An Old-fashioned Darling

by Charles Simmons

A beleaguered young editor at a famous girly magazine swears off sex, only to find himself more deeply mired in lust and love than ever before
There are perks to working at a men's magazine that unabashedly celebrates the unclothed female form. However, the constant parade of exquisitely beautiful women strolling in and out of Oliver Bacon's office can prove most distracting.
Oliver opts to treat his situation with extreme measures: he resolves to try celibacy. But being chaste is easier said than done when one is toiling in a garden of earthly delights, with temptation blooming all around. The challenge gets even more difficult when a particular darling turns up to plunge Oliver's life and libido both into pure chaos. In an insightful and outrageous romp, Charles Simmons wickedly charts the minefields of lust and love.

Genres: Fiction

208 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 4, 1988

About the author

Charles Simmons (August 17, 1924 – June 1, 2017) was an American editor and novelist.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See:

Charles Simmons, American clergyman and author
Charles Simmons
Charles Simmons, Autobiographer

Reviews

[Zuberino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charles Simmons had a wonderful talent for comic dialogue, repeatedly on show in this ostentatiously filthy but otherwise slight novel about a New York lothario and his decision to go celibate when juggling between the competing needs of a trio of girlfriends nicknamed Long Island, Florida and Brooklyn becomes just too damn difficult. Young Oliver Bacon works for a softcore magazine called Quiff and the author milks that premise for all the filth he can fit into the story, most of all in the beach motel photoshoot orgy scene that forms the centrepiece of the plot. Ultimately though the narrative peters out in a rather feeble and predictable fashion. In sum, AOFD is a sweet if forgettable slice of New York life in the hot sweat of the sexual revolution and also an insightful peek into the world of publishing in the early 70s, the likes of which we will never see again.

[Les · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reads like a really long letter to Playboy magazine from the 1970s. I think it was intended mainly to shock people at the time, which I'm sure it achieved. However, as literature, it doesn't seem to offer much more.