Writer of Erotica Allows a Peek at Herself

New York Times ^ | 8.22.2004 | Ginia Bellafante

[NYC GOP Chick]

August 22, 2004

A Writer of Erotica Allows a Peek at Herself

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

N the opening moments of the short story "When Opposites Attract," a pretty young secretary named Shelly announces the day's agenda to her boss, Maylia, a Yale graduate and $250,000-a-year black executive who apparently has not had a second to zip out of her Donna Karan suit since Alan Greenspan's induction into the Federal Reserve. Bored by the prospect of the day's obligations and seized by envy of Shelly's relatively unburdened life, Maylia decides to forgo all her meetings and conference calls and vacate her office for the expansive patch of greenery just outside her window, Central Park. Just as she gets there — actually, just as she takes her first lick of an ice cream cone — Maylia meets Julian, a 6-foot-5 stranger, with whom the rituals of courtship proceed, shall we say, expeditiously.

This story of carnal exploration is part of a collection by Zane, a 37-year-old pseudonymously named author and suburban mother of three who has succeeded in giving voice to a new type of genre fiction: post-feminist African-American erotica. Zane has had eight books published in four years, with more than 2.5 million copies making their way into the hands of readers, most of them women. This month three of her titles appear on Essence magazine's best-seller list; in April, she had the No. 1 and 2 spots, above Toni Morrison and Eric Jerome Dickey. At one point last October, 7 of 15 titles on Waldenbooks' African-American best-seller list were by Zane. Under contract with Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster, she is to write five more books in coming years, with the next, "Afterburn," arriving in November. Arguably not since the emergence of Nancy Friday has American letters produced a purveyor of erotica with such mass-market appeal.

Celebrated though she is, Zane will not disclose her real name, which places her in a tradition of erotic writers that predates the women's movement. Until her first book tour this summer, Zane, who lives with her husband and children outside Washington, had refused to make public appearances, in part to preserve her domestic life. In an age of Internet stalking, sitting for pictures, she believes, exposes her to fewer dangers than revealing her identity would. Her oldest child, a 17-year-old son, knows what she does for a living, and had managed not to share her identity with his friends until, Zane said last week, "he saw a really cute girl at school reading one of my books, and he just couldn't help himself and said, `Hey — that's my mom!' " Soon, young women started ringing her doorbell late at night for autographs, and Zane decided it was time to move.

Certainly few mothers, including Zane, would want their teenage children reading her books, with their graphic descriptions of sexual encounters that rarely involve scenarios so simple as a man, a woman and a freshly ironed pair of Wamsutta sheets. But as in most erotica, clinical detail is not the sole subject. It is in some sense Zane's aversion to presenting an unmitigated fantasy of sex-without-consequence that seems to appeal to many readers. In one novel, "Addicted," a pretty young wife who feels compelled to have repeated affairs ultimately seeks counseling to save her marriage.

"Most of Zane's books deal with women who see the signs that something is wrong with the person they are with or the relationships that they are in, but they choose to overlook these problems because of the sex," said Joy Williams, a 42-year-old library circulation assistant in Baltimore and a Zane devotee. "The books aren't like romance novels with `happily ever after' endings."

Indeed, though written no more artfully than romance fiction, they are more sociologically complex. Zane's work belongs to a category of what Jane Juffer, an assistant professor of English and women's studies at Pennsylvania State and the author of a study titled "At Home With Pornography: Women, Sex and Everyday Life," calls "identity erotica" — sexually charged literature that has a kind of immediate political validation because its treatment of private life in specific subcultures has an air of taboo-breaking.

Zane's novels and short stories about women's sexual gamesmanship are sometimes set in a context of grim social realities. In one recent title, "Nervous," a young woman with an aggressively lusty alter ego dredges up memories of her father's abuse of her and confronts him in her therapist's office.

An element of fantasy fulfillment comes in part from the author's inversion of the demographic realities in the world she is depicting. Rarely is there a shortage of suitable African-American men for the aspirational women in her stories, and when women travel down the economic ladder to couple, they are not forced to do so, but choose to. Maylia winds up having no use for the lower-class Julian after her tryst with him in his apartment in a public housing project. Zane's latest novel, "Skyscraper," has a woman seducing a mailroom clerk, mainly because she is bored with her husband, the first black chief executive of a major automotive company.

The chronicler of such escapades turns out, as one might expect, to be a soft-spoken woman with the looks of a regional bank manager. Zane, the daughter of a retired schoolteacher and a retired religion professor who taught at Yale, Oxford and Duke, began experimenting with creative writing seven years ago while working as a sales representative. She was a single mother with little to do after her children went to bed, and to quell her boredom she started writing erotic short stories, though she never read any by other writers until she had written 40 herself.

In November 1997, she sent a story to three friends, who sent it it by e-mail to 40 others. The feedback was positive, so she put three stories on a Web site she made for herself and quickly received 8,000 visitors. Three years later she published, on her own, a collection of stories with the title "The Sex Chronicles" and sold 108,000 copies at $22 apiece.

Her initial anonymity helped arouse curiosity about her. "In the beginning, no one even had any idea if she was a man or a woman," said Patrik Henry Bass, the books editor at Essence, adding that self-imposed obscurity was an untrafficked path to success in African-American publishing. "There are very few African-American writers who are recluses," Mr. Bass said. "African-American readers love Terry McMillan in part because they know and love her personal story. They love Alice Walker because they admire her commitment to social change."

"I haven't seen someone receive the support Zane has without the backdrop of a personal history," he said.

Zane's emergence into the spotlight, even if limited, has been motivated partly by the responsibilities of her adjunct career as a publisher. Five years ago she started Strebor Books International, which lists 34 authors, among them the best-selling author Darrien Lee, and publishes about 25 titles a year. She has also stepped into the public frame, she said, to keep others from impersonating her.

"Once, I was online and noticed someone saying she was on her way to a reading of mine in Atlanta," she recalled. "I wasn't in Atlanta. I was in my house."

[willyboyishere]

Sorry, but there wuddn't anywhere NEAR 72 Helen Thomases depicted in the "72 Virgins" contact sheet. I feel cheated.

[ermmt]

Ya... ram it ram it up your poop shut! Corn hole!... etc.... nice to have influences! lol

[rebel_yell2]

That was MEEEEEEEEAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!

[Hermann the Cherusker]

This trash is nothing more than pornography for women.

[ValerieUSA]

If Zane's books distract the liberal women from reading books by the Clintons (which may be immoral, but not erotic) then saturate the market with them.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Well, I'm not sure that you'd classify her work as being in the same league as that of Nin, Nabokov, Miller, Lawrence or any other writer who's dabbled in erotic fiction.

If you want to get a feel for her style, just imagine a slightly more sophisticated version of Penthouse Forum.

Then, interpolate a dense, urban and largely African-American setting into the preexisting dialogue, which revolves almost exclusively around having wild, freaky, sexual experiences.

If you're interested in Arts & Letters and not simply getting a cheap thrill, then there are much more compelling novels and anthologies out there.

Personally, I was disappointed by Catherine Millet's memoir, The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

My main problem with her book was that it had an almost antiseptic quality to it, which leached it of any intrinsic eroticism or sensuality. Of course, Millet herself admitted that this dryness was essential to her story, which focused almost exclusively on the meaninglessness of (most of) her sexual encounters prior to meeting her current lover/boyfriend.

Still, I don't think that argument exculpates her from the charge that she was trying to titillate readers by regaling them with her sexual escapades, which were rendered in the most asexual and unappealing manner.

An hilarious book, if you folks are interested in reading something that focuses on the more humorous aspects of male-female congress, is MY SECRET LIFE: An Erotic Diary of Victorian London.

This is one of those books that, whether intentionally or not, will make you break out into hysterics, simply because some of the scenarios described in its pages are so ridiculous. Even the subheadings below each numbered chapter, which are much too explicit to reprint here, are too funny for words.

As for "ZANE", I'll say this much for her. She's had a very profitable career by tapping into a market that had heretofore been ignored by mainstream publishing houses.

THE SEX CHRONICLES: Shattering The Myth

-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)

[megatherium]

Ya... ram it ram it up your poop shut! Corn hole!... etc.... nice to have influences! lol

Zappa was convicted and briefly jailed for producing an obscene audio tape recording (of him and his girlfriend making love), circa 1963. It was meant as a harmless joke. This might help explain Zappa's need to push the boundaries of bad taste, and the anger, in much of his lyrics. However, Zappa did a lot of brilliant instrumental work.

[Soaring Feather]

Like who really cares about these sexual conquests anyway fiction or real??

Every woman has her own story. :-)

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Yes, she does.

[Neets]

Which of her books have you read?

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Oh geez, I suppose that it's time to publicly embarrass myself and admit to reading trashy erotica.

Well, I guess that I might as well go ahead and expose myself to ridicule, this not being the first time.

So, in answer to your question:

1. The Sisters of APF

2. The Sex Chronicles, Part I

3. The Sex Chronicles, Part II

Though, the last one I haven't actually read, so much as skimmed through at my leisure.

[Neets]

Ok, I like your commentary above.

Now you have me interested in reading her books.

i'll have to get busy and find em.

[Slings and Arrows]

Some of them are hidden because they're on their knees.

[Happygal]

Thanks for the critique.

And to think, for all these years I was reading the 'handy hints' section of Readers Digest for thrills! ;-)

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Ooh, kinky.

[Happygal]

Ha! ~puts down spatula~

[The Scourge of Yazid]

A spatula?!

Very sexy.

What are you doing over there, in Ireland?

Maybe I'm reading too much into your seemingly innocuous comments.

After all, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[Darksheare]

*pssssst!*
Use the 550 paracord....
..chafes the wrists but who's complaining?
once made immobile, the bodywax can begin.

[Happygal]

[Darksheare]

LOL!!
I know.. I'm eee-ville.