Secret History_, Fowles' _The Magus_ as well bits of Carver and Gifford came immediately to mind. The speaker is drawn into a web of intrigue and quickly finds himself in over his head. Yadda, yadda. None of the characters have much to recommend themselves, but the novel holds together remarkably well and suffices nicely as a guilty pleasure. The author name-drops endlessly and the cultural references eventually grow tedious without really telling the story; an unfortunate artifact of a the author's art school pedigree?