Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair [Paperback]

Elizabeth McNeill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005

The powerfully erotic memoir that inspired the legendary film with a forward by bestselling novelist Francine Prose.

Nine and a Half Weeks is a true story so unusual, so passionate, and so extreme in its psychology and sexuality that it will take your breath away.

Elizabeth McNeill was an executive for a large corporation when she began an affair with a man she met casually. Their sexual excitement depended on a pattern of domination and humiliation, and as their relationship progressed they played out ever more dangerous and elaborate variations on that pattern of sadomasochism. By the end, Elizabeth had relinquished all control over her body -- and her mind.

With a cool detachment that makes the experiences and sensations she describes all the more frightening in their intensity, Elizabeth McNeill deftly unfolds her story and invites you into the mesmerizing and dangerous world of Nine and a Half Weeks -- a world you won't soon forget.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Elizabeth McNeill is a pseudonym. At the time of the book’s writing and original publication, McNeill lived in New York, where she worked as an executive for a large corporation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1st Perennial Ed. Pub. 2005 edition (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060746394
• ISBN-13: 978-0060746391
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #45,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "There is no mistaking the power this man had over me", February 7, 2005

By 

girldiver "Enjoy!" (tangled up in blue.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nine and a Half Weeks (Hardcover)

"Nine and a Half Weeks" chronicles the speedy decline of one woman into a relationship of S&M that goes beyond the bedroom and dominates her every action and emotion.

Told in the first person by the woman, you never discover the names of the two characters but you feel the passion, the love, and the pain both physical and especially emotional. It's disturbing to read complete submission between two people and you think to yourself you'd never turn over so much control to another person but you never really know until you live it.

The simplicity of this book is what really makes it complicated and even more compelling to read. So many books are packed with pages and pages of fluff but this book is exquisite by simply telling the story with out volumous pages of prose. Beautifully written.

girldiver:)

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Private glimpse, November 13, 2004

By 

eyes4hiseyes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nine and a Half Weeks (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful glimpse into the very private world of Dominance and submission. What is most shocking about this book is that McNeill wrote her story - and got it published - in the seventies, while this subject-matter is still controversial and hush-hush today.

Her prose is clean, unadorned, yet the book is titillating and thought-provoking. The writer tells her shocking tale in a matter-of-fact way, neither judging nor condoning anyone's behavior, nor making apologies for what is simply a seldom revealed side of human nature.

Those who have more than a passing interest in Erotic Power Exchange will enjoy McNeill's heartfelt account of what must have been - judging by the book's final words - the most important, intense relationship of her life - for better or for worse.

I highly recommend this book.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forget the movie!, February 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Nine and a Half Weeks (Hardcover)

Forget the movie! It's forgettable and formulaic. This 'journal' is anything but. The film does it no justice whatsoever. And much of what's in the film is from the terribly lacking imagination of the screenwriter, and not at all from the book. Let me state that I do not believe the events in the book to be true, but because of that, I have to say it is one of THE great novels ever pumped out by the U.S.. And ultimately, it is a tragedy that will etch itself into the tissue of the reader's brain for life, whether you like S/M, or whether you think it's uninteresting, or sick. The love of this woman is QUITE sincere; and the inward pain she experiences puts all the belt-beatings to shame.