Alice Denham's lusty memoir is a juicy tell-all about a time when male writers were gods and an aspiring and gorgeous female novelist tries to win respect—and sometimes more. Caught between the sheets are James Dean, Norman Mailer, Hugh Hefner, Philip Roth, and William Gaddis. The steam rises page by page as Denham—the only Playboy Playmate to have her fiction published in the same issue as her centerfold—chases her dream of writing as a young, oversexed beauty in the literary swirl of 1950s Greenwich Village, New York City.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Denham, an essayist, television writer and the only woman whose fiction and breasts have appeared in the same issue of Playboy, offers up a fast-paced memoir that chronicles how a pretty girl from suburban Washington ended up on a bar stool at the storied Lion's Head. Run-ins with notorious figures-Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Marlon Brando, Hugh Hefner-pepper nearly every page, though readers interested in the hot dirt promised by the flap copy will be disappointed, as the "bad boys" here come off as little more than horny juveniles, and Denham skimps on the steam when she sacks with, say, James Dean. Most of the narrative is consumed with her slow-out-of-the-gate literary career that limps along; as her peers became icons, Denham modeled until the gigs dried up, and then wrote freelance. Though Denham reveals little that isn't widely known (Roth is a perv, Mailer is a freak), the sheer number of names dropped and follies recounted make for a fast and fun read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Alice Denham is the author of three novels and has written articles for Cosmopolitan, The Nation, New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, The Village Voice, and The Washingtonian. She lives in New York City and San Miguel, Mexico.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lit Celeb Sex,
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This review is from: Sleeping With Bad Boys: A 1956 Playboy Model's Escapades with James Dean, Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer and the famous writers of the 1950's beat generation (Paperback)
The title of this book promises lots of steamy sex, and it delivers in spades. Denham loved sex, and makes no bones about it. From a strategic location in Greenwich Village she knew the leading literary lights of the fifties and sixties, and slept with any of them she cared to. Her descriptions are not so much graphic as emotionally complete. Some of her flights of lyricism are so wonderful that the male reader gets to experience what he can never experience, how it feels to a woman in the throes of ecstacy.
But, although Denham slept with a lot of stars, she was no starjumper. She politely turned down some of the biggest lit stars of the era, and managed to maintain good friendships with them at the same time. Her morality was not conventional, but nonetheless it was there. In the sixties when swinging came into vogue, and Plato's Retreat was the new hot thing in New York she was simply turned off by that scene. She did not require love, but she did require at least friendship and chemistry. But, in spite of the title, and in spite of the beauty of the way it's rendered, sex is not the best thing about this book. The description of the lit life of the era surpasses that, and the description of the difficulties of being female at a time when women were second class, not thought worthy of their typewriters surpasses that. The best chapters of this book describe her friendship with Katherine Anne Porter. This is fine writing, deeply touching, and a great story. Denham has never been given the credit she deserves as a serious writer. She is not merely good. She is magnificent.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sleeping With Bad Boys: Alice Denham's excellent, fun and intriguing memoir,
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This review is from: Sleeping With Bad Boys: A 1956 Playboy Model's Escapades with James Dean, Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer and the famous writers of the 1950's beat generation (Paperback)
Sleeping With Bad Boys, Alice Denham's memoir about literary NY in the 1950s and 60s, reads like an intriguing, absorbing novel. Her talent for creating characters, not only the whole gallery of interesting people that appear in the book, but her very own narrative voice, is excellent. The well developed story line, with its twists of fate and suspense, creates an incredibly moving, tight, awesome under current of that so very special combine of the struggle for creativity, love, life itself.
Maria Arrillaga
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Invaluable Literary History,
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This review is from: Sleeping With Bad Boys: A 1956 Playboy Model's Escapades with James Dean, Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer and the famous writers of the 1950's beat generation (Paperback)
Though this smart, well-written book will mostly be bought for its gossip, "Sleeping with Bad Boys" is an invaluable literary history source for certain American writers who emerged in the 1950s. We learn much about underappreciated novelist David Markson, for example, and especially about William Gaddis, for whom little biographical info exists. (Two of his letters are quoted in their entirety.) There are eye-opening passages about Mailer, Roth, Heller, Porter, and others, and shocking accounts of how old-boy misogyny persisted in the publishing community throughout the Sixties. This is probably the only work of literary history with a photo-insert of pinup images, but this an enlightening, impassioned book that deserves a wide readership.
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