The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You (68 page)

See also:
Romantic, hopeless

Mr. Bridge
EVAN S. CONNELL

Mrs. Bridge
EVAN S. CONNELL

The History of Love
NICOLE KRAUSS

Moon Tiger
PENELOPE LIVELY

Love in the Time of
Cholera
GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
DEBORAH MOGGACH

The Sea, the Sea
IRIS MURDOCH

State of Wonder
ANN PATCHETT

Jane and Prudence
BARBARA PYM

Frankenstein
MARY SHELLEY

See:
Libido, loss of

See:
Libido, loss of
•
Orgasms, not enough
•
Seduction skills, lack of
•
Sex, too little
•
Sex, too much

See
:
Lust

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

DAVID MITCHELL

I
f you’re not seeing enough action in the bedroom, we urge you to compare your suffering with those of the monks and nuns in David Mitchell’s multistranded
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
. Set on an island off Japan on the cusp of the nineteenth century, it tells of two
single-sex communities so sexually deprived that they invent strange and disturbing rituals to alleviate their distress. You’ll be so relieved you’re not living
that
life that you’ll embrace your own with more equanimity. If you’re single, brush up on your seduction skills (see: Seduction skills, lack of) and hotfoot it to your local library to see what—and who—else you can pick up.

See also:
Libido, loss of
•
Married, being
•
Orgasms, not enough

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil

FAY WELDON

•   •   •

Women

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Y
es, it is possible to be oversexed.

Men who feel they are unduly fixated should pour a bucket of cold water over themselves in the form of Fay Weldon’s
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil
. When Ruth’s good-looking husband, Bobbo, leaves her for petite, dainty Mary Fisher—a cliché of femininity straight out of the bestselling romances Fisher herself pens—Ruth decides to embrace her inner devil (see: Vengeance, seeking). She sleeps around until sex means nothing to her, then uses it to get what she wants: ripping Bobbo’s and Mary’s lives apart with devastating aplomb. If you’re married and tempted to stray, this novel will make you gulp and think twice. Married or not, you’ll find Ruth’s conclusion that pretty women use sex to control their menfolk sobering stuff. A good, long celibate stint will start to look as enticing as a wink after this.

Women in need of a turnoff will find it in the pages of Charles Bukowski’s voracious
Women
. The narrator, Henry Chinaski—based more or less on the author himself—is a randy fifty-year-old whose craving for sex never lets up. A pint of whiskey, a vomit before breakfast, and he’s latched on to the next pair of tight blue jeans, kissing and fighting—then wondering if his stomach is too upset for oral sex. There’s soul here, and a crude and vulgar beauty that’ll fascinate some, particularly if you have an ear for rhythmic prose. But you’ll definitely leave your sexy underwear safely in its drawer.

See also:
Exhaustion
•
Pain, being in

The Help

KATHRYN STOCKETT

S
hame is one of the earliest emotions to erupt in innocent, carefree hearts. The shamed feel an instinctive need to run away and hide—deep in the laundry basket, or to another country—where no one can find them. Take our cure into the laundry basket with you, and by the time you emerge, you’ll see the wisdom and necessity of facing the music.

Set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the sixties, just as the civil rights movement is getting under way,
The Help
describes the very public shaming of generations of wealthy white families who used and abused cheap black labor in the form of maids, or “the help.” The catalyst and facilitator of the shaming is a young white woman, a daughter of one such wealthy family.

Eugenia—Skeeter, as she is known—has high ambitions of becoming a writer, but is unsure of her material. “Write about what disturbs you, particularly if it bothers no one else,” advises the New York editor who mentors her through her first journalistic attempts. It is a brilliant piece of advice. For just beginning to emerge within twenty-three-year-old Skeeter’s chest is a vague sense of unease about Constantine, the black maid who raised her, and then disappeared abruptly from her family’s home. She realizes that the story of Constantine and countless others—told for the first time, in their own words—would make for fascinating reading. Of course, she is met with terror and suspicion. Because who will hire these maids once they’ve betrayed their former, or current, employers?

In the end she gets more than she’s bargained for. Aibileen, who has raised seventeen white children but lost her own son in an accident at work, and the outspoken Minny are brave enough to get the ball rolling. And so, jeopardizing the fragile balance of a society built on injustice and racism, Skeeter opens up a Pandora’s box.

Revenge is not always the best medicine (see: Vengeance, seeking), but when the guilty fail to own up to their deeds, there’s nothing wrong with a little tit for tat. The punishment meted out on Hilly Holbrook—instigator of an initiative to enforce separate bathrooms for blacks and whites—is impeccable in its justice. And when Minny joins in by giving her appalling employer her just deserts, Hilly gets something far worse than humble pie. Boosted by the bravery of these characters—and by the humiliation of those
exposed—you’ll be provoked to face up to your shame on your own. And as with feelings of guilt, you won’t be able to move on until you do.

See also:
Guilt
•
Shame, reading associated

The Idea of Perfection

KATE GRENVILLE