Neurotica - Softcover

Margolis, Sue

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553581066 ISBN 13: 9780553581065

Publisher: Bantam, 2000

Synopsis

If he always has the headache, why should you suffer?

In the bestselling tradition of Bridget Jones's Diary comes an outrageous, wickedly funny look at love, marriage, and sex....

Tabloid reporter Anna Shapiro can pinpoint the day, three years ago, that she and her husband, Dan, last had great sex. Anna would be grateful if something as ordinary as a mere headache was her husband's excuse; Dan's hypochondriac terrors include brain tumors, tropical diseases, and spontaneous combustion.

But now an assignment for a racy tabloid exposé inspires Anna to go where no journalist has gone before, to answer some questions that suddenly seem very important: What is the perfect outfit for committing adultery in? Is it beyond the pale to pick up a man--no matter how sexy--at a funeral? Yet the most crucial question is one Anna never expected: Is she willing to give up her marriage and children for the biggest gamble of her life?

About this title

Review:

Tabloid journalist Anna Shapiro has a problem. As she explains to her editor, Alison:

"I've been married to Dan for twelve years. He's been like this for yonks. Every week it's something different. First it was weakness in his legs and he diagnoses multiple sclerosis, then he feels dizzy and it's a brain tumor. Last week he decided he had some disease which, it turns out, you only get from fondling sheep. Alison, I can't tell you the extent to which no Jewish man fondles sheep."

Still, Dan's hypochondria might not be such an insurmountable obstacle if it weren't for the fact that he's afraid to have sex "in case the strain of it gives him a heart attack." Naturally, this state of enforced celibacy makes Anna the perfect person to take on a feature story about women and infidelity, to "go out and interview three slappers who make a habit of being unfaithful just for the sex." It isn't long, of course, before Anna decides that she would make a perfect subject for the story herself.

Neurotica, by British writer Sue Margolis, is one of many novels being compared to Bridget Jones's Diary. But whereas Bridget is frequently naughty, Anna tends toward the downright raunchy ("All through the lunch she had been aware that she was having a bad pubic hair day. The sideburns on her inner thighs were reaching a density that would have done a woolly mammoth proud"). Graphic sex scenes abound, usually followed by a punch line; eventually, however, Anna reaches a crisis point in which she must choose between her marriage or a new shot at love. Readers won't be unduly surprised by the choice she makes, for, despite all the bawdy talk, Neurotica is, at heart, a pretty conventional tale wrapped up in a risqué package. Though Margolis doesn't impart anything new on the subjects of love, sex, or marriage--or plastic surgery--her novel offers an amusing way to spend a few hours. --Margaret Prior

From the Back Cover:

"Wickedly funny."
--People

"Screamingly funny sex comedy...the perfect novel to take on holiday."
--USA Today

"Taking up where Bridget Jones's Diary took off, this saucy, sexy British adventure redefines the lusty woman's search for erotic satisfaction....Witty and sure...A taut and rambunctious tale exploring the perils and raptures of the pursuit of passion."
--Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0553581066
• ISBN 13: 9780553581065
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 336