Spanking the Maid (Coover, Robert) [Paperback]

Robert Coover (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 1997 | Series: Coover, Robert

"Though Coover's message is bleak, his delivery is wonderfully comic" (Bharati Mukherjee, "The Globe & Mail" (Toronto)) in this spare, tantalizing, and perfect book, named by Daphne Merkin in "The New Yorker" as one of her "favorite" S/M books.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Spanking the Maid is hard-core allegory.... a very funny book, a tragicomedy. -- The New York Times Book Review, Alan Friedman

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (December 18, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135404
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135407
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #840,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comic-erotic send-up of Nouvelle Vague fiction, April 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Spanking the Maid (Coover, Robert) (Paperback)

This elegant, concisely written masturbatory farce, in which similar scenes of a maid's transgression and a master's punishment are played out over and over again, conflates the delicious repetitive nature of erotic fantasy with a send-up of "Last Year at Marienbad"-type fiction--to an effect that is both erotically arousing and hilarious. Coover's greatest tour-de-force and a tiny, but original, masterpiece.

9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Coover pulls out all the stops in a neat little manual., August 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Spanking the Maid (Coover, Robert) (Paperback)

Here's a book that's devilishly sadistic to its readers, as well as to its characters, with its "narrator" having the upper hand. Like much of Coover's work, it passes from reality to fantasy, teasing and taunting the reader's expectations. It's also very funny, and obviously well-researched. However, I don't think a screen adaptation would work too well (although this was done with some degree of success in "The Babysitter"--but would it get past the front office?). I suppose Liz Hurley might enjoy the starring role, or perhaps casting Madeleine Stowe and Alan Rickman would be more in order. Kudos to Coover!

20 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Clever but light-weight exercise, June 26, 2001

By 

"elljay" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spanking the Maid (Coover, Robert) (Paperback)

Coover's brief tale takes a paper-thin premise and runs it right into the ground--yes, it's yet another one of those self-indulgent, self-conscious post-modernist novels seldom enjoyed by anyone who isn't an undergraduate English major. It's a very short book that you will likely wish were shorter. But though the plot goes (by design) nowhere, and the book is stuffed with the kind of affected whimsy employed by writers far too impressed with their own intelligence, there is some witty, bouncy prose to enjoy and a few inspired comic moments. For what it is, it's well put together.