Nerve: Literate Smut [Paperback]

Rufus Griscom (Editor), Genevieve Field (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Not surprisingly, the Net has turned out to be quite hospitable to smut. Whether pornophiles log on in the privacy of their own homes or the spine-tingling confines of the workplace, a virtual peepshow offers unparalleled (if highly disembodied) privacy. Still, the creators of Nerve.com clearly had more in mind than old-fashioned filth when they launched their Web site. This was to be a classier venue for erotica, with a mandate to be "direct with both word and image, whether the result is flushed faces, genitals, or perhaps just reflective thought." Have they succeeded? The Nerve anthology, assembled by founders Genevieve Field and Rufus Griscom, finds the debauched editors batting about .500 in their thought-provoking, blush-invoking mission.

There are contributions by the usual, sex-friendly suspects, from Sallie Tisdale to Dr. Joycelyn Elders, and dancing queen Lisa Carver draws some intriguing distinctions between sexualists (id-driven fornicators) and sensualists (romantic moths drawn to the scented-candle flame). But there are some surprises, too. John Perry Barlow, better known as a Grateful Dead lyricist and Internet pundit, communes convincingly with his inner lesbian in "A Ladies' Man." A saucy snippet from John Hawkes's The Passion Artist turns up, along with an amusing meditation on the Better Sex video series by Ruth Shalit (who seems awfully familiar with the contemporary pantheon of porn). On the other hand, Rick Moody's paean to polysexuality goes a little too heavy on the solemnity, as does Deborah Boxer's account of her life as a 28-year-old virgin. And what about the photos? Spicy stuff, with an all-too-penetrable patina of artsiness to them. --Bob Brandeis

From Publishers Weekly

Despite the misleading subtitle of this impressive if uneven anthology, smut is not Nerve's specialty. The 35 pieces reprinted here from the year-old, sex-obsessed webzine range from an article by Meredith F. Small on the habits of the Congolese bonobo ape to Debra Boxer's memoir of a 28-year-old virgin and Jocelyn Elders's arguments in favor of masturbation. This said, if Nerve can establish a lasting specialty, it will probably not be reportage, opinion or the neatly packaged thought pieces (the reflections of a male prostitute, of a nude stripper) that make up the bulk of this selection and could have appeared in any number of more or less mainstream magazines. Where Nerve distinguishes itself is in more eccentric forms of essay (like Lisa Carver's "Some of My Best Friends Are Sensualists" and Poppy Z. Brite's "Would You?") and in sophisticated storytelling. The best so far: Catherine Texier's artfully immediate, confessional diary "A War Journal"; Courtney Eldridge's jeu d'esprit "Anonymous"; and an excerpt from John Hawkes's 1978 novel The Passion Artist, titled "But She Was Not Mirabelle." Only the last qualifies as erotica (or smut, if all good erotica is smut). It shows not only the editors' discernment but also their good sense in reprinting hard-to-find works, whether from Penthouse, Playboy or that ivory tower of 1980s high theory, Semiotext(e). 35 b&w photos. Editor, Lauren Marino; agent, Owen Laster; $25,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.) FYI: You can read Nerve at www.nerve.com.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; First Printing edition (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767902572
• ISBN-13: 978-0767902571
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #802,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #41 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Criticism & Theory > Sexuality in Literature

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat disappointing., April 24, 2001

By	James Yanni (Bellefontaine Neighbors, Mo. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Nerve: Literate Smut (Paperback)

This book is correctly subtitled; the writing is certainly literate, and, given that it has a sufficient sexual content to offend those with low levels of prurience tolerance, I suppose it must be acknowledged to be smut. Still, for all of that, it failed in it's implied mission, if not its stated one; I expected (and wanted) this book to be a collection of well-written erotica, unlike most porn, which is written by and for the barely-literate. And while a few of the entries accomplished this, most failed miserably at the task of being erotic. Some were interesting, even thought-provoking. But very few were sexy. I expected better; I expected interesting, thought-provoking, AND sexy. I guess I just expected too much.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of Nerve from "The Book Report", October 18, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nerve: Literate Smut (Paperback)

This review also appears on America Online's "The Book Report" (Sept 8, 1998).

The only thing more difficult than writing well about sex is writing about it honestly. That's what a couple of twentysomething editors, Rufus Griscom and Genevieve Field, discovered when they left their jobs to launch the online sex magazine Nerve.com last summer. "Sex is a subject tripwired with insecurities and conflicts --a subject that people lie about as a matter of course," note Griscom and Field in their introduction to NERVE: LITERATE SMUT. One peek at this anthology --- a sampling of previously published essays, stories and photos preserved offline in the traditional way suggests that many of the contributors evidently felt up to the challenge.

Nonetheless, the volume's title is something of a misnomer --- there's not much smut (literate or otherwise), and if it's Nancy Friday or Penthouse Forum you're looking after, look elsewhere. But if what you're after are honest and perceptive essays about sex, you'll find several here.... --- Reviewed by Paul Zakrzewski

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's literate, but is it smut?, October 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Nerve: Literate Smut (Paperback)

Until I read this "Best of" edition of Nerve: Literate Smut, I'd been wary of people who said things like "the mind is the sexiest organ." The mind is mushy and white with a lot of corrugations in it, and it's best kept out of sight inside the skull. I'd have said it's pretty obvious, just watching people walk down the street, that there are three to five body parts clearly much more sexy than the mind, and possibly a lot more. But The Best of Nerve has given me pause. Writers ranging from Norman Mailer to Joycelyn Elders to William Vollman explore just how much of our sex lives goes on between our ears. They demonstrate that it's quite a substantial amount. The Best of Nerve is sexy and literate, just like the title claims. The best thing about it, though, is that you don't feel like you need a shower after you read it. More than anything, you feel smart.

Can pictures be literate? Hard to say. But The Best of Nerve also contains plenty of photos--high production values, very provocative. A lot of them are quite funny, which is refreshing in an American book about sex. They'd be worth the price of admission by themselves, even if they weren't decorating hilarious entries like Ben Neihart's rumination on sex and rock-n-roll, "The #1 Song in the Country."