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Intercourse
A provocative new short-story collection from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler, Intercourse delightfully reveals what goes through a person's mind at a crucial momentduring sex. Smart, provocative, subtle, and erotic, each story is a many faceted gem. Butler dazzles and entertains as he channels the most intimate thoughts of 50 couples,including:
Adam & Eve
Bonnie & Clyde
Pocahontas & John Smith
Richard Milhous Nixon & Pat Nixon
Walt Whitman & Oscar Wilde
Elvis Presley & Holly Singleton (admirer)
Princess Diana & Prince Charles
William Jefferson Clinton & Hillary Diane Rodham
Santa Claus & Ingebirgitta (elf)
Adam & Eve
Bonnie & Clyde
Pocahontas & John Smith
Richard Milhous Nixon & Pat Nixon
Walt Whitman & Oscar Wilde
Elvis Presley & Holly Singleton (admirer)
Princess Diana & Prince Charles
William Jefferson Clinton & Hillary Diane Rodham
Santa Claus & Ingebirgitta (elf)
216 pages, Hardcover
First published May 28, 2008
5 people are currently reading
217 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olen Butler
86 books452 followers“I’ll never stop believing it: Robert Olen Butler is the best living American writer, period.”
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
January 27, 2012
Disappointing. High expectations dashed. Very hit or miss, with the misses tipping the scale in their favor.
The first one (Adam & Eve) was good, especially Eve's perspective, which ends with "he's flailing around and proud of his own little snake," which cracked a smile. There were also some interesting glimmers of insight into the sexism of the Genesis creation story floating around in these brief, mid-coitus descriptions of the world's alleged first love-makers.
Basically, the majority of the "stories" suffer from sameness fatigue. The ostensible modus operandi is this: Deeply unrealistic (which isn't necessarily a problem in itself) internal monologues of famous people which often just try to cobble together a bunch of historical and literary allusions to the famous aspects of each person's life, and most of the time it just ends up feeling, I dunno, stupid. Most are heterosexual couplings, each beginning with the male's perspective on the first page then the female's on the second; yes, each section is limited to exactly two pages.
You'd think there would somehow be an interesting way to describe the thoughts of Hitler while he's having sex, but maybe there just isn't. At least not in a single page. Butler basically has him railing against the Jews in the privacy of his own mind while having sex. Listen, Robert, no one is that anti-Semitic, not even ol' Adolf. I mean, much of this stuff is laughable and not in a good way. Hitler is referring to himself in the third-person during sex, e.g., "the great German Empire needy for Hitler and Hitler will feed the mice and kill the beasts." C'mon, seriously??
There are a few good descriptive gems and even insights into generalizations about intercourse (usually from the female perspective) found throughout, but they were just too few and far between.
A few others I liked were Bonnie & Clyde, Walt Whitman & Oscar Wilde, and Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir. Well, the Walt and Oscar one was just enjoyably ridiculous because they both were just thinking exactly like they write.
And the most disgusting one to imagine (aside from maybe Santa & one of his elves and the most silly stupid one of them all: the rooster & the hen) was the Sarte-on-de Beauvoir action, but Simone's perspective was sort of interesting and funny in a depressing way. If that makes any sense. She describes how he's flailing away with his eyes looking in opposite directions (he was truly hideous) and neither of them looking at her, which somehow made her feel liberated in this sort of 1940's French intellectual feminist way--despite the fact that she's screwing this hideous man who won't even look at her. Anyway, who am I to judge their love?
I really wanted to love this book going into it. And I held on to this desire for about the first half of it. This was a great premise in principle but ultimately a failed experiment. I hope that Severance is better. It's the book I stumbled upon with a synopsis that alerted me to Butler's existence and got me interested in reading his work in the first place.
In the final analysis: People shouldn't be thinking in flowery poetic prose while having sex--and if they do, then they ain't fuckin' proper!
The first one (Adam & Eve) was good, especially Eve's perspective, which ends with "he's flailing around and proud of his own little snake," which cracked a smile. There were also some interesting glimmers of insight into the sexism of the Genesis creation story floating around in these brief, mid-coitus descriptions of the world's alleged first love-makers.
Basically, the majority of the "stories" suffer from sameness fatigue. The ostensible modus operandi is this: Deeply unrealistic (which isn't necessarily a problem in itself) internal monologues of famous people which often just try to cobble together a bunch of historical and literary allusions to the famous aspects of each person's life, and most of the time it just ends up feeling, I dunno, stupid. Most are heterosexual couplings, each beginning with the male's perspective on the first page then the female's on the second; yes, each section is limited to exactly two pages.
You'd think there would somehow be an interesting way to describe the thoughts of Hitler while he's having sex, but maybe there just isn't. At least not in a single page. Butler basically has him railing against the Jews in the privacy of his own mind while having sex. Listen, Robert, no one is that anti-Semitic, not even ol' Adolf. I mean, much of this stuff is laughable and not in a good way. Hitler is referring to himself in the third-person during sex, e.g., "the great German Empire needy for Hitler and Hitler will feed the mice and kill the beasts." C'mon, seriously??
There are a few good descriptive gems and even insights into generalizations about intercourse (usually from the female perspective) found throughout, but they were just too few and far between.
A few others I liked were Bonnie & Clyde, Walt Whitman & Oscar Wilde, and Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir. Well, the Walt and Oscar one was just enjoyably ridiculous because they both were just thinking exactly like they write.
And the most disgusting one to imagine (aside from maybe Santa & one of his elves and the most silly stupid one of them all: the rooster & the hen) was the Sarte-on-de Beauvoir action, but Simone's perspective was sort of interesting and funny in a depressing way. If that makes any sense. She describes how he's flailing away with his eyes looking in opposite directions (he was truly hideous) and neither of them looking at her, which somehow made her feel liberated in this sort of 1940's French intellectual feminist way--despite the fact that she's screwing this hideous man who won't even look at her. Anyway, who am I to judge their love?
I really wanted to love this book going into it. And I held on to this desire for about the first half of it. This was a great premise in principle but ultimately a failed experiment. I hope that Severance is better. It's the book I stumbled upon with a synopsis that alerted me to Butler's existence and got me interested in reading his work in the first place.
In the final analysis: People shouldn't be thinking in flowery poetic prose while having sex--and if they do, then they ain't fuckin' proper!
December 29, 2008
Very deft execution of a premise that could have easily been a gimmick. The basic idea is that what goes through people's consciousness in the clinch is very rarely erotic---instead, the mind usually wonders to fear, dread, pain, sorrow, memory. Yes, Proustaceans, if you want to be reductive, you might say that pussy and prick are the new madeline, but not really: there's less sex here than in your local yellow pages (ok, maybe not mine, but yours). Again, the point is that coupling often keeps people apart even when their parts are connected. Just to be devil's advocate for a moment, I might suggest that sometimes all that does go through the consciousness at the moment of le petite mort is nothing more than Holy Fucking Beelzebub My Eyes are Rolling Back into My Head This Feels So Good, but you have to admire Butler's point: in a pornographic culture that has made the O-face its Pisgah vision, these little short-shorts are here to remind us of what's most scary about erotic intimacy: the vulnerability. My favorite moment was Richard Nixon---somehow picturing Tricky Dick as a crankwanker made the guy extremely human to me.
July 2, 2017
This book is among my most prized possessions. Each segment lingers in the heads of famous couples during sex. The 'stories' are all about half-a-page long and written with such intensely perfect language that it staggers the mind. No word is wasted and every word speaks volumes.
Some stories are humorous, such as Santa Claus after just having sex with an elf, and others are steamy, such as William Shakespeare and the earl of Southampton. All are poetic masterpieces that seek out the soul of celebrities over time and make you believe you are in the room with them, among the sweat and tangled sheets.
Some stories are humorous, such as Santa Claus after just having sex with an elf, and others are steamy, such as William Shakespeare and the earl of Southampton. All are poetic masterpieces that seek out the soul of celebrities over time and make you believe you are in the room with them, among the sweat and tangled sheets.
Read
March 19, 2017The question driving Intercourse is enticing--what do people think about when they have sex?--but it's the execution that provides lasting satisfaction.
The book is a collection of page-facing vignettes, wherein each half of a sexual couple lays bare their inner monologue during the act. And what couples! Bonnie and Clyde, Whitman and Wilde, Diana and Charles, Adam and Eve, Santa Claus and an Elf. The breadth of historical and mythological knowledge channeled into these figures makes them feel as real as any thousand-page novel's protagonist.
The writing borders on stream-of-consciousness (no more strongly so than when in the head of Joyce, naturally), but is clear for all that. Veins of deep humor and emotion abide in this book. Real tenderness, love, boredom, disgust, anxiety, fear: all of these are here, distilled down for maximum potency. I will return and return to this book many times.
I struggle to say anything eloquent or enlightening about Intercourse, because it contains those two qualities so completely within itself. Let me leave you, then, with one of my favorite couples in the book:
The book is a collection of page-facing vignettes, wherein each half of a sexual couple lays bare their inner monologue during the act. And what couples! Bonnie and Clyde, Whitman and Wilde, Diana and Charles, Adam and Eve, Santa Claus and an Elf. The breadth of historical and mythological knowledge channeled into these figures makes them feel as real as any thousand-page novel's protagonist.
The writing borders on stream-of-consciousness (no more strongly so than when in the head of Joyce, naturally), but is clear for all that. Veins of deep humor and emotion abide in this book. Real tenderness, love, boredom, disgust, anxiety, fear: all of these are here, distilled down for maximum potency. I will return and return to this book many times.
I struggle to say anything eloquent or enlightening about Intercourse, because it contains those two qualities so completely within itself. Let me leave you, then, with one of my favorite couples in the book:
HENRY VIII, 44, King of England
ANNE BOLEYN, 34, Queen of England
at the house of Sir William Sandys near Basingstoke, England, October 1535
HENRY
he conjures himself corporeal from the very air: imperious dark eyes and cropped auburn hair and a small mouth shaping kisses and pouts and commands and his shoulders are broad and his limbs are long and his fingertips flare above the vast dark ocean on one side and the wide cold sea on the other and he steps forward with first one foot upon the cliffs of Cornwall and then the other upon Dover and he bestrides the land and he looks out to the wide world beyond, my son, my sweet son, and as I am England now, he will be England then, and by the prickish essence I give yet again to this woman, I will be England once more. Or else
ANNE
I alone made England's alliance with France and I lifted the worldly evils of the papacy from our peoples' religious life and I bestowed all the wisdom of Cromwell upon the king and I established the right of a commoner to become a noble by his own thoughts and deeds and I gave more alms to the poor of the land than any highborn in history, and it all comes to this: a bejeweled codpiece falls and from a slash in a pair of breeches comes a too-small prick attached to a fat and distracted man and if its fluids do not blend with mine such to create a boy, I will sure be cast aside, or worse, and all that I am, all that I ever can be, is my cunt
November 4, 2008
not risque or erotic...goes through a series of couples, what they may have been thinking during the act at a particular time. a little difficult to read since written as stream-of-consciousness, because who thinks with perfect grammar and punctuation. i missed many of the sly winks since i'm not up to date with all writers, politicians, entertainers & their personal lives. goes from snort-worthy ridiculous to touchingly beautiful.
Want to read
July 18, 2008Ok look, I probably won't really read this book. It never even occurred to me to consider reading this guy, with his ludicrously prolific output and his silly titles and such. But the Washington Post Book World had a hilarious review (which you can read here), so who knows, maybe I will reconsider one day.
March 8, 2015
Butler basically tells people's thoughts while having sex. His choice of famous couples such as Adam and Eve or Princess Diana and Prince Charles is interesting, but pointless. The stories feel like a writing exercise, quickly jotted down during lunch break. Some stories are fairly good, while the most part just disappoints. 2/5
October 15, 2009
In the hands of a better craftsman, this could have been incredible.
March 8, 2019
Two page vignettes of what famous couples in history might think during sex. Some are funny. Most are not thinking of their partners. I found this a different way to think about sex. I enjoyed the stories about the Clintons, Nixons, Bushes, Cleo & Antony, and Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok. It's a fun read.
October 26, 2022
What fun for a quick distracting read. The author had an amazing ability to channel the distinct personalities of each member of the couple in voicing what each would be thinking during intercourse. From Adam and Eva through Santa Claus and an elf.... I mean, what's not to enjoy?
June 1, 2025
Some of the perspectives were funny, but I was bored through most of it. It took me two months to read because nothing was bringing me back to it. Some of the couples had interesting takes,but overall, it was not something I would read again.
August 3, 2018
Finished this up throughout the course of a day, it's a decent little collection of vignettes. None of the pieces were exceptionally personal, but good for a few laughs.
June 3, 2022
one of the silently great works of short fiction. must-read
June 12, 2012
I picked this book up at the library when I was looking for his Pulitzer Prize winning story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Anyone who knows me knows that a book with a title like Intercourse: Stories is probably not something I'd normally pick up but I wanted to give it a shot because it too is a short story collection. I didn't flip through it when I picked it up. That was my mistake.
The entire book is not really short stories, it's a series of sets of vignettes - one told by one party to the "intercourse" and the other told by the other party. It's mostly man/woman (begins with Adam and Eve), but there are some homosexual couples in there too, notably Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. All of the stories involve very famous public figures from Henry VIII and Anne Boelyn to Santa Claus (with an elf) and pretty much everyone in between.
What was interesting was how much he could convey in a short paragraph, never more than a page, which told so much of the story between famous couples - like Charles and Diana or Hillary and Bill. I really got a feel for each of the players - at least the modern ones - just from the short vignette. I probably learned something about other historical figures that I didn't know. For example, I didn't know that Lizzie Borden (who I only knew about because I dated a guy who was from the town that she made famous, Fall River, MA) probably had a female lover. The later ones, like the vignettes by/about the Smiths on the night of September 11, 2001, offer more social commentary just because I know the "history" better.
An interesting read. I'm not sure I'd really "recommend" it but it is one of those books that you don't easily forget and would be a great book just to pick up and put down when you have a few minutes here or there.
The entire book is not really short stories, it's a series of sets of vignettes - one told by one party to the "intercourse" and the other told by the other party. It's mostly man/woman (begins with Adam and Eve), but there are some homosexual couples in there too, notably Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. All of the stories involve very famous public figures from Henry VIII and Anne Boelyn to Santa Claus (with an elf) and pretty much everyone in between.
What was interesting was how much he could convey in a short paragraph, never more than a page, which told so much of the story between famous couples - like Charles and Diana or Hillary and Bill. I really got a feel for each of the players - at least the modern ones - just from the short vignette. I probably learned something about other historical figures that I didn't know. For example, I didn't know that Lizzie Borden (who I only knew about because I dated a guy who was from the town that she made famous, Fall River, MA) probably had a female lover. The later ones, like the vignettes by/about the Smiths on the night of September 11, 2001, offer more social commentary just because I know the "history" better.
An interesting read. I'm not sure I'd really "recommend" it but it is one of those books that you don't easily forget and would be a great book just to pick up and put down when you have a few minutes here or there.
January 17, 2016
I picked this up merely for the idea of it - I'd seen Butler's "Severance" and couldn't pass up the idea of, even though I'd skimmed it and found, basically, the same problems I found with this book.
I love the idea this book employs: what various famous people are thinking during sex. The problem is that Butler doesn't actually try to give these people their voices. He's too preoccupied being poetic and artsy. In the end, all of the voices sound the same. It's funny because a lot of the thoughts are preposterous given the situation - rather, the dialogues are commentary on their famous places in history, not what they would ACTUALLY be thinking during sex.
Some I did like particularly. Eve's seemed reminiscent of the origin of women's shame. Marie Antoinette's was beautifully bitter (could bring forth a great alternative history fiction, IMO). The couple on the Titanic was beautiful and sad. Bonnie and Clyde was probably my favorite - romantic. Inga Arvad with Hitler was also quite moving.
Overall: fantastic idea, carried out with pretentiousness.
I love the idea this book employs: what various famous people are thinking during sex. The problem is that Butler doesn't actually try to give these people their voices. He's too preoccupied being poetic and artsy. In the end, all of the voices sound the same. It's funny because a lot of the thoughts are preposterous given the situation - rather, the dialogues are commentary on their famous places in history, not what they would ACTUALLY be thinking during sex.
Some I did like particularly. Eve's seemed reminiscent of the origin of women's shame. Marie Antoinette's was beautifully bitter (could bring forth a great alternative history fiction, IMO). The couple on the Titanic was beautiful and sad. Bonnie and Clyde was probably my favorite - romantic. Inga Arvad with Hitler was also quite moving.
Overall: fantastic idea, carried out with pretentiousness.
December 19, 2016
A nice collection of vignettes but each piece wasn't personable enough to make me feel much of anything other than surface-level curiosity. Still nice for light reading.
February 6, 2009
Ever wonder what's going on in your partner's mind when you're having sex? Well, here's a peek into the wandering minds of some historical figures, starting with Adam and Eve and heading through the 20th century with several flights of fancy. Surprisingly, most couples aren't all that thrilled with what's going on, and it's only Bonnie & Clyde who actually seem to be in love with each other. Others are entirely displeased. I'll leave you to guess who thought this: "...perhaps it is true that the future of France depends on this thing I am now doing but I would much prefer to put my member in the forge until it is yellow-hot from the flame and then pound on it with a hammer"
Good fun.
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This had a great review by Jane Smiley in the Washington Post. (found via Powell's review a day). Stories about what people are thinking about when they're having sex: apparently it's not about the sex!
Good fun.
--------
This had a great review by Jane Smiley in the Washington Post. (found via Powell's review a day). Stories about what people are thinking about when they're having sex: apparently it's not about the sex!
November 9, 2015
Coming off of the heels of Severance, I wasn't quite as taken with Intercourse. Where Severance seemed deep and fresh, Intercorurse felt a little contrived in places. I realize in extrapolative fiction one must extrapolate, but I never felt I was quite "in the moment" with the various characters. Imagining what the stream-of-consciousness thoughts are of any given person during intercourse would be a challenge, to be sure, but I expected a little more...intercourse within Intercourse. Maybe it's just me, but my thoughts aren't far from the act itself while I'm engaged, so it felt a little like the act was a mere vehicle to tell an unrelated story--a little contrived.
As always, however, the writing is impeccable. Butler has an inimitable style and grace in his writing that always enchants and feeds the soul.
As always, however, the writing is impeccable. Butler has an inimitable style and grace in his writing that always enchants and feeds the soul.
Read
January 7, 2012It was a crime to buy the hardcover version of this book especially when I expected it to read better than it does. Truthfully, I'm a bit disappointed. He starts with Adam and Eve and theirs is a powerful (and funny) account of lovemaking...but what follows bothered me a bit.
This isn't as sexy as I had thought it would be. So between hard and soft I'd have settled for softbound.
But there's one story here, the one of the author and his receptionist. We learn of Butler's ability to speak Vietnamese and I swear, if only for that story, I didn't regret buying this.
Now if only the rest could be funnier? Smarter? A bit more playful and suggestive?
This isn't as sexy as I had thought it would be. So between hard and soft I'd have settled for softbound.
But there's one story here, the one of the author and his receptionist. We learn of Butler's ability to speak Vietnamese and I swear, if only for that story, I didn't regret buying this.
Now if only the rest could be funnier? Smarter? A bit more playful and suggestive?
August 15, 2008
An amusing format: each two page is a couplet one telss what the man is thinking ,the other what the woman is thinking as well they have sex. But these aren't your ordinary couples they are figures from history real or imagined starting with Adam and Eve. I laughed out loud at some of them. Others are poignant but all are very clever. The title is a play on words for after all having sex is only one meaning of Intercourse
February 26, 2013
I thought that this was a thoughtful, humorous, and engaging little book. I finished it in an hour. I like how it progresses from Adam and Eve through to the present day. It was interesting that the author included a bit about himself as well. If you're looking for soft porn prose, this is not for you. My favorite little "stories" were from Lydia Lee Mather, Mary Todd Lincoln, Clyde Barrow & Bonnie Parker, Hillary Diane Rodham, and Adam & Eve.
July 23, 2016
I wouldn't call this book "erotic" as so much as "stream of consciousness." The premise is that each exchange takes place during sex, but if you're looking for a sensuous bodice ripper, this isn't it. If anything, it's an exploration of each personality in a snippet of thought. Some exchanges are better than others, but each historical or literary figure has a distinct voice. There are some real gems in here, truthfully.
June 21, 2008
Short Stories.
As much as I love short stories, this one was written in an annoying style. The stories were written as first person thoughts, clipped from a snapshot of supposed sexual encounters of historical people.
The long, single sentence narrative of each person was difficult for me to read and I may have to re-read the book to understand it better.
As much as I love short stories, this one was written in an annoying style. The stories were written as first person thoughts, clipped from a snapshot of supposed sexual encounters of historical people.
The long, single sentence narrative of each person was difficult for me to read and I may have to re-read the book to understand it better.
December 24, 2008
Very fast read and incredibly creative as Butler presents in short stream-of-consciousness paragraphs what he imagined went through the heads of 50 copulating couples throughout history, such as Adam/Eve, Louis XVI/Marie-Antoinette, Gertrude Stein/Alice Toklas, the Clintons, and even Santa/elf. So much historical research lies behind these short groupings of essays.
January 13, 2009
An amusing collection of short stories which takes a peek into the minds of famous couples throughout history - and what they were thinking at their most intimate moment. It's not about the act - but rather is an interesting glimpse of a snippet in history, seen through the eyes of each person. Some of the stories made me laugh out loud, while others were thought-provoking. A fast read, too.
January 29, 2011
I suppose it took some talent to write in the voice of all these historical figures, but...
I can't think of anything else positive to say about this book. I don't see the point of it and didn't find it interesting or enlightening. I hate to say it but I felt I wasted my time reading this book. Fortunately, it didn't take much time.
I can't think of anything else positive to say about this book. I don't see the point of it and didn't find it interesting or enlightening. I hate to say it but I felt I wasted my time reading this book. Fortunately, it didn't take much time.
August 1, 2011
Butler channels his inner psychologist, attempting to capture the disjointed thoughts of famous couples throughout history during their most intimate act. Reading like a stream of consciouness - as each couple's member gets a page for their ruminations - the book fails to entertain; it reads more like the author's fantasies than historical fiction.
December 27, 2013
Picked this up after reading other stories by the author. Very interesting set of stories - the inner thoughts of historical couples as they engage in intercourse. Something different. I found the thoughts to be interesting but not mind blowing. It was a fast read. Don't let the cover fool you - it's not erotica.
August 31, 2008
dissapointing. love the premise ..famous 'couplings' and what is going through the minds of each during intercourse; I thought the execution was poor. Hit or miss, instead of satirical, this book was mostly self-indulgent.
October 12, 2008
This is a funny little book by a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Here, Butler ponders what various sets of famous couples (real or imagined) think about during sex. If you've ever wanted to know what Bonnie & Clyde, or Bill & Hilary were pondering while pandering, this book is for you.
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