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Big Sex Little Death: A Memoir Paperback – April 24, 2012
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length328 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSeal Press
- Publication dateApril 24, 2012
- Dimensions6 x 0.83 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101580053939
- ISBN-13978-1580053938
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Susie Bright has never been one to shy away from discussing sexuality, erotica, and feminism . . . Big Sex Little Death delivers." Vanity Fair
"Susie Bright is the Emma Goldman of our time." LA Weekly
"Best Books of 2011" San Francisco Chronicle
"My 10 Favorite NonFiction Reads of 2011"Richard LaBonte, BookMarks
"BSLD delivers entertaining and influential political/sexual revolution." Vanity Fair
"Rollicking, Vibrant!"MORE
"Deliciously radical." Ariel Gore, Psychology Today
"Heady, hilarious, heartbreaking." Bay Guardian
"One of the bravest and sharpest sex writers of our time." Salon
"How does a cocky woman write such a ballsy memoir?" Daily Rumpus
"Reading Bright is the equivalent of seeing her at your local farmers' market wearing *This is What A Sex-Positive Feminist Looks Like* t-shirt.This is a good thing." Alternet
"The stories she tells are dramatic, violent, passionate-- but it's the writing here that is the most stunning." SexIs
"Characteristically frank, often startling." Chicago Sun-Times
"Titillating, arousing and salacious are words not normally ascribed to a writer's memoir, unless, of course, that writer happens to be Susie Bright." Larry Mantle, Airtalk
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Seal Press; First Trade Paper edition (April 24, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 328 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1580053939
- ISBN-13 : 978-1580053938
- Item Weight : 13.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.83 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,090,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,649 in Feminist Theory (Books)
- #12,717 in Love & Romance (Books)
- #29,658 in Women's Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Susie Bright is an author, editor, publisher, performer, producer, and critic.
Home: Santa Cruz, CA.
Blog & Newsletter: https://susiebright.substack.com/
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Yes, and the mom thing. Her station as daughter and mom in this life continues to set her apart as a thinker and writer in the realm of sexual politics and publishing. Among sex talkers and writers aplenty these day she's one of a handful who have braved motherhood and lived to tell the sex part of the story openly.
I found her childhood account uncommon only in the severity with which she embraced it all, finding a way to survive with a heart childlike and open. Indeed, I was surprised to learn that it was her success with thin skin poetry that opened the first door for her in publishing. A great encouragement here for young writers. Yet the mom thing will always define Susie Bright for me. It's how she sees herself to this day. Having one, being one. She's a true traditional untraditionalist. We listen to her because she lives where we all have lived as sons and daughters. But she does it all never selling out her eroticism from youth to middle age.
Perhaps the funniest part of this hardbound book is its color: black and white. A little joke no doubt. If a world abides anywhere in the universe as black and white, it's no place where this woman lives. She's always been every ounce nuance, every bit color and question mark. Even when she pontificates away I read her as one open to ideas and a possible new way yet of looking at things.
But having a daughter remains the key kernel of madness in her art and life for me I think. Maybe because I've one too, near in age. Also, as politically incorrect as it might be in her field as sexpert and lesbian pioneer she does not hide that it was the positive masculine input of her father, Bill Bright, that remains an anchor for this literary storm we call Susie. Oh, and for heaven's sake, this out-there lesbian trail blazer woman has a long time serious male friend, Jon, an "all but married" life partner relationship no less. She never apologizes. She just loves.
However full and fantastic this tale of her youth, I still get that this erotic literary nut tree woman is never going to stray far from her Irish Catholic roots. It's an underground current that nourishes her writing and sex and commitment to motherhood. I'm sure she knows this. Again, there's a nun somewhere to be sent flowers for this.
What stood out for me in BSLD is how she kept reinventing herself; and how chance and circumstance played a big part. She never seemed to let bitterness whack her down for even a whole day. Raised by a whack job mom who tried to undue her, she loves. In family, in business, in the world of friends, she is betrayed. All these players bring Judas to her again and again yet she harbors no bitter seed, just that platonic Susannahism where wonder remains the beginning of all wisdom and philosophy. No doubt Big Sex Little Death is just Part One of the Susie wonder woman tale. This woman can sure tell a story. I await Part Two.
"Susannah "Susie" Bright (also known as Susie Sexpert) (born March 25, 1958, Arlington, Virginia) is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality.[1]
She is one of the first writers/activists referred to as a sex-positive feminist.[2]
She has a weekly program entitled In Bed with Susie Bright distributed through audible.com, where she discusses a variety of social, freedom of speech and sex-related topics."
That however is the barest of bones from the meatiest of lives. Susie is almost a prototypical '70s political and sexual radical. I say "almost" because though she is a perfect example of the earnest, caring, idealistic, optimistic teenager that Baby Boomers such as myself remember all too well, her journey and vision of the future were outside the mainstream of '70s various protest agendas.
In "Big Sex Little Death" (Little Death being a reference to orgasm being referred to as "le petit mort" which translates as little death) Susie Bright tells about that journey, starting with her rootless childhood dragged from place to place by her mother, a woman of strong political beliefs and no tolerance for those who did not agree with her, Susie included.
It follows her through high school and her involvement with the radical school newspaper "The Red Tide" and how this lead to her leaving the parental nest for the International Socialist Summer Camp in Michigan and labor organizing gigs for the International Socialists in Detroit and then, after being treated poorly, in Louisville, Kentucky where internal bickering within that organization got her the radical equivalent of ex-communicated.
That would've been enough to extinguish the inner fire of most young people but not our Susie. Returning to her father in California to lick her proverbial wounds, Ms. Bright arrived in San Francisco where the sexual revolution that began in the late '60s was settling down, it's radical nature having been co-opted by the American mainstream which smothered its forward momentum (which ultimately would re-energize 3,000 miles away with the Stonewall Riots).
Here her radicalism shifted from labor issues to lesbian issues, a subject with which the burgeoning feminist movement was quick to disassociate itself.
She hung out with strippers, worked in a sex shop that specialized in introducing adventurous women to the joys of vibrators and generally lived the hand to mouth existence of a true anti-capitalist. One day an advertisement in a neighborhood newspaper (there were hundreds of these back then for those not old enough to remember) led her to a magazine in the planning stages that was to be called "On Our Backs." Susie's time and achievements with OOB, a pioneering lesbian butch pornographic and intellectual magazine, take up the last half of "Big Sex, Little Death" and is fascinating both for the practical realities of publishing as well as the inherent optimism of knowing the forces aligned against you as you try to change minds and the world and continuing on undaunted by the enormity of your enterprise.
The end of the memoir centers around the birth of Susie's daughter Aretha and how being a mother changed Susie's life. Not necessarily in what she believed but in how she behaved.
Ending the book here leaves the reader looking forward to another installment bringing Susie's interesting life up into the current day where the success of what she achieved as a younger radical has changed American attitudes so much so that Ms. Bright is no longer on the fringes but right in the American mainstream.
This is a fascinating story told in a straightforward manner that reflects both the joys and tribulations of radical youth in the '70s. Ms. Bright is a generous storyteller, clear-eyed and unafraid to take herself to task for not anticipating the reactions of others. Reading this memoir reminded me of my youth when I still believed the world would change for the better and the positive energy that engendered.
Very enjoyable and worth reading.
Susie Bright's memoir is now one of the books I keep handy on my shelf to pick up and peruse when I need inspiration. Why? Because Susie, like one of the people she writes about, is " . . . in favor of living."
Beyond that, I find it hard to focus my review because there is so MUCH in "Big Sex Little Death." I enjoy the way Susie admits to having had a tendency to apologize for everything, yet the book is written in an unapologetic tone.
Other thoughts I had while reading this book: I wish I had a mother like Susie. The part where the woman from Sacramento takes Susie up on the offer to be photographed for "On Our Backs" in her "best pantsuit or sweater set" gave me goose bumps. I hope someday she will write another memoir.
Top reviews from other countries
Susie bright is a bit before my time. I'd only heard of her throught others. I'm a sex geek (and a ex-socialist turned libertarian). I wanted to learn about life being an old-time sex radical & sex advice columnist. I still don't know much of anything important about her.



