Sex in the afternoon

Kay is simply tired of thinking or, alternately, trying not to think about this man. "Sex blotted out logic. And thank god. What a relief. How did people do without it? They grew ill, they went mad" Nancy Wigston

What do we write about when we write about sex? Porn aside, this common yet mysterious area of human activity has proven a minefield for many an author. Sex is just plain difficult to get right.

Undaunted, American novelist Susan Minot (Monkeys, Evening) tries something original in her new novella, Rapture. The arc of the narrative centres on a particular sexual activity in progress, and the thoughts of the two 30-something lovers in New York as this act takes place forms the substance of her book.

By any standard, it's an arresting beginning. Good writers rarely venture into this terrain, although Erica Jong did a hilarious take on a female version some years past. Minot does not exclude comedy.

The beneficiary of the act, Benjamin, is startled by his sensual windfall; after all, he and the giver, Kay, have had a rocky relationship ever since an intensely romantic beginning while they were filming Benjamin's indie film in Mexico. Smitten by Kay, Benjamin never quite managed to shed himself of his longtime fiancée, Vanessa, her handy trust fund and her beneficial connections. Still, his present candour engages our sympathies.

"He had no idea what had gotten her there ... He certainly wasn't going to ask her about it ... If he'd learned only a few things in their long association - and he considered over three years to be pretty long - one of them was that when Kay did tell him what was going on in her mind, the report was usually not very good."

That word "association" is a tip-off to Ben's state of mind and degree of commitment to a woman who once obsessed him. Over an old-times-sake lunch, she'd suddenly beamed at him. "'What are you smiling at?' he said, a little frightened. 'It's good to see you,' she said. She looked genuinely happy. He did not understand women."

This is funny stuff, the kind if thing you want to read out loud to your partner. It's early on in the story, yet it's as far as we get in understanding Ben, who utterly seems to lack depth, and judging by his situation, doesn't need any. Maybe he will become a lonely and sad old guy somewhere down the road, like "the 50-year-old geezers chatting up the permed women in tight skirts at the end of the bar at Mary Lou's at 3 a.m" he has seen in his travels. But right now, no.

Then what is Kay up to? How to explain her "rapture?" It's been a whole year. Of the two, Kay seems the more complicated, standing for herself in her complexity, whereas Ben, however unfairly, seems your average male. At least she has more thoughts on the subject at hand.

Part of her pleasure comes from her slave-like posture; she is attracted to Benjamin's waywardness; she thinks of an Oscar Wilde quote - how the advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray. (Ben, on the other hand, as he free associates later on, conjures a scene from an old Ed Wood movie.)

Among assorted post-coital feelings, Kay remembers: "satiated, drowsy, full; she might want to weep uncontrollably, she might want to laugh, she might feel at peace with the world ... or want to crawl off under the nearest rock and die." And as for her choice of partner this "sweet afternoon," she is simply tired of thinking or, alternately, trying not to think about this man. "Sex ... blotted out logic. And thank god. What a relief. How did people do without it? They grew ill, they went mad, that's what happened."

There's surprisingly little physical detail in Minot's narrative, yet that seems right enough, and may be where other, lesser writers go wrong. Occasionally she zeroes in on what's happening, body-wise, making the event seem more true. But far more common are the meditations that occur in the male and female brains, and that's true too.

Minot does exhibit a fondness for military metaphors. "He lay back like the ambushed dead" is her opening line. A few pages on, Kay "saw herself and him as two soldiers, survivors on a battlefield, too exhausted even to moan, united by the fact they'd both gone through the barrage and both were miraculously still breathing."

But is this the sex or the warfare of their relationship? Hard to tell. Minot takes an insightful, intelligent, humorous look at the tangled mess of modern love. Funny and original, she can even evoke sympathy for spent bodily fluids, their taste "numb ... forlorn, as if aware somehow of having been delivered to a warm wet place, but not the right one."

Minot's readers may find themselves feeling similarly displaced, longing to look elsewhere, overcome by a sudden urge to rent a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie.