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Dangerous love
The murder of a romance novelist by her dashing but abusive husband has fans asking tough questions.
By Julia Gracen
[06/17/99]

Reviews
"Moab Is My Washpot"
A desperate determination to amuse mars the English actor's memoir of his first 20 years.
By Charles Taylor
[06/17/99]

Reviews
"Desperate Characters"
A brilliant, cheerless little classic from 1970, long out of print, resurfaces.
By Andrew O'Hehir
[06/16/99]

Ivory Tower
The making of Henry Louis Gates, CEO
When a trio of scholars decided to partner with Microsoft to create a pan-African encyclopedia, was it a match made in progressive corporate heaven or the founding of an ivory-tower gulag?
By Craig Offman
[06/16/99]

Interview
"Girls' Guide" rocks!
The author of "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing" talks about single women's fiction, the trials of getting published and whether it's possible to be erotic and funny.
By Cynthia Joyce
[06/15/99]

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"But no book has ever improved relations between the sexes, right? It couldn't, right? Because you read a book in isolation. Then you put it to work, it's like you're experimenting with animals. I used to read books to get girls. It never worked."

"But it sells. People read them."

"So that's probably what happened. He said to his agent, 'My dad just died. I made up with him before he died. It was very moving. Here, read this,' and the agent says, 'Too many alcoholic dad memoirs, give me an angle,' and so he says, off the top of his head, 'Standup Guy, there's your fucking angle.'"

"But you said the part about his dad was good."

"It was. There's the rub. Remember last night we were walking on the beach after I finished the book and I was sad? He told the story of his dad's death well. He'd had a long time to think about it. Not like the part of the book when he went to a men's group and they sat in a circle naked and they're passing this rubber dick around and talking to it and giving it names, and when it gets to him he's thinking, 'So what do I say?' and then you read on and on and he never tells you what he said. That would have been the most interesting moment in that part -- what he would have said to the big rubber dick. But he never tells you. He copped out."

"That's not being a standup guy."

"No. Guys. We have burdens."

"You have burdens?"

"Guys have burdens. We carry burdens. We don't put them down till somebody dies. Then we put down our burdens."

"Well, you should say that, too."

"Oh, but wait. There's this other part that makes me mad. Because Segell's trying to give advice but he's clueless about human relations. See, he plays squash with three other guys. That's their friendship. And you know the way we guys play, we don't really talk, we just bullshit each other and give each other shit. That's what we do. And it's good, in a way, because it keeps your ego in check. It keeps you from taking yourself too seriously. But one guy, an art professor, is obviously trying to be more of a friend, to communicate on a level a little more complex and sophisticated."

"Is the art professor gay?"

"No, he's married to another art professor, a woman. And she hates her job and wants to move to a small college in North Carolina and take him with her. But he has a prestigious job. So he, the art professor, before they start playing squash, wants to know what Segell would do if his wife asked him to move so she could have a better job."

"What would you do?"

"If you wanted me to move so you could have a better job?"

Next page | Choking at the moment of truth