Scary Old Sex

(Paperback)

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Description

A woman goes about certain rituals of sex with her second husband, sharing the bed with the ghosts of her sexual past. A beautiful young art student embarks on an affair with a much older, married, famous artist. A middle-aged woman struggles with the decline of her mother, once glamorous and still commanding; their fraught relationship causes unexpected feelings both shaming and brutal. A man finds that his father has died while in the midst of extra-marital sex and wonders what he should do with the body. And a boy sits in his Calculus class, fantasizing about a schoolmates breasts and worrying about his father lying in hospital, as outside his classroom window the Twin Towers begin to fall. In this stunning, taboo-breaking debut, Arlene Heyman, a practicing psychiatrist, gives us what really goes on in people's minds, relationships, and beds. Raw, tender, funny, truthful and often shocking, Scary Old Sex is a fierce exploration of the chaos and beauty of life.

Reviews

What an astonishing collection! I absolutely loved these stories, so stylish, earthy and funny and underneath them, thrumming away, a sense of our own mortality -- Deborah Moggach
Perceptive and unflinching She writes with such verve and kindness about her characters and their sex lives - their fears, phobias and muddles - that you can't help but smile -- Mavis Cheek
Raw, tender, funny, truthful and often shocking, Scary Old Sex is a fierce exploration of the chaos and beauty of life * Jewish Chronicle *
Scary Old Sex is a collection of short stories that strike to the bone of loving relationships and to their flesh as well ... Women emerging from their forties and men even older will find Heymans love-stories enthralling, and reassuring too, as regards long-term sexual zest ... The author, Arlene Heyman, is not only a gifted story-teller; she is also a doctor and psychoanalyst. And presumably it is thanks to Heymans profession and to its requisite objectivity that she writes with creative imagination, unexpected from a female author, about the mans position (as it were) in love ... Heyman is a witty and intellectually spry 70-year-old ... In spite of the books title and although many of its tales transpire in bed or near one, they are as much, if not more about the dynamic of long-term companionship -- Irma Kurtz * Jewish Chronicle *
This sensual and sometimes shocking collection understands and explores how peoples lives are complicated by sex ... The author is a practising psychiatrist and writes with such intimacy and precision that she frequently makes you feel like a trespasser in the bedroom -- Imogen Lycett-Green * Daily Mail *
A bold, hilarious and intelligent debut collection of stories featuring, the peaks and troughs in the (sex) lives of older characters, mostly in New York. Expect illness, decay and belly laughs but also to be moved. Heyman is upfront no body part or function shied from and her characters are richly internal -- Nuala O'Connor * Irish Times *

Author Bio

Arlene Heyman is the recipient of Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright, Rockefeller, and Robert Wood Johnson Fellowships. Her short stories have appeared in The New American Review and she won Epoch magazines novella contest. Shes been listed twice in the honour rolls of Best American Short Stories. Heyman is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst practicing in New York City, where she lives with her husband. She is currently at work on a novel.