P: A Novel

by Andrew Lewis Conn

This is the story of an unlikely duo — Benjamin Seymour, a failed pornographer, and Finn, a ten-year-old girl genius who has run away from home. Over the course of one day — sometimes separately and sometimes together — they wander the city looking for some semblance of belonging. There, the novel grows to include a diverse cast of characters and themes that support the inward journey of each. The narration veers into an array of literary forms to best reflect the heartbreaking quest of its main characters. Each new chapter comes as a surprise, as Conn employs such storytelling methods as the newsreel, Q and A, stream of consciousness, and screenplay to propel this raunchy and romantic debut tale.

Genres: Fiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

About the author

Andrew Lewis Conn is the author of P (Soft Skull Press, 2003) and O, AFRICA! (Hogarth/Crown 2014). He has written essays, short fiction, and reviews for The Believer, Film Comment, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, and the Indiana Review, among others, and attended writers residencies at Yaddo and Ledig House in Hudson, NY. Conn’s debut novel, P, was chosen as a best book of the summer of 2003 by Salon, Time Out New York, The Oregonian, and Nerve; one of the best books of the year by the Village Voice and the Austin Chronicle; and long-listed as “one of the best books of the millennium (so far!)” by The Millions. A lifelong Brooklyner, Andrew lives in Park Slope with his wife, Kay, daughter, Alyth, and Marty the turtle.

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew? All Joyce's Ulysses needed was to be set in New York instead of Dublin, for Bloom to be a sad-sack pornographer, and for Daedelus to be a precocious, pot-smoking, 10-year old girl. By turns lyrical, shocking, and pull-your-hair-out frustrating, this novel's biggest problem is its concept, which is just too weird and derivative to ever be considered a good idea. But it's a bad idea finely executed, especially for a first novel. It really picks up momentum in the final quarter, as the text shifts into screenplay format, then into cosmic-scholarly Q&A, and finally into the obligatory Molly-esque "Yes! Yes!" run-on soliloquy. I'm already looking forward to Conn's next book.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a full review, go here:

http://www.jeffbursey.com/downloads/B...

2025 review: still enjoyable, but the screenplay section drags, as I seem to remember from before.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patterned on ULYSSES, crammed with an entire liberal arts education, the vast ambition of Conn's first novel goes up against his obvious and genuine talent; against all odds, talent wins.

Benjamin Seymour is in depressive stasis, not quite sleepwalking through an often wonderfully detailed New York City, as he mourns and longs for his lost dead love, Penelope, a love documented in the many pornographic films they made together, she as star, he both in front of and behind the camera. Related in a variety of formal tricks, the novel gives us the real magic of first love, set in a mythic Ithaca, where they both attended Cornell, and a loving history of American porn (inevitably reminiscent of the film BOOGIE NIGHTS), culminating in Benjamin's mentor, friend and Quilty, Milton Minegold, a heroic, pathetic, scary Al Goldstein type (the novel includes a number of recognizable satirized figures). While Benjamin's focus on the scatological and mastubatory is not for the squeamish, he's a winning character, a genuine good sort, and when he meets lawyer Katherine Welland, an erotic urge turns into chivalry and he goes on a quest to find her runaway daughter, nine-year-old Finn, as precocious as a Glass, but as charming as Eloise, and herself a heroic figure, struggling with incipient adult understandings of the world. Together, Finn and Benjamin go on a transformative metaphorical journey that brings everyone home, Finn to her mother, Benjamin to her mother's bed, and the reader to the novel's Molly Bloom climax.

Despite sometimes precious, self-congratulatory prose, smart but easy puns ("The child was jung but not easily freudened."), and a brittle stylistic cleverness (the novel's centerpiece is a 110-page screenplay of a surreal musical fantasia starting in the Times Square Disney store and continuing through stygian subways), Conn sends us on an engaging, entertaining, funny and moving trip. A writer to watch.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benjamin Seymour is a pornographic filmmaker. He has lust for life and the observant 5 senses to create a monumental set of memories. He is also failure. A Willy Lomen. The love of his life is gone and he's trying to revive a dying industry that happens to display his finest skills. I'm halfway through. If Ulyssess was the first tower on a bridge celebrating sexual freedom and exploration, P is the next tower. Monumental. Gotta finish it to see if it's 5 star.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Full Disclosure: Andrew is a good friend.) That out of the way, Conn takes on a big risk and succeeds. His homage to James Joyce and the hidden life of porn is great fun. Conn is a novelist who loves language as much as storytelling, and he loves storytelling. It's a dirty book that won't stain your hands or lead you any further into the dark than you want to go.

[Cara · Rating 1 out of 5]

turns out i read this already. if i didn't remember it can't be all that.