Erotomania is a comedic, absurdist portrait of a modern day romance.
Erotomania traces the development of James and Monica, from a couple that
is forced to move to a nuclear fall-out bunker so their explosive sex life doesn't
physically harm their neighbors, to James' one-night bout with alcoholism, to Monica's
sexually-fueled obsession with abstractionist expressionism, to marriage counseling,
to a new-found reliance on reality television and microwaveable meals.
Visit the official, authorized blog for Erotomania: A Romance, maintained and
authored by Francis Levy.
Click here.
Or, read Francis Levy's "rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture" at
The Screaming Pope.
"[A] hilariously satirical debut novel. Miller, Lawrence, and Genet stop by like proud ancestors . . .
But it's a more recent generation of mischievous deviant writers (Nicholson Baker, Mary Gaitskill)
that truly looms large - Erotomania's closest predecessor might be Baker's The Fermata.
[An] ambitious book. . . [A] biting satire."
-Zach Baron, The Village Voice
"[Levy's] excellent too, like Miller and Bukowski, on the mechanics
and energy and animal filth of rumpy-pumpy, bringing to his sex scenes
all the humor they need. There's a hilarious sequence in which the lovers
use art criticism as a sex aid. Readers will never think of Robert Hughes
or the abstract Expressionists in quite the same way. Sex is familiar,
but it's perennial, and Levy makes it fresh."
-Richard Rayner,
Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Francis Levy is our generation’s D.H Lawrence, Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski rolled into one."
-Bill Kohlhaase, Inland Empire Weekly
"Levy seems to have an eye for detail for all that is absurd, commonly human, and uniquely
American. Erotomania is recommended for those who are looking for an alternative
read that borders on surrealism and is over-the-top."
-Beth Harrington, Bookslut
"It's a great book, written with flawless verve by a tremendous fictioneer and thinker,
and it deserves glory. A classic."
-Andre Codrescu, Exquisite Corpse
"A novel that effectively satirizes traditional tales of romance."
-The L Magazine
"[A] nontraditional love story, with traces of Bukowski and Henry Miller."
-Judith Rosen, Publishers Weekly
(*Erotomania selected by PW as a "hot independent press title for Fall 2008."*)
"The book's raw but thoughtful carnality comes off as at once serious, clever and crude
in sending up the absurdities of contemporary hookings-up. It's not a traditional
love story, but debut novelist Levy puts thought and genuine feeling behind all
the doings." -Publishers Weekly
"[Erotomania] can just as easily be a bookend to the beautifully nuanced prose
of Milan Kundera as it can be a long-version story for a nudie mag minus the accompanying
photographs. It's all in the context - as it is with most relationships."
-Billy Thompson, Quarterly Conversation
"Erotomania wields a comedic punch that makes it, above all, a fun novel to read."
-Joseph Lazauskas, Nerve
"Erotomania, although one can trace bawdy influences - from Rabelais to Henry Miller
- all over the place, is unlike anything I've ever read. It offers a hermeneutics of
the erotic, by turns shameless, funny, romantic and poignant. Although ostensibly about
the search for a real-life woman who can live up to the narrator's vision of sexual bliss,
the novel is really about the way we long for intimate connection in and beyond bed.
Written in the form of a spiritual quest for a carnal idee fixe, this novel wears its
avid penis on its sleeve and is all the more surprisingly affecting because of it.
I applaud it." -Daphne Merkin
"This is absolutely the only novel of its kind ever written. It breaks new ground on every page.
An obsessive phantasmagoria of sex and longing, it manages to be wildly original,
clever and hilarious, a tour de force that defies expectation and interpretation.
Bukowski and Henry Miller are among its forebears, but Erotomania goes where even
Miller and Bukowski never dared to go." -David Evanier
"Erotomania is brutal, hilarious and horrific. It's as if all those fantastically filthy
Frenchmen (Bataille, Genet, et al) came to 21st Century America, ripped its panties with a
switchblade, and made it beg for more." -Maggie Estep
"Brilliantly and hilariously expressed here at last is the story of our gargantuan
amounts of consummation (sexual) unnoticed and hidden and camouflaged in the
supposedly humdrum acts of daily living." -Barney Rosset
Francis Levy's short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New
York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star,
The Quarterly, Penthouse, Architectural Digest, TV Guide,
The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and other magazines. One of his Voice humor
pieces was anthologized in The Big Book of New American Humor (HarperCollins).
He is presently the co-director of the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study
of Imagination
(philoctetes.org)
where he supervises roundtable discussions on topics as varied as “The Psychology of
the Modern Nation State” and “Traffic Congestion, Behavior Theory and Imagination”.
If you are affiliated with a media review outlet and would like to receive an advance reading
copy of Erotomania: A Romance, contact Brian Obenauf at
brian [at] twodollarradio.com. We can now provide either a galley or digital copy of the book.
Francis Levy's short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New
York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star,
The Quarterly, Penthouse, Architectural Digest, TV Guide,
The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and other magazines. One of his Voice humor
pieces was anthologized in The Big Book of New American Humor (HarperCollins).