House of Holes: A Book of Raunch

House of Holes: A Book of Raunch

Rating

7.0

The Pequod Review:

Nicholson Baker probably enjoyed himself immensely as he was writing his ninth work of fiction, House of Holes. Set at a sort of surreal sexual pleasure resort, the book is a wild and raunchy tour of various erotic perversions. The story’s characters include a severed arm that is able to pleasure others, a woman who steals clitorises, and a mythical Cock Ness Monster, among many others. Baker isn’t successful in his attempt to connect sex to deeper themes of intimacy, and some of his prose strikes a one-note form of raunchiness (“Back up towards me, I need to feel those balls when I come, I need a heaping handful of hot hairy balls!”). But I guess it has a certain campy fun that some will enjoy.