The Celibacy Club — Janice Eidus

This vibrant collection of nineteen short stories by the two-time winner of the prestigious O. Henry Prize is by turns erotic, wildly funny, bawdy, and poignant. Eidus explores our contemporary obsessions: sexboth safe and not-so-safe; Prozac, the '90s drug of choice; Nautilus machine mania; the sinister attraction of vampires; film star James Dean; and rock n roll icons Axl Rose and Elvisall with dazzling range.

Janice Eidus quirky characters seek transcendence in exotic ways, and they sometimes even find it. These unpredictable stories demonstrate that Janice Eidus continues to be one of the freshest and most idiosyncratic voices from the fiction frontier.""The San Francisco Chronicle"

In "Gypsy Lore," one of 19 stories in Janice Eidus's collection, "The Celibacy Club," 15-year-old Anna asks a fortune teller about sex. "He comes in, he goes out. He comes in, he goes out. That's all," the gypsy replies. The gypsy's evident ennui about sex might apply just as easily to this collection itself, in which a lot happens but nothing much matters. In the title story, Nancy joins a celibacy club where everyone talks about why they're not having sex. Then she has sex with one of the club members, quits the club and buys a condo in the Bronx. In "Making Love, Making Movies" screenwriter Jeff inexplicably starts cheating on his wife of ten years, an actress obsessed with Sigourney Weaver. During each affair he casts himself as a different Hollywood actor, while each encounter becomes a scenario for yet another trite film cliche in his hackneyed mind.

Ms. Eidus's tales are often amusing, but she tends to substitute pop culture references for character development, and high concept ideas, i.e., a Barbie doll goes to group therapy, for theme. Still, readers who enjoy this type of ultra-hip urban story-telling may well find "The Celibacy Club" entertaining reading.

"Eidus' powerful stories about men and women waging silent wars against the culture have the eerie effect of waking us up even though we didn't know we were sleeping."Hal Sirowitz, author of "Mother Said"

"Janice Eidus is more entertaining than the Marquis de Sade in a dress. Her juxtaposition of emotionfrom the brazenly wicked to the ardently tenderwill leave the reader breathless. "The Celibacy Club" is definitely a club you will want to join."

"Balancing humor and depth, the 19 short stories in this collection reflect the quirky voice, at once cynical and sincere, that has made Eidus a two-time winner of the O. Henry Award. In their funniest moments, Eidus's stories have serious subtexts of isolation, addiction, abuse and despair.""Publishers Weekly"
"