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Reviews
"Run Catch Kiss"
Another view of Sohn's roman à clef finds it an emotionally deficient Bridget Jones clone.
By Lori Leibovich
[07/22/99]

Reviews
"My Russian"
A serious novel that's almost a thriller tells of a woman who assumes a disguise and hunkers down 11 blocks from home.
By Stephanie Zacharek
[07/21/99]

Ivory Tower
Who killed literature?
An aging professor offers his last pleas to help his expiring vocation.
By Jose Klein
[07/21/99]

Reviews
"The Dragon Hunt"
In his first collection in English, an expatriate Vietnamese author tells grueling (and highly original) stories of suffering.
By Judith Coburn
[07/20/99]

Dear Mr. Blue
case dismissed
women who write using only lower-case letters must be careful about love. they'll fall too easily for a cabbie, a pizza boy or a poet.
By Garrison Keillor
[07/20/99]

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If some men make an extravagant fuss over any pretty young woman who can open her mouth for something besides fellatio, they're also likely to respond with intimidation and disgust should that same woman choose to write about the men she may or may not have fellated. And if the nubile wunderkind in question is young and giddily flexing the biceps of her still-evolving sexuality, she might not yet understand the consequences of her revelations -- from the men who won't know what to make of her to the possibility that she may lose faith in the nonsexual aspects of herself.

I write two regular columns on sex and dating and have recently retired from a third. I know firsthand that any columnist who hopes to maximize tranquility in her relationships had better understand that her life takes precedence over the needs of her column. In her debut novel, "Run Catch Kiss," Amy Sohn -- a self-described scribe of "smut" for the New York Press -- has ably and wittily depicted what happens when a writer instead permits her column to dictate how she lives her life.

Also Today "Run Catch Kiss" Another view of Sohn's roman à clef finds it an emotionally deficient Bridget Jones clone.

Every once in a while somebody will ask me if I know Sohn personally. To date, I haven't made her acquaintance. But I can see why they might assume we've crossed paths. From her column, "Female Trouble," I know that we have much in common: We are approximately the same age, Jewish and Ivy-League-educated. We're both strangers to shyness and feel constantly stymied by the cultural disapproval leveled on women who behave like men. We've both logged time on the therapist's couch.

Most conspicuously, we have both exploited our youth, our relative comeliness and our willingness to publicize, for personal and professional gain, that which is normally private. (Not that comely young women are the only writers with a knack and taste for self-exploitation, but if you can find me a successful, first-person sex columnist who is 1) fat; 2) elderly or 3) a straight male who's not automatically branded a misogynist for excoriating past lovers with the license that women are routinely granted, let me know.)

I do not, however, write about my personal life the way Sohn does. "Female Trouble" has always made me cringe, which is impressive, since no one has ever accused me of being squeamish. Sohn renders her printed sexcapades -- which, even when she's between beaux, seem as numerous and outrageous as mine are sporadic and comparatively vanilla -- in minute, nearly pornographic detail (whereas just graphic might have sufficed) and in the crudest possible terms. (Lest anyone accuse me of envying Sohn's accomplishment, let me promise here that praise for her savvy novel, which is well-earned, will come later.)

This is a woman who has described, among other things, an instance of swallowing on the second date; bantering sexually with a boyfriend's father; and even the exact appearance of her own excrement. She has also penned frightful accounts of her pathetic attempts to win the affection of near-strangers who clearly view Sohn as nothing more than a receptacle.

I won't deny that I read these vignettes with fascination, but I've had some trouble relating to them. This is because I -- like the majority of single women I know -- am someone whose orifices, are, alas, not being ploughed with such enviable frequency (though potential suitors with Madonna-whore complexes have trouble believing this) and such unenviable disdain.

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