Iguana Love [DELUXE EDITION] (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The dark side of my mind took control on one of those slippery-hot Miami nights about a year ago, the start of my unraveling, my..." (more)
Key Phrases: lift bags, night dive, weight belt, Captain Blondie, Jesus Christ

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ramona Romano is a young and beautiful Miami nurse whom you might, were you charitable, call "terminally insatiable." You might otherwise call her cheap, horny, cheesy, sleazy, dopey, and two other dwarves too explicit to mention. Well-built scuba-diving men, on the other hand, call her an answer to their prayers, and often. Her husband Gary has been shown the door. In his place is Ignatz, Ramona's freshly caught, five-foot iguana, and Enzo, a freshly shucked nightmare on the half shell.

I went into the bathroom and took my clothes off and crouched in the corner between the toilet and the tub. I curled over with my arms clasped around my knees, my face against my thighs, the toilet bowl wedged into my side, trying to chill myself, to change into a rational woman. Gary would come back with a word. If only I could accept normal married life, make it my goal to have a good marriage, help each other. I stayed there a long time, willing my muscles to atrophy. I tried to give up all my wild notions, but it didn't work. I had seawater on the brain. Divers to explore. Enzo. Flowing freedom. Without a lobotomy, I couldn't change.

Hey, Ramona: If Gary's Door Number 1, Enzo's Door Number 2, and the lobotomy's behind the curtain, take the curtain. But no--it's Enzo, and an inexorable slide into a special level of Miami hell tumescent with sexual deviates, sadistic drug runners, steroid-popping body builders--Ramona chief among them--and, finally, murderers.

It's porn noir. It's a woman's unwise (if not unwholesome) quest for marginally attainable lust and unattainable freedom through a man who's of our species by definition only. It's Miami-hot pulp friction. Vicki Hendricks's Iguana Love is all of that, and it's only her second novel (after 1995's Miami Purity). And beyond all of that, and most importantly, it's very well-written. --Michael Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In Hendricks's second novel, Ramona has a big thirst for thrills, cheap and otherwise. She also wants freedom from her marriage. She satisfies both of these longings by learning to dive and by picking up her fellow divers at seedy bars in southern Florida. However, Ramona gets in way over her head; very quickly the thrills turn dangerous and then deadly, especially when Enzo, one of Ramona's diving instructors, as trashy and shameless as she but a lot more sinister, enters the picture. Maybe Ramona should have stayed home to look after her pet iguana instead of piling up credit card bills for diving lessons and equipment. Certainly, she should never have let Enzo persuade her to be his drug-courier accomplice on a run to Bimini. Some feminists will cheer the ending of this book, but it's not much of a victory for the one left standing. Hendricks (Miami Purity), an English professor and an amateur diver herself, writes in clear, crisp prose that is also quite sexually explicit. Her descriptions of the serenity and vastness of the ocean surface or of the aquatic species living underneath will mesmerize readers.ALisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail; Limited edition edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852426284
• ISBN-13: 978-1852426286
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,893,108 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful piece of cruel poetry., November 18, 1999

By A Customer

As always Hendrick's books are much more than the the men, or the tropics, or the sex. Hendrick's Iguana Love is a sorrowful, brilliant piece of American Literature that talks about the lonliness of one woman and her enstrangement from humanity. At the core of Iguana Love is a very desparate creature , rotating from one sensation, to another, searching for that one thing that will make her "feel" something. She finds it in exactly who she is looking for.. a remote and cruel lover: A man she can not love, a man who dishes out pain and finally, a man who will let her remain in her place of numb isolation. Romona compares her iguana to this lover: cold, remote, dangerous. But, the iguana is not Enzo, it is Romona. And like the iguana, Romona is not male or female. And, it is the vacant soul of both Romona and the lizard that makes them the mirror image. And, yet, in the end, when Romona lays herself, crucifixion style across the dead body of the lizard, the depth of her grief, seems boundless . This is terrifying, lovely painful poetry, NOT smut. Like the ocean Romona swims in, there is a dark unfathomable truth about all of Hendrick's work. Her women are lonesome, deformed souls, living in a place devoid of warmth, trust or love. It is an unlearned reader who sees Hendrick's work as just erotic or sexual. Miami Purity and Iguana Love are studies of the desolation of women in the remote and cold reality of the contemporary world.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scuba and Noir... Wow, June 20, 2001

By	Carl Granados (Stuart, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Iguana Love (Paperback)

Fun, fun, mystery noir style of story with the bang of a loaded speargun. The bonus is that it is a story that also makes you think and that you will carry with you even after the story has surfaced.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sexy and Seductive, April 11, 2001

By	Chad Spivak (North Miami Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

I was first tipped off to Vicki Hendricks' writing in Naked Came the Manatee, a good collaborative effort. This book is also quite good.

In Iguana Love, we are introduced to Ramona Romano, a very unique woman who easily speaks and acts her mind. Separated from her husband, she tries to invigorate her life with scuba diving and bodybuilding. In her quest of sleeping with many men, she falls for a seedy character named Enzo, who happens to be her diving instructor. He leads her down a negative path until we reach a very suprising ending that will knock you out of your socks.

This book is very erotic, especially as we take a ride with Ramona on her wild romp and conquerings. The writing is graphic, raw, and very straightforward. Hendricks holds nothing back with her protagonist. Throw in the Miami background, and you've got a fairly hot novel.

Although some of the characters were somewhat one-dimensional, they all seemed to be nicely developed, and the plot was well drawn out. This was a quick read, and one that was quite enjoyable, if not merely for the shocking ending, not to mention the wonderful twists and turns. Inguana Love is a nice, yet far from wholesome, adventure.