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

Elizabeth McNeill (Author)

Book Description

Release 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: 8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 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

Format: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:)

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Private glimpse November 13, 2004

By eyes4hiseyes

Format: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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Erotic, captivating, and emotionally alluring. February 12, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

A brilliant swirl of eroticism, sensuality, and humanity, this novel captures the passion and the dysfunction of the sexually abusive relationship. McNeil invites the reader into a space that most would reserve for only their quiet places (or their therapists). She does this with well-crafted prose which makes the reader feel like an invisible bystander to a crime of both lust and power. I would submit she takes her readers to places many are too embarrassed or afraid to admit they have or would like to go.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Love and Power September 28, 2011

By Tatyana Vitta

Format:Paperback

I saw the original movie to this book when I was 12, in secret from my parents who forbade me to watch it, and it has haunted me since, although I didn't fully understood why until I read the book...

I can see how its easy for someone looking at the story superficially to view what has occurred here as abuse, but its important to understand that nothing that was done between these two employed and consenting adults non-consenual. Elizabeth was always free to leave, she had a place to live and a job that supported her. She didn't stay with John because he physically forced her to. She, underneath her conflicting emotions on the subject, wanted his violence, dominance, and abuse. Her true freedom was obtained through her completely voluntary submission and surrender to him, through being over-powered, taken, and led to the heights and lows of that submission by him. She could only achieve it through him.

Moreover, the "violence" in the book was merely their extreme expression of sexuality, a heightened version of lovemaking so deep, that most would not venture into it. The sensation of moderate pain mixed with pleasure created an association for Elizabeth where she came to crave it as much as she did John's dominance. Their relationship did not fail because it was abusive. Indeed, what seemed like abuse was consensual power exchange that both needed and craved. There were two reasons why their relationship failed. The first was that dominance needs to be responsible to create a lasting relationship. To lead a woman with complete trust in you into a situation that she will find emotionally damaging is irresponsible dominance.... When that much power is exchanged, its John's responsibility to make sure to bring her back to an emotionally balanced state, to make it "ok" for her to eat off the floor and watch her lover have sex with someone else. But that brings forth another problem - that of love. In order to properly care for someone to that degree when you carry that much power in a relationship, is to love them. That may create vulnerabilities, which John was not prepared to undertake, because he was too scared of losing power, but it was the only want to sustain that dynamic. To put it plainly, instead of pursuing his fantasies, he should have been more mindful of her emotional and psychological state. When that much power is undertaken by one individual, the responsibility is commensurate with it.

I find it sad that this experience was so damaging to Elizabeth that she went back to normal relationships, in which, of course, she will never find the level of depth and intimacy she has found in this one. Johns' damage was lasting in two respects - in the wonders of the world he has shown her and in the emotional instability he has caused by his irresponsible behavior towards her. There is nothing wrong with wanting to mesh violence with sex, or to have a man pick out clothes for you - if you want it. What is wrong is a man who doesn't appreciate it when you let him do those things to you. When he takes that much honesty and vulnerability for granted, HE should be spanked! When he tells a girl who trusts him with everything to go and rob someone at knife point, putting her in terrible danger, he should have that power removed immediately.

Its not the violence, or the power exchange, or being chained that ended this tryst. Its irresponsive dominance and lack of love. Everything else is tapestry differently colored. Who says that love needs to be gentle and kind? Or equal? who says that every woman must have equal say in a relationship, whether she wants to or not? But whether we are on top or bottom - or sideways - we need to be loved. That is a must. Read more ›

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The original fatal attraction. January 7, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

This book was published and reviewed as nonfiction in 1978, though it was written anonymously (by "an executive for a large corporation in New York," according to the book flap). It was reissued as a novel when the film adaptation came out. Whether the events recounted happened or not, it has the power and impact of truth in it. A woman becomes involved with a man who keeps taking her deeper into S&M bondage and humiliation, to the point that she has a breakdown and he abandons her at a hospital. The first-person voice of the woman narrating the story is riveting. Everything that happens, no matter how extreme, is conveyed with the same neutral tone; it's up to the reader to pass judgment on the relationship, for she does not. It would be unfair to judge S&M by this book, though, for she didn't know what she was getting into. I recommend McNeill's short book to readers undisturbed by explicit descriptions of kinky sex.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful

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

By A Customer

Format: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.