Merrill Markoe's Guide to Love

A zany look at the world of romance and love shares the author's observations on sex seminars, dating, the secrets of seduction, and marriage

Partly a spoof on guides to romantic relationships, Markoe's look at love and sex in the 1990s is often tiresome, sometimes wickedly funny and occasionally hilarious. Roughly one-third of the 21 selections appeared in New Woman. Writing with a keen sense of the ridiculous honed by her own checkered love life, Markoe, a columnist for Buzz and New Woman, offers witty takes on marriage, flirtation and screwed-up relationships. She exposes the inanity of much self-help advice as she reports on seminars and weekend retreats she's attended in the Los Angeles area on the art of seduction, the fine points of oral sex, finding one's soul mate and how to appeal to the opposite sex. She distills tongue-in-cheek lessons from Hollywood romantic movies and brings sharp feminist humor to her discussion of dating rituals and men's fixation with scoring and with body parts. But much of her counsel reads like a stand-up comic's scattershot monologue.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Markoe (How to Be Hap-Hap-Happy Like Me, 1994), a columnist and Emmy Awardwinning former writer for David Letterman, is like a sassy friend who's fun to spend time with--although maybe not too much time all at once. Being guided through the vicissitudes of love by a self-described ``hyper-ironic smartass'' is bound to be enlightening, and Markoe doesn't disappoint. From hysterical send- ups of the ``Hallmark poets'' to the finer points of canine attachment, Markoe's vision of love is unique and hilarious. The largest part of her search for understanding is taken up with doing the circuit of love-related seminars in her home state of California (where love and self-help are not so easily distinguished). In ``Secretz of Seduction,'' Markoe finds herself waist-deep in vibrating, squirting, anatomically correct love tools. In romance guru Dr. Pat Allen's seminar ``Getting to I Do,'' she must raise her right hand to affirm: ``I promise on my honor I will keep my mouth shut when I am trolling as a sexual person and wait until I am spoken to and then respond enthusiastically no matter how stupid the remark, so help me, God''--which is patently impossible for Markoe, who cannot let a stupid remark go unremarked. (Markoe ends up spending much of her seminar training time at hotel bars with friends, who accompany her on her quest.) Sometimes she goes it alone, as when she visits a love channeler, who puts his hand down her shirt and makes her a horsehair charm that she must wear in her ``Triangle of Venus'' to attract men. Markoe is more impressed with the fact that she is still alive after this adventure than she is with the charm's efficacy. A fun romp through the sillier side of love, best savored in small does. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

With four EmmysR to her credit?not to mention a history of bad relationships?humorist Markoe claims to have the answers for anyone curious about love.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Markoe, Emmy Award winner, author of How to Be Hap-Hap-Happy Like Me (1994), and columnist for New Woman, is a resident of the capital of absurdity, Los Angeles, and a veteran of too darn many messy relationships. Why, she wonders, is love so impossible? How do the lucky few manage to find true happiness? Markoe bravely ventures out into the creepy world of self-help seminars to see what sort of advice the love gurus are peddling and finds herself in some positively surreal situations. "How to Turn a Man into Putty in Your Hands" turns out to be a hands-on class in manual and oral sex. The Love Channeler presents her with a "stallion clip" to wear in her, well, just imagine. Discouraged and dismayed (though highly amused), Markoe decides that love is simply chemistry gone awry, like an allergic reaction. Her advice? Avoid irritants, try not to bore your friends with your troubles, and laugh whenever possible. Donna Seaman