In Search of an Impotent Man [Paperback]

Gaby Hauptmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2001

Carmen Legg, a tall sporty red-head, is fed up with men and their one-track minds. She is thirty something, drives her own BMW, lives in her own apartment and likes to run her own life the way she wants it. The book opens with a day when three men prompt her to take radical action. The first is a businessman who, at a seminar, can't take his eyes off her legs. The second is a business associate she has to tease at dinner to get him to make the deal she wants. And the third is the lover in her bed, who, on her return from an exhausting day, can't take no for an answer. What she needs, Carmen decides, is a man with higher things on his mind. So with her friend, an eighty-year-old neighbour with a dramatic past, she places a rather unusual advertisement...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first novel by Hauptmann, a German screen and TV writer, is a lighthearted sex farce that hinges on an unusual premise. An alluring German career woman posts this ad in the personals section of a local newspaper. "Wanted: Clear-thinking male. Attractive, successful 35-year-old woman seeks man for good times, days out, nights in, companionship. Must be intelligent and impotent." Insurance agent Carmen Legg, who sports long, luxurious red hair, a willowy figure and fashion-model outfits, is glamorously beautiful, prosperous in her business life and vibrant in every way. Yet she has a major complaint: "I'm fed up to the back teeth with men who are randy all the time." So she seeks a cozy, nonerotic romance. Her ad elicits a number of replies that interest her: she meets Frederic (a sulky James Dean type), Stefan (a gracefully aging Anglophile, living in the baronial splendor of a country estate), Oliver (a classic chauvinist jerk) and David (a hip young architect with the tanned good looks of a California surfer). Indeed, they are all well tanned, good-looking and rich to varying degrees. We characteristically find Isabella, Carmen's consulting psychiatrist, on the job in "a tight-fitting dress and elegantly applied make-up... as though she had sprung from the cover of Vogue." In fact, a principal difficulty of this novel is that the main characters seem to have been cloned from familiar magazine, movie and television images. Carmen, in her inevitable high heels and body stocking, resembles a cross between Murphy Brown and a Barbie doll. Curiously, her three main love-interests--Germans all--have distinctly non-German personas: Beach Boy, Rebel Without a Cause and a would-be English lord. Which cardboard cutout will she choose? It's hard for the reader to care. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Obviously written before Viagra's availability in Germany, this is a lighthearted farce. Carmen Legg is tall, beautiful, 35-years-old, and very tired of boyfriends who constantly demand that she sleep with them. She places an advertisement in the newspaper for "a clear-thinking male" who is intelligent and impotent, and she gets many responses. Comparing the candidates, she decides that she wants to share her life with David, an artistic, Rilke-quoting young man who makes her happy. But it doesn't take long for Carmen to realize that, in fact, she wants David to be potent. She seeks help from an herbalist and a psychotherapist who finally solve David's "problem," paving the way for a happy ending. Hauptmann--a self-described "glamorous single mother"--has written a witty and fast-paced first novel. Recommended for larger public libraries.
-Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Virago Pr (October 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860495540
• ISBN-13: 978-1860495540
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 1.1 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,842,033 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been, should have been, but ..., January 26, 2000

By 

Jeanine (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Search Of an Impotent Man: A Novel (Hardcover)

It's an interesting premise: Beautiful woman seeks impotent man after she gets sick of the seemingly unsatiable lust of "normal" men. And it's also a real page turner, in the thrashy-interesting sort of way - I finished my copy in 2 days. But, the thing is, the writing is so flat. I'm wondering if that comes from translating what was probably German originally into English?

Anyway it could have been a brilliant, acerbic satire on love and relationships but instead it was a rather forgettable read. I hated the ending by the way (I won't reveal a choice spoiler); it seemed a ridiculously utopian (lazy?) way to round off the originality that first fuelled the plot.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Stupid and horrible, March 13, 2001

By 

Jan in NC - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Search Of an Impotent Man: A Novel (Hardcover)

The jacket copy looked great: great idea... attractive woman sick of leering men, looking for something different. However, the book sucks. Awkward writing style, and completely childish relationships. She sounds about 20 years old, believing in soul mates after one date, inviting strangers up to her apartment, going to their house on a blind date, meeting a millionaire who gives her so much of his time and attention for no apparent reason, oh puhleeze. I got about 50 pages in and then gave up in disgust. This book was completely NOT believable. WHAT a disappointment. I've run and answered personal ads. I guess I'd better write my OWN book based on real life, not the fantasy of this author.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The book may deserve more stars, September 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: In Search Of an Impotent Man: A Novel (Hardcover)

The book may deserve more stars, but its hard to see the good of the book with such a HORRIBLE translation! I've been reading translated books from all over the place. Never have I been so aware of the fact that a book is translated as I have been while reading this. It does not stick! What a horrible way to ruin a book. Shaun, next time, take your time with the translation and think about what the author is saying!