Threads of Fate by Aminah Bridgette Fox; Occult Academia Horror Novel Hints At Real World Issues

 

Threads of Fate by Aminah Bridgette Fox; Occult Academia Horror Novel Hints At Real World Issues

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Aminah Bridgette Fox’s novel Threads of Fate, is similar to a Twilight Zone episode. When creating the anthology series, Rod Serling realized that he could insert his political views into a Science Fiction show. He used Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror tropes to make the connections to issues like equality, conformity, mental illness, autocracies and so on. He told a great story and also revealed basic truths that should be considered and listened to. Other creators also did the same.

Threads of Fate is like that. It is a gripping and mesmerizing Supernatural Horror Occult Academia novel about missing college students, cults, and the existence of monsters like vampires that hides important themes of marginalization, economic and racial division, gender and sexual identities, and the secrets in educational, government, corporate and political institutions

Milford University student Tammy Moore is reported missing. Her friends, particularly her best friend and roommate Manuela “Manny” Webb are anxious and grief stricken as weeks and months pass with no words, signs, or clues appear about her presence and whether or not she's alive. Tammy isn't the only one. Other students go missing and Manny notices some interesting sigils around campus. There might be a connection to the missing students and the mysterious sigils. It is a connection that reveals a dark sinister side to the university, faculty, staff, and student body and a conspiracy that has been going on for hundreds of years and taken countless lives.

This book walks a thin line between a realistic and paranormal thriller. The book is technically an Occult Academia but it doesn't feature magical studies or supernatural creatures as professors and students. Instead it looks like any other university, stately buildings, well tended grounds, student centers, offices, organizations, libraries, labs, and areas named after wealthy donors. Bleary eyed students and cynical professors go to and fro their daily lives to teach, study, drink coffee, publish, attend meetings, date, and everything else. It's the curriculum, focus, and classes that are unusual.

Occult Studies is an academic discipline and there are courses on the subject like “Cultural Histories of the Occult and Forbidden Knowledge.” There are professors like Beau Moreau who are authorities on the subject and some literally wrote the books on Occult Studies. Students can even major in the subject alongside Creative Writing, Communications, or Medicine.

The book doesn't say what the employment outlook is like for one who majors in Occult Studies but it would be interesting to find out. The iconoclastic studies alongside the normal setting perfectly combine something ancient, magical, and supernatural with something modern, realistic, and relatable.

The missing students plot point provides commentary on many actual issues. There is the media frenzy particularly on social media where grief becomes a public spectacle, a person even a dead person becomes a commodity for hits, shares, and comments. 

The case becomes a cause celebre then disappears when the reporters, bloggers, and law enforcement officers do. The 15 minutes of fame are sped up to about 5 in this day of quick and disposable fame and infamy.

Manny and her friends are caught between trying to solve the mystery of the disappearances and go through their usual college life but it's hard to do with people wanting to find out the gory details. 

Since Manny's best friend was one of the victims, she is constantly surrounded by questions, accusations, and publicity depicting her in many roles from the actual murderer to the brave survivor. Her grief is magnified by the notoriety so she seeks therapy to sort out her grief, anger, and helplessness. 

There is also commentary about the type of people being murdered. The majority of the victims are either students of color or were involved in DEI organizations and causes. This connection opens up conversations and arguments about prejudicial assumptions about the victims and their assailants. 

It also puts an edge on the arrival and departure of the media circus. One could look at the constant presence as a counter, almost an overreaction to a press that is often accused of perpetuating “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” but the abrupt end could be seen as the press doing that very thing. They chase a lead with a racial narrative then step away when the consequences become too great when civilians involve themselves.

Manny is in a precarious position as a Black female asexual student who was in the right place at the right time to avoid the fate Tammy was thrown into. She knows that she could by definition become a target making her times walking alone on campus even more suspenseful in ways that some of her other friends don't have to worry about.

However, Manny is able to take actions in ways that authorities and the media will not allow. She and her friends investigate on their own. In one heart stopping chapter, she witnesses a terrifying ceremonial ritual which reveals a lot about many of the more privileged people that surround university life. When those channels fail and prove to be dangerous, she and her friends guess the potential future victims and try to protect them from the kidnappers by following them.

There is a transition between reality and fantasy when a plausible albeit supernatural novel becomes entirely a supernatural novel with very little plausibility. A discovery about one of the characters moves this character to center stage and develops their relationship with Manny in questionable potentially disturbing ways.

In making comparisons between fantasy and the reality subtext, Manny’s relationship between this character asks a lot of uncomfortable questions about sexual power and dominance, intergenerational romance, racial implications, and sexual identity. It moves the book into a different direction which may not be one for the better.

Weekly Reader: The Protrectress by Ayura Ayira; Erotic Power Play Between Demigoddess and Mortal Is Sultry, Sexy, and Surprisingly Sweet

 

Weekly Reader: The Protrectress by Ayura Ayira; Erotic Power Play Between Demigoddess and Mortal Is Sultry, Sexy, and Surprisingly Sweet

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Erotic Fiction often consists of sexual power play between two or several parties. It often is a one on one battle in which the characters use their most basic weapons of their body and sexuality to score against their rival turned lover. Their attraction towards each other is delayed until the end when the struggle is over and the lovers are separated or move their relationship from the sexual to the emotional.

The Protectress by Ayura Ayira is one such example. It's an erotic novel which is actually a power play between a demigoddess and a mortal man that is sultry and sexy, but ends up being surprisingly sweet.

Tilelli, the Protectress of the Golden Kingdoms, is at war against invading armies that would turn her beloved kingdom into a dystopia. She is a leader and inspiration for her people and is destined to lead them to a new future. If she is removed, all is lost. During a strategic attack when she and her army claim victory only to find themselves retaliated by their cunning enemies, Tilelli is left unguarded and unarmied. Left alone, she is rescued by Bashir, a seemingly loyal stranger. It turns out Bashir is hardly a convenient knight-errant in the right place at the right time. In fact, Bashir is an opportunist who seizes a golden opportunity for himself when he makes the Protectress his prisoner and tries to make her his sex slave.

Tilelli is a woman of great strength and power, one whom Bashir severely underestimates. He is of the limited opinion that being a woman and royalty that she will be easy to break. He clearly does not know her. Bashir may have pined for and grown obsessed with her, but he will have a difficult time getting her to submit. She is clearly the dominant presence in the story despite her captivity. 

Bashir puts Tilelli on edge. He alternates between being charming and being brutal. He has long lusted after Tilelli and until she practically fell into his vicinity. He uses his masculinity to bring her down to his level. But what turns her on is not sexuality, but his humanity.

As expected with erotic fiction, the sex scenes are plentiful and passionate. The characters' sexualities are used as weapons against each other. Each scene is like a small battle or challenge between them where one is a victor only to be the loser next time. It is a passionate dance with no clear winner except each other.

Normally, I am not a fan of erotic fiction where one character kidnaps another and forces them into bondage sexual situation (I mean how consensual can it be if one of the parties is forced into it?) However, in this situation because the two characters are equals in temperament and control one, is not wholly dominating over the other. It's more of a competition between two strong minded individuals trying to bring each other down and then find that they enjoy the conflict and becoming worthy opponents rather than sexually charged enemies on opposite sides.

Surprisingly, this spicy novel has some sweetness when Tilelli and Bashir join forces. Their sexual biplay transmogrifies into a real partnership. They no longer seek to dominate one another. Instead, they bring the best in each other.

The Protectress is a novel that has plenty of heat and spice but just a small amount of sugar to make not only the sex sell but the characters as well.

New Book Alert: Dark Beauty by Blake Rudman; Twisted Tale of Twins Tarnished Beauty, Ambition, and Sudden Fame

 New Book Alert: Dark Beauty by Blake Rudman; Twisted Tale of Twins Tarnished Beauty, Ambition, and Sudden Fame

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Blake Rudman's Psychological Thriller, Dark Beauty, is a twisted tale of a pair of twins who are tarnished by ambitions for beauty, fame, wealth, and revenge.

Identical twins, Tessa and Kristin Morgan are on the eve of superstardom. The former models turned actresses are coming off the premiere of Dark Beauty, a critically acclaimed box office hit film that is already receiving Oscar buzz. Well most of the acclaim is directed towards Tessa who is being hailed as the latest discovery since Jennifer Lawrence. As for Kristin, well "wooden" and "erratic" are some of the kindest comments. The twins' argument is interrupted by a stalker who sprays acid on both twin's faces leaving them with physical and eventually mental and emotional scars. Most of the book takes us to the twins' lives before the accident and sudden fame and their lives afterwards.

Dark Beauty does the usual theme of the good twin vs. bad twin, but thankfully subverts expectations by giving Tessa and Kristin subtleties and facets that break stereotypes to be interesting individuals who are caught up in a continuous rivalry and duality that probably has been going on since the two shared a womb.

Chronologically, Tessa and Kristin first appear during their senior year in high school when both are seen as pretty, popular, and smart but Tessa is favored by their parents and peers while Kristin retreats into sullen rebellion. It gives the impression that Kristin at one time tried to be as nice and scholarly a girl as Kristin, but the comparisons wore on her so she gave up and stood away from her sister in a self imposed isolation. 

Ironically, after graduation Kristin wants Tessa to join her in a modeling career instead of going to UCLA and medical school to become a doctor. She says that it's because twins are a rare angle for agencies, photographers, and advertisers to explore, but it could just as easily be that she believes that Tessa has the same ambitions and desires that she does and wants to share the glamorous life with her. 

Tessa however has her own goals and identity to discover. She has wanted to be a doctor since she was five and loves her sweet boyfriend, Daniel so she is ready to start her own life. But Kristin is a narcissist, along with displaying symptoms from some other mental disorders suggesting that she is a very troubled woman. Kristin only considers what she wants so she spikes Tess's bottled water with LSD so she'll bomb her final exam. So her only option is to leave UCLA and join her sister into the modeling field.

Of course, Tess gets the laugh when their careers change from modeling to acting. Tess works hard to study her role of the bad sinister twin in the movie (no doubt by a slight case of Method acting by taking on her sister's attributes to play the role). Kristin however falls into addiction and partying with an endless stream of men which affects her performance. Tess who never wanted to be an actress or model gets praised while just like when they were kids, Kristin is ignored.

While Tess is mostly hard working, kind, and intelligent while Kristin is scheming, self-centered, and aggressive there are times when their personalities don't shift so much as their good/bad twin dichotomy becomes fuzzy. Tess at times behaves very cold and self righteous especially regarding Kristin's behavior. Kristin displays a self-sufficiency and a sharp mind that allows her to survive despite adversity.

Perhaps this is why Tess is able to play the part of the bad twin in the movie so well. She isn't playing her polar opposite based on her sister. She is playing her own subterranean thoughts, things that she always wanted to do but hid behind a good girl veneer. After the scarring, she retreats into her self-pity and depression. It is only when she discovers what Kristin has been doing that she takes control of her own life. To do that, she has to be as angry, controlling, manipulative, and scheming as her sister. She has to out-Kristin Kristin in reality not in cinema.

Kristin herself shows much of her strength and self-sufficiency in her post-scarring. Ironically, without Tess around she shows a great deal of intelligence and control of her life instead of being thought of as always second to Tess. Her career after the scarring is too juicy to get into but it displays not only her dark nature but her ability to put herself forward, away from her sister. 

The twins' confrontations are as tense and suspenseful as accusations are made and secrets are revealed. Together they reveal the beauty and the ugliness inside the darkness.

New Book Alert: It's A Gay Gay World by Tatiana Kolesnikov; Parallel World Reverses Gay and Straight Statuses Has An Interesting Premise But Also Raises Some Questions

 New Book Alert: It's A Gay Gay World by Tatiana Kolesnikov; Parallel World Reverses Gay and Straight Statuses Has An Interesting Premise But Also Raises Some Questions

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Tatiana Kolesnikov's YA novel, It's A Gay Gay World is the type of book that invites the characters and Readers to "see how the other half lives." To see what happens when the majority becomes the minority, when the LGBT and the straight communities switch places. Heterosexual people have to suffer the legal ramifications when they want to have rights that others take for granted. They have to be mocked with stereotypes and derisive comments from entertainment and even from friends and acquaintances. They could face ostracism from family, isolation, sentencing to conversion camps, and could be potentially injured or killed by people so driven by centuries of religious and social hatred towards others who aren't like them.

It's A Gay Gay World takes that premise and brings it up to eleven when two straight teens travel to a parallel dimension where 

homosexuality is the majority and heterosexuality is the minority. It is an interesting idea that Kolesnikov brilliantly explores in her novel. However, the book does leave some questions in terms of plot and character.

High schooler, Katherine Borovsky and her boyfriend, Michael Morrow, wake up from a severe traffic collision to find a different world around them. Instead of her religious mother and father and kid sister, Katherine is greeted by her sister and two religious mothers. Instead of his bickering parents, Michael is welcomed by two loving fathers. 

In what Katherine and Michael dub "The G World" (Gay as compared to the "S World" where they came from), sexes are completely segregated. Boys are raised by men and girls by women. Since homosexuality is the norm, what they dub  "mixing" is forbidden even illegal. (In G World, even the terms gay and straight are reversed but to simplify things for this review, I will use the traditional meanings for both terms.) 

Kolesnikov went into great detail about the history and current structure that would occur in such a world. At a church service, Katherine hears this parallel dimension's version of the Adam and Eve story. This world's interpretation is that the sin that Adam and Eve committed was not in disobedience but in having sexual intercourse. Pretty flimsy, but is it any flimsier than the actual excuses that centuries of people have used citing the Bible as justifications for their prejudices in this world?

While procreation is not ignored, that is the sole reason that G World authorities allow men and women to have sexual relations or it used to be. Now with IVF and surrogacy, there is no reason for that. Straight couples get sent to internment camps like Camp Stork where they are separated from the rest of society and are subjected to inhumane treatments. It's Camp Stork that eventually becomes the source of investigations when Anna, one of Katherine's mothers, Rick, an investigative reporter, and Daniel, a BFI (G World's version of the FBI) agent and Rick's husband, discover a potential conspiracy involving the camp and immigrant straight couples.

The details aren't just found in the main plot.

When Katherine and Michael compare notes with their friends (and in G World, Michael's boyfriend and Katherine's girlfriend), Travis and Sydney, they find that G World's population is much smaller than the overpopulated world in which they came from. 

They also discover other clever facts about this parallel dimension such as that Sydney and Travis have never heard of Facebook, but MySpace is still the most important social media site. The current President in G World is Belinda Floyd, a woman who was a former movie star and is known for her progressive policies. Hurricanes only go up to Category Three. Many of these details aren't really important to the overall narrative, but they show how seriously Kolesnikov took the different aspects between dimensions.

 

This conspiracy develops many of the characters such as Elizabeth, Katherine's mother, who was at first appalled by her daughter being straight but then goes into full Defcon 1 Protective Mom mode when Katherine is threatened. Katherine's discomfort towards Anna thaws as before she refused to acknowledge her because Katherine missed her S World father. However, after Anna not only infiltrates Camp Stork but defends Katherine from attack, the teen lovingly refers to her as Mom like she does Elizabeth.

Besides the teen protagonists, many of the other characters are developed as well. Rick and Daniel are a loving couple who are good at their careers. They use those careers to help others such as investigating murders connected to Camp Stork and helping Nadia and Marek, an immigrant couple, who are kidnapped and sent there.

One of the best characters is Dominique Sullivan, a physics professor who provides details to Katherine, Michael, Sydney, and Travis about travel from parallel universes, something that he experienced first hand. Like Katherine and Michael, Sullivan came from S World decades ago. However, as an African-American gay man, he found love and acceptance in G World, particularly with his husband, David, so he decided to stay. However, Sullivan is not blind to the problems in his adopted home dimension so he also takes part in infiltrating Camp Stork.

It's A Gay Gay World is a great book but it offers some intriguing questions, perhaps for Kolesnikov to explore in a sequel, particularly since this book's conclusion is open ended. This book only refers to heterosexuality and homosexuality. Since gender and sexuality are constructs and are more fluid than that, it would be interesting to see how It's A Gay Gay World explores that possibility in G World. How are bisexuals treated in G World? (There are some indications that one of the characters is bisexual, but it is never outright stated.) What about transgenders, especially with how rigid cis males and females are segregated in this reality? These are other possibilities that could be explored in the future.

Katherine and Michael are aware that they are being discrimated against in this world to the point that Katherine makes a public plea for acceptance but they don't seem to make any comparisons towards their behavior in S World. There are some subtle implications that the two teens weren't exactly paragons of understanding and tolerance towards LGBT people in S World. Michael mentions that he felt uncomfortable towards a male friend who came out of the closet and began to phase him out. Katherine's first scene in G World shows her at a church service and she makes plenty of comments about her family's Christian background in both worlds. Their evolving feelings towards LGBT people could be illustrated in Katherine's growing acceptance towards Anna in her lives and their easy friendship towards many of the other G World citizens, but it would be interesting to see how this trip changes their beliefs once they return to S World.

Speaking of Katherine and Michael in S World, we learn that both worlds have the same people. While the teen couple are wandering around another dimension that isn't theirs, so are an alternate version of Michael and Katherine, both of whom are gay and are just as out of place as their counterparts. They will no doubt be subjected to homophobia and hate crimes. 

One of the most unfortunate implications concerns G World's Michael and his parents. That Michael left a world with two happily married fathers who loved their son and he clearly reciprocated that love. The S World's Michael lives with constantly fighting parents who give their son a toxic home environment. Since this volume involved a lot of Katherine's family, if Kolesnikov writes another volume set in S World, Michael's family should receive a stronger look that focuses on that conflict.

It's A Gay Gay World is an interesting premise that hopefully will be explored more on a future date. It presents an interesting look at both worlds.

New Book Alert: Off Telegraph: A Novel of Berkeley in the Sixties by Joseph V. Rodricks; A Long Strange Trip Into Science, Politics, Religion, and Fanaticism

New Book Alert: Off Telegraph: A Novel of Berkeley in the Sixties by Joseph V. Rodricks; A Long Strange Trip Into Science, Politics, Religion, and Fanaticism

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Of course a novel about the late 1960's would be set at Berkeley. Where else but Hippie Central would you find so many students and professors experimenting, protesting, exploring, tuning in, turning on, and dropping out?

Joseph V Rodricks' novel Off Telegraph: A Novel of Berkeley in the Sixties explores that groovy time with a colorful cast of characters that pursue knowledge in science, religion, politics, and some get very lost in the pursuit of that knowledge.



Grad student, Will Getz is studying to make a pfaffidine synthesis for a reliable source of pffafadine. He has spent several months working on the project and has only achieved positive results once by accident. He can't replicate the feat and time is ticking with a fearsome deadline soon approaching. Rather than admit the stall, Will changes the data information. This deception haunts Will especially as his opportunistic colleagues get involved.

Meanwhile, Will's former girlfriend Gina Antinori, an anthropology student is become more involved in the sociopolitical structure of the 1960's. She considers switching her major to Law and makes a bevvy of eccentric friends including Chris, a former priest who is considering break a few of his vows with Gina, Kay, a journalist exploring lesbianism, and Schaefer, an anthropology professor whose outlook on the world heads dangerously towards fanaticism.


The book is rich with characters driven by their goals to help society in their own ways. But their goals become lost because of ego trips and narrow perspectives that cause them to commit fraud even violence to achieve those goals.

Will is particularly hit by this. As anyone who has spent time in academia knows, plagiarism and fradulent research are not looked on very favorably in that circle. (Or in any circle for that matter, nor should they be.) If caught the person is subjected to expulsion, lost funding, lost position, denial of a degree, and given a black mark towards any future hiring possibilities among other things. That's why most college courses begin with the professor lecturing their students about the penalties. It's no wonder why this deceit continues to trouble Will.

Will was fascinated by studying chemistry and biology and using pffafadine to create better treatments for cancer patients. He, as many researchers often are, is swept up in the glory of achieving an unattainable goal and the fame and prestige that goes with it. However, Will becomes consumed with guilt for changing the data. He alienates himself from close friends and is easily swayed to commit more fraud to cover up his initial fraud. He becomes depressed and agitated and starts experimenting with hallucinogens to cope with the inner stress.


Gina and her colleagues also strive to change things in different ways. They want to end the Vietnam War, achieve equal rights for all, and explore life beyond their comfort zones. Many of them experiment by exchanging lovers and discovering about themselves. Gina's relationship with Chris is one that is between two souls that want to explore the world in a larger context beyond their rigid Catholic beliefs.

Their relationship is almost a union of the body and Spirit. They seem to reject the orthodox Catholicism with their physical union. However, the relationship intensifies Gina's inner spirit and she is able to become more active within the world around her.


Violence is also explored in how people's ideals can metamorphosis into fanaticism. One intense subplot has Schaefer leading some grad students to Guatemala in the middle of a civil war. When they return things take a turn into the horrific as Schaefer takes his religious intolerance to violent disturbing levels.

In one graphic passage a former colleague of Schaefer's explains what the man's plans were when he returned to California. Schaefer is driven by his own charisma, fanatic views, and ability to lead others as a cult leader. He has the idea that only his way is the purest and that society is so flawed, that he must bring about its destruction.


Off Telegraph explores the highs and lows of the 1960's. It was a time when everything was new and just waiting to be explored, fought for, experimented upon, challenged, and questioned. It was a time of great ideals. However, under those ideals was a darkness that bred corruption, illness, violence, and death. For better and for worse we were marked by that time.

New Book Alert: Succubus Affair by R.E. Wood; Erotically Charged Supernatural Thriller Brings Mythological Villainess to Modern Day Manhattan

New Book Alert: Succubus Affair by R.E. Wood; Erotically Charged Supernatural Thriller Brings Mythological Villainess to Modern Day Manhattan


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





Warning: This review will frankly discuss the sexual themes and descriptions in this book of which there are plenty. Reader discretion is advised.

Spoilers: Lilith is an intriguing character in Jewish folklore. A figure from the Apocryphal Bible, she was Adam's first wife and was created from the dust like him. She refused to take a secondary position and she was cast out of the Garden of Eden and Eve grew from Adam's rib to emphasize her subservience.
Lilith's legend has taken on various characteristics depending on who reads her legend and interprets the analytical and allegorical meaning behind her.
Starting in the Medieval Era, she had been seen as a Succubus, a female spirit that visits homes at night to steal the breath from infants and render men impotent and powerless. (Some believe that her mouth explained the origin of nocturnal emissions.) In some literary and legendary accounts, she is seen as an unrepentant demon from the depths of Hell.
In more recent times, she has gained a different outlook. Many feminists see her as a symbol of rebellion against the patriarchy that in her willingness to leave Eden instead of obeying Adam, she was declaring her independence. She is seen as a vibrant sexually charged character who takes control of her life.

R.E. Wood gives us this complex figure in his novel, Succubus Affair. Wood transports the legendary demon to Modern day Manhattan in this erotic sexually charged supernatural thriller which is also a commentary on modern consumerist desire for self-gratification and the sexual and emotional power plays between lovers.


When Lilith enters the novel, she proves to be a seductive force to be reckoned with. She seduces a man at a nightclub and after some mind blowing sex, she drains the life from him turning him from a horny young man in his early twenties to an emaciated old man drained of life. She also literally grows a pair to seduce a gay customer service representative with the same results.

However, Lilith is not just in Manhattan to satisfy her hunger and sexual urges. She has long-term goals to get money and power. She gets both in Norman Gleason, CEO of Gleason Financial Services. She manipulated her way into the job of Norman's personal assistant removing his suspicious former assistant then moves into his house alienating Norman's gorgeous wife, Judith who not surprisingly wants a divorce.
Lilith thinks that she has it made or is going to get it: a billion dollar fortune, a powerful position as assistant and possibly CEO once she receives Norman's finances and seizes control of his company, and enough men in Manhattan to satisfy her hunger. But she is drawn to Bob Martin, a newlywed employee of GFS. He at first resists her and she is incensed and curious about why Bob is so different and why he has such a hold on her.


Succubus Affair is a superior book to Voodoo Warning in every way: superior in suspense and fear, superior in description, and superior in characterization. When the plot of a horror novel involves relationships, the author better make them interesting and Wood does.

The most interesting figure is Lilith herself. She is not identifiable or relateable, but she is mesmerizing. As she draws in her prey, she seems to draw in the Reader so that they are not rooting for her but they are fascinated by what she does and how she operates. She painfully emasculates a potential rapist and completely destroys seven men in a bloody terrifying group orgy. She is like a villainess in a soap opera or a psychological thriller (of course being Lilith, she is the O.G. of female antagonists). She wants and she isn't afraid to take what she wants sometimes in the most destructive, illegal, and painful way imagined.

It makes sense that Lilith comes to the modern 21st century. In a time when consumerism and self-gratification is high, here comes a creature who is the living embodiment of that desire to please ourselves.

It is no coincidence that Lilith ruins romantic and familial ties. When dating can be disposable, people change couples as fast as they change their clothes, and love can sometimes be hard to find and define, of course there would be a creature who survived by severing those ties.

It is also no coincidence that it's a female character doing this. Lilith is not an outsider from another time. She exhibits those patriarchal alpha characteristics of dominant sexuality and instant gratification and turns it around on the male characters in the story.


This leads to an interesting question: how much of Lilith's behavior is mesmerism and do her assailants have any free will or control over their behavior? Many characters that she seduces are the types who are drawn by sex and their own bravado.

When Judith learns the truth that Lilith is a succubus, she points out that Norman is still responsible for leaving her and allowing Lilith to gain access to his accounts and business. Judith continues divorce proceedings and obtaining her assets from her ex-husband and his demonic mistress.

Bob is able to resist Lilith for a long time because he is happily married to his wife, Mags. Even when he succumbs to Lilith, he is torn between being led by his heart for Mags and his dildo for Lilith. That is what fascinates Lilith so much, that he is able to resist her magnetism for so long. His love is a shield from his desires and that makes Lilith so determined to have him and break those desires.

Succubus Affair is a novel that is graphic and erotic in how it reveals the characters’ sexuality but it is intelligent in how it turns that sexuality on the characters’ heads into something seductive, and dangerous. passpassionate, and dangerous. AN

Classics Corner: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong; Frank and Funny Feminist Novel from the 1970’s about Liberation, Sexual and Otherwise

Classics Corner: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong; Frank and Funny Feminist Novel from the 1970’s about Liberation, Sexual and Otherwise

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I would like to give an advanced warning that this review will contain strong language which may be offensive to some Readers. Normally, I try to avoid such words but it's difficult with this book considering how prominent the terms are. Read at your own discretion.

It's difficult to imagine now how much of an impact that Erica Jong's Fear of Flying had on the public consciousness when it was first published in 1973. Based on Jong's experiences with her first two marriages, the book was published during the Second Wave of American Feminism and was loathed and lauded by critics and readers alike. Many found it vulgar and offensive and criticized its stance on marriage. Others found it refreshing that a woman could write so honestly about marriage and sexuality. It's legacy was assisted by prominent authors like John Updike and Henry Miller writing essays praising Jolng's work. Miller even compared Fear of Flying to his own landmark work calling it the female version of Tropic of Cancer.

After 46 years, Fear of Flying deserves that praise and more. It's a frank and funny book that is brutally honest and biting about a woman's marriage and her desire to break free from it.

Isadora Wing, the novel's protagonist, is accompanying her husband Bennett to a psychoanalyst's convention in Vienna. Observing that the flight includes Bennett's fellow convention goers, Isadora wittily realizes that she had been treated by most of the analysts including the one she is married to.

Isadora appears happy or at least settled in her second marriage and considering her first marriage was to an unstable man who was under the delusion that he was Jesus Christ at least her marriage to Bennett is uneventful. But inside, Isadora is unfulfilled and bored.

Isadora longs for what she terms “the zipless fuck.” A “zipless fuck” is an affair based on sex and nothing else. You're in and out quickly. There are no strings attached and no remorse. It is simply a means to relieve hidden lust, sexual frustration, and desires.

While at the convention, she finds her potential “zipless fuck” in another psychoanalyst, Adrian Goodlove. Unfortunately as the two begin to fancy each other, Isadora realizes the reality of her fantasy is not at all zipless. The affair goes on longer than she expected and she joins Adrian on a road trip through Europe at the cost of her marriage, a marriage that she is not sure that she wants.

Isadora's narration is filled with dry sarcastic remarks and one-liners turning her into the Dorothy Parker of the Me Decade. She has a rejoinder about everything even the darkest subjects. She lived in Heidelberg, Germany with Bennett for a time and felt out of place as an American Jewish woman living in Germany less than 20 years after WWII ended. (“Germany was like a stepmother: utterly familiar, utterly despised. More despised in fact for being so familiar.”) Isadora is constantly at odds with her mother, Jude, who blames her marriage and giving birth to four daughters for ending her artistic career and warns Isadora that she has to choose to either be an artist or have children. (“With a name like Isadora Zelda it was clear what I was supposed to choose: everything my mother had been offered and given.up.”) Isadora studies English Literature earning a fellowship but finds it unable to hold her interest particularly as she reads the various analyses of Tom Jones. (“I had gone to graduate school because I love literature, but in graduate school you were not supposed to study literature. You were supposed to study criticism.”)

Even the men in her life are no match for Isadora's sharp wit. After the difficulties of her first marriage, Isadora is drawn to Bennet's silent steadiness which proves to be a burden. (“At what point had I started to pretend that Bennett was somebody else? Somewhere around the end of the third year of our marriage. And why? Nobody had been able to tell me that.”) When doodling variations of her name with Adrian's such as Isadora Wing-Goodlove, M.B.E. she cheekily tries to make her vision of a third marriage different from her previous one, even if it is to another analyst. She begins a facetious invitation to a housewarming party but adds at the bottom “bring your own hallucinogens.”

These one-liners and wit while funny are also seen as a defense mechanism. They are Isadora's way of understanding the tangled relationships around her and help her make sense of the world.

As Isadora plunges headlong into her journey with Adrian, she alternates between having sex with him, trying to avoid difficult conversations about the future, and recalling events from her past. The flashback chapters are key as we understand how they shaped Isadora to the choices that she made. Besides her depressed mother, Isadora also has strained relationships with her three sisters each of whom made seemingly rebellious choices for husbands: Randy the oldest marries Pierre, a Lebanese businessman and gives birth to nine children. Lalah, her younger sister marries Robert, an African-American doctor and gives birth to quintuplets. Chloe, the youngest, marries Abel, an Israeli businessman and gives birth to one child. Isadora watches bemused as each of her sisters once unconventional settle into conformist marriages and motherhood and keep badgering her to give up her poetic ambitions and have children. (“Why must marriage always include children?” Isadora wonders)

Isadora gets a close up taste of her sister's brands of married life when she, Lalah, and Chloe visit Randy and Pierre at their home in Beirut. Pierre then attempts to rape Isadora who is disgusted by the thought of committing incest with her brother-in-law and is even more startled by Lalah and Chloe giggling about the whole thing. This moment opens her eyes about the hypocrisy with married couples particularly her sisters who live contented lives on the outside but are depraved and hypocritical on the inside.

Isadora's first marriage also provides necessary explanation for why she is so miserable in the present. Brian Stollerman is at first a brilliant eloquent man who is knowledgeable in everything from Medieval literature, Shakespeare's plays, to old gangster films. Isadora admits that “(they) blew it by getting married” as he pressured her to marry him or he would leave her. Brian's terrifying delusions begin to take hold as he keeps Isadora up all night with disconnected ramblings and questions about her religious beliefs and the Second Coming. When he believes that he is Jesus Christ, Isadora is so beaten down by his mental illness that she is unable to fight his abuse towards her. She surrenders custody of him to his parents with whom she does not get along and his institutionalization. It's no wonder that she then settles into the quiet of her marriage to Bennett Wing, considering an analyst a safe release after a mentally ill man.

Even Isadora's marriage to Bennett and her affair with Adrian are not without their struggles. While Bennett is not a cruel man, he does not fully understand or appreciate Isadora behaving less like a husband and equal and more like a mentor or father figure. He treats Isadora like a project always trying to analyze and place her in a little confined box. What was once a reprieve from the conformity of her family and the insanity of her first marriage, becomes suffocating as Isadora is afraid of losing herself to the ennui of married life.

Instead of Adrian being the release that she hoped for, he turns out to be more of the same. He claims to be a Nihilist but is actually using his beliefs as an excuse to be a controlling manipulator. He nags Isadora to leave Bennett and live freely with him yet does not cut himself off from his wife and children. When they finally end their relationship, Adrian abandons her in Paris. Instead of being zipless, Isadora just gets fucked.

However, when she's alone, Isadora finally comes to terms with what she has wanted all along. She wasn't looking for a casual sexual affair, or a third marriage. She was looking for a way to be herself. She was trying to liberate and free herself from the expectations set by her family, husbands, and Adrian and she does it.

The title comes from the opening chapter when Isadora admits that she has aviophobia, which is a fear of flying in airplanes. As the book continues, it is apparent that Isadora is afraid of flying away from the standards that she had placed on herself. Though she always questioned and ridiculed those standards, she never had the courage to separate herself from them. The book ends when she finally finds the courage to be herself and fly.