$14.00
ISBN 0743289633
available through Amazon

Reviewed by Sam Garcia
(07/16/08)

So here it is, the final edition of Susie Bright's brilliant annual anthology -- the 15th anniversary edition, this year titled The Best of Best American Erotica 2008. A stunning and original concept in 1993, it remains a remarkable work of art today, if only for its collected breadth and depth in today's fading market of true literary erotica, which seems sadly overtaken by large quantities of the more commercial "erotic romance."

This book shines. Startling stories, funny stories, deeply weird and wonderfully sexy stories -- 23 in all, including a fun tale of her own "Story of O" birthday party by Susie Bright herself. From the depths of Steven Saylor's creepy and compelling erotic horror story, "Blue Light," in which two men explore what it truly means to own your slave, and maybe even own his body parts and lend them back to him if he begs just right in the dark of night, to the high humor and bisexual experimentation of Susannah Indigo's "The Year of Fucking Badly," which left me wondering if even I really knew what "bad sex" meant, every story illuminates a different aspect of the erotic imagination, lighting our way through the multifaceted prism of modern sexuality.

Each story is followed by a short interview with its author, talking about why they wrote the story and what it means to them, which is almost as fascinating as the stories themselves. For example, Tsaurah Litzky reports on her post 9/11-sex story, "End-of-the-World Sex": "There was trembling but fearlessness in the way people reacted in New York City in the wake of 9/11. People talked to one another openly and caringly in the streets -- in stores, on the subway. It seemed briefly as if some higher consciousness might rise phoenix-like from the ashes. 'End of the-World Sex' captures that feeling....It's all gone now. People sit on the subway wired up into their iPods, huddled into their books and newspaper, as every day the casualties of this obscene war increase. It makes me sad to remember what could've been."

Susie Bright's light will continue to shine brightly via her blog and other writing projects long after the end of this series, of course. Who else has the nerve to call the girls of Sex and the City "four Neanderthal-ettes" and in doing so correctly explain the value of natural red "cunt-hair?" But the Best American Erotica books mark a time and place and a level of creative and fresh erotic writing in our lifetime that is unparalleled. I recommend to all lovers of the erotic word to buy the full set of Best American Erotica books for their bookshelves if they don't have them already -- I'm positive that twenty years from now they will be classics.

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