From Publishers Weekly
Freud, who considered repetitive behavior the key to both human sexuality and the "death instinct," would have a field day with the narrator of Lefcourt's novel. This unnamed stand-in for the author ("Mr. L-") ponders the uncanny number of Karens in his love life and weaves around them a traditional tale of the writer's apprenticeship. Mr. L is a New York City baby boomer who participates in many of the rites of that generation, from frantic draft avoidance and ownership of the inevitable VW bug to "impersonal... pre-AIDS sex." Among his Karens are a nudist anthropologist; a Togo businesswoman he meets while serving in the Peace Corps; a blind, suicidal poet; and a Scrabble enthusiast who showers on stage at a strip joint. Freud would wisely note that each of these romances begins in slightly zany circumstances and ends in disappointment, the common destiny of the fetishist. Mr. L begins as a wannabe writer of great American novels, resorts to grinding out porno potboilers and winds up as a Hollywood screenwriter. In one sense, the multitudinous Karens are his muses, but they stand more for transience than transcendence: "I think about my Karens, scattered to the winds and connected only by my imperfect memory. I wonder what books they would write if they chose to, and what memories they have of our time together." While few things are less amusing than a middle-aged man waxing maudlin about his past cocksmanship, Lefcourt's characteristically quirky novel (Di and I, etc.) is a graceful coda to the broken promise of sexual happiness.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Getting struck by lightning? A walk in the park. Winning the lottery? Child's play. But loving 11 women, all of them named Karen? Impossible, improbable even, although not for Lefcourt's unnamed narrator, who winsomely recounts his escapades and escapes, trysts and tumbles with 11 memorable women, all of whom, believe it or not, are named Karen. There are Italian Karens and African Karens, sprightly Karens and sullen Karens, waitress Karens and actress Karens. From the first Karen, a fifth-grade vixen, to the fifth Karen, a prep school strumpet, to the final Karen, a Parisian
liaison amoreuse, Lefcourt's lover is led upon a tempestuous journey of self-discovery. Spanning decades and crossing continents, the statistical anomaly plays itself out with a touching sentimentality for these lost loves who, for all their generic Karen-ness, contribute exclusive and erotic elements to a young man's coming-of-age. A blithe bacchanal, a lurid love song, one part travelogue, one part spoof, Lefcourt's narcissistic novel would work equally well on the big screen.
Carol HaggasCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
