Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex (Paperback)

~ Jameson Currier (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Currier is adept at drawing a fine line between the erotic and the tragic."

Product Description

Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex collects the best known of Jameson Currier's short fiction, along with several new stories that meticulously detail the search for love, romance, partnership, and meaning among the moderns. Currier's characteristically spare prose brings into sharp relief the sometimes maddening multiplicity of traits that constitute a person's romantic ideal and shows how the quest for the other can transform - or derail - the course of our lives.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Green Candy Press (March 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931160252
• ISBN-13: 978-1931160254
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,648,977 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sexy and Literary, Comic and Poignant, July 4, 2004

By	Jon J. Warren "jjnca" (LA, CA) - See all my reviews

An original and brilliant collection of literary gay erotica, crammed full of wit and sex. The art behind Currier's stories lies in his ability to first snare the reader's attention and then weave in all the details. Take "First Shave," for example, a terrific and arousing story about a younger gay man shaving his older boyfriend. Or "Lessons" -- which takes what appears to be a man's initial disappointment while answering a hardcore personal ad -- Butt Play 101 -- and turns it into a surprisingly touching encounter between two completely different men. Currier can be romantic ("Impromptu," about an unexpected encounter during a vacation in Venice), poignant ("Buddies," a lushly written, insightful ode about a sex buddy), and comic ("A Date with Dracula, a Trick with Tarzan," a laugh out-loud tale about one man's misadventures while on two blind dates). There are several short fiction masterpieces in this book, too: "Fearless" reveals the dating scenario between two New York men, one HIV-negative, the other HIV-positive. "What You Learn," one of the several short stories in this book written in the second person point of view, finds a 28-year-old gay man confronting the fantasy of his former swim teacher -- a man who saved him from drowning at age 15. "Snow" has a businessman trapped in a hotel room with a hustler during a blizzard. "Alibis" links a sequence of tricks through a distinctive tattoo. "Grownups" discloses sexual politics and permutations in and out of the office. And the title story delightfully catalogs the introspections and interactions between two gay couples who meet during vacations in Las Vegas -- one, mature and argumentative; the other, young and dauntless.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not So Sexually Frustrated, June 22, 2004

By	Little Old Me - See all my reviews

When the narrator says, "The man of my dreams is a man I've never met ...", I thought to myself - its all coming together now. Jameson Currier's latest collection of fiction seeks out to exploit that very indecisive and fickle nature of men. DESIRE LUST PASSION SEX is an extremely well written, entertaining and poignant collection of short fiction in which the male ego is placed under a literary microscope and dissected right before the reader's eyes. The book features nineteen short stories, many of which have been previously published in erotica anthologies and gay men's fiction journals.

Jameson Currier's stories are diverse and enigmatic as he treats all his topics with genuine expertise: the frustration of surviving the AIDS epidemic, getting romantically involved with married or "unavailable" men, the fears of getting older and the fears of still being too young and/or inexperienced. Altogether, the stories deal with real characters trying to survive in an overly sexual world. His first story, "Lessons", involves a man who has re-emerging from sexual hibernation after the peak of AIDS and answers a personal ad for a sexual trainer. To his complete disgust, he finds that the teacher is a 300 pound late 50's man named Joey. Though completely disgusted by his host, the narrator feels almost obligated to stay and have sex with him. Somehow, a strange bond forms between both men and the experience ends on a good note. If only all of Currier's characters could be so lucky. A later story, "Expatriates" involves a romance between two men at a flea market. Dru is a small-town working-class boy, who is engaged to his girlfriend of several years and Rusty, an ex-model, helps his sister run a booth at the flea market. Dru's and Rusty's friendship centers around them hooking up in Rusty's van, while Dru contemplates choosing between his girlfriend and Rusty. Ultimately, the friendship is doomed and Dru re-closets himself.

One of Currier's gifts is his ability to take very specific moments and unleash some form of hidden erotica. He turns a boy's near drowning during lifeguard lessons into a picturesque scene of man-boy love, unleashes the sullen intellect of a man snowed in with his escort and gives the personal account of wild sex with the modern day Tarzan. Gay Men will love this for this collection for its all-too-true scenarios and brisk erotic qualities. Women will love this for a sneak peak into a gay men's mind and the personal struggles between romance and sex which is worth re-reading over and over again.