Scary Old Sex

A woman goes about certain rituals of sex with her second husband, while sharing the bed with the ghosts of her sexual past.

A beautiful young art student embarks on an affair with a much older, married, famous artist. A middle-aged woman struggles with the decline of her mother, once glamorous and still commanding; their fraught relationship causing unexpected feelings both shaming and brutal. A man finds that his father has died while in the midst of extra-marital sex and wonders what he should do with the body. And a boy sits in his Calculus class, fantasising about a schoolmate's breasts and worrying about his father lying in hospital, as outside his classroom window the Twin Towers begin to fall.

In this stunning, taboo-breaking debut, Arlene Heyman, a practising psychiatrist, gives us what really goes on in people's minds, relationships and beds. Raw, tender, funny, truthful and often shocking, Scary Old Sex is a fierce exploration of the chaos and beauty of life.

 

Lusty, tough and life-affirming.

Elaine Showalter, Guardian

Both funny and eye-wateringly explicit.

Joan Bakewell, Independent

Shocking, mesmerising and truthful.

Rowan Pelling, Sunday Telegraph