Sex is the reward we get for the many hang-ups and obsessions we have, obsessions that generally have something to do with sex, but are not actually about sex. At least, that’s true for Denny, main character of Naked in Nevada, whose search for sexual redemption and a way to free himself from his guilty obsessions leads him through the parlours of Nevada whore-houses and into the masochistic brothel of his own mind. Unfortunately, since you’re not Denny, you probably won’t find his mind all that interesting. 444 pages of Denny’s perverted, pathetic fantasies — slut-virgins bulging out of school-girl uniforms being abducted, raped and murdered – – transform this book into a repetitious soft-porn skin-flick, one of the ones that so frustrate Denny because they never show him what he really wants to see. But what does Denny want to see? Part of the problem is that his own naive nature (or the author’s) keeps him from really exploring his obsessions; Denny’s problem, perhaps, is that he is not immersed in his own dangerous fantasies. If he was, this saga might develop an interior life that goes beyond the shadowy gloom of perversion and into the dangerous darkness of obsession. Awde is at his best when Denny is in the real world, particularly in the flash-back sections where his awkward semi- affair with the curvy Melody of Yellowknife makes us cringe and think: geez, hope I’m nothing like Denny.
Jon Awde / Blue Wolverine Press (PO Box 435, Station C, Toronto, ON, M6J 3P5) / no price but $10 would probably be alright