June 28, 1999
Dickey's racy comedy of African-American singles and couples will please, and won't surprise, the many fans he won with Milk in My Coffee, Friends and Lovers and Sister, Sister. In Dickey's Los Angeles, everybody who's anybody assumes that all couples cheat, and that nothing feels more divine than a forbidden sexual rendezvous. A trio of first-person narrators--Stephan, Chante and Darnell--tell interlocking stories in slick, contemporary chatter: often their talk reads like transcripts of phone sex. Stephan battles the memory of a father who considered the number of his female sexual conquests a measure of manhood. Chante seeks exclusive love from a high-performance stud. Darnell's wife, Dawn, doesn't understand him or his pressing desire to write; that's why he cheats on her with the comely Tammy. In and out of the bedroom, these protagonists' self-serving choices frequently get their hearts broken and leave them little room for insight and redemption. Trying hard to make his characters sexy, Dickey can forget to render them likable, attending instead to their stressful self-doubts and their torrid sexual desires. Though Dickey's numerous jokes about sex toys and organ size grow limp, he sprinkles raw, street-savvy humor on almost every page until the strained denouement. This provocative diversion is just right for summer reading, as lusty partners change places with the regularity of a sunrise and every encounter is rendered with a knowing smirk and a playful wink. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour.
June 28, 1999
Dickey (Milk in My Coffee) takes on the subjects of love, sex, marriage and infidelity among Los Angeles's young, upscale African-American community. In this audio version, the author's reading is supported by male and female performers who play out specific character roles. This fits the multiple points of view of the novel, which unfolds serially through self-contained "he said/she said" vignettes. Stephen, a software designer, is a ladies' man who uses deceit to play the field (his motivations, stemming from childhood experiences, are given through flashbacks). Chant , one of the objects of his affection, gets wise to Stephen's ways and schemes to "dog" him back. Darnell, a married lawyer who yearns to become a novelist, provides Dickey an outlet to explain his own reasons for becoming a writer. Because the action is played out in short, charged scenes, it works smartly as audio drama, highly entertaining in its sharply observed turns of dialogue. Based on the 1999 Dutton hardcover.