Erotomania

A film-set designer who’s not exactly a lady-killer, finds himself in the most exhausting and exciting sexual relationship of his life. So mind-melting is his coupling with a woman who receives him when her boyfriend is at work, that he’s unable to remember anything about her aside from the sensation of being with her. “I felt like one of those mummies in the horror films,” he writes, “who walks out of his casket in the middle of the night in response to a secret word or phrase.”

Levy’s debut novel—a high-minded yet slapstick take on erotic desire—sibilates with sentences like the above. As protagonist James Moran tries his damnedest to learn more about his lover, he encounters a few speed bumps (including a Rainer Maria Rilke–quoting lady of the evening), until he finally tracks her down and learns her name: Monica Coole. They move in together and try to make the leap from wild-sex couple to mild-love couple. Not easy.

The satire comes both broad and pointed, and Levy’s adoration of the one-liner—“Monica and I loved each other’s bodies almost as much as we hated each other’s minds”—keeps the prose clipping along, even as the two lovers slow down and try to figure out how to build depth into their skin-deep relationship. James becomes a huge fan of 60 Minutes, and Monica allows him his space to enjoy it. It doesn’t get much more erotic than that.