Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract, Vol. 3

Patrick Henry Bass

Brown Sugar is an audaciously refreshing collection of African-American erotica.
— Essence

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"In Brown Sugar we're here to represent, to show the real souls of black folk, our own particular ardor and passion." So writes Taylor, a longtime publishing professional and coauthor of Sacred Fire: The QBR 100 Essential Black Books, in her introduction to this stylish anthology of original black erotica. Nineteen authors (including Taylor) contribute stories; none are literary superstars and many are relatively obscure, but a few will be familiar to readers of Af-Am lit, particularly novelist R.M. Johnson (The Harris Men) and poet Sapphire (American Dreams; Push). The stories span the spectrum of sexuality, from straight (the majority) to gay (Reginald Harris's "The Dream"; Pamela Sneed's poem, "Peeping Tom") to gender-bending (Marcia Blackman's "Hail Mary Full of Grace"; Leone Ross's "Drag," whose 18-year-old narrator announces, "Today I feel like a drag queen," and proceeds to pick up a man outside a porn shop and ask him to have sex with her "like I'm a boy"), with a smidgen of S&M tossed in. None of the entries are pornographic, though graphic depictions of sex abound. The best of the stories, like Diane Patrick's "Never Say Never," explore the emotional as well as sexual aspects of the erotic; in this lively tale that blends humor and high spirits with genuine warmth, Patrick blind-dates a shorter (white) man and in so doing learns more about her own humanity. Just so, readers may learn more about themselves as they explore the erotic imaginations at work in this book, not the first collection of black erotica (e.g., Reginald Martin's Dark Eros, 1997) but one that is particularly intelligent, varied--and sexy. (Jan.) Forecast: This title can be niche-marketed to success, but the infusion of graphic gay material into a book that appeals primarily to heterosexual sensibilities may prove a problem. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The third volume in Taylor's successful series of African-American erotica gathers 18 tales highlighting a lusty variety of sexual scenes and appetites, but focuses on titillating liaisons between socially mismatched partners. Third-time contributor Preston L. Allen offers the disturbing "Who I Chose to Love," about the vengeful seduction of a virtuous evangelist by a teenage hoodlum's damaged girlfriend. Husband-and-wife team Denene Miller and Nick Chiles choose a subway platform as the setting for a fetishy tryst between a professional woman and a beggar violinist in "Play It Again," while Michael Datcher pairs a staid librarian and a teenage jock with a bum heart in "Happiest Butterfly in the World." A public prosecutor and a gangster make an unlikely but passionate pair in Sharrif Simmon's edgy "Love and the Game," and the spirit of a comatose teenage boy discovers Eros with the help of a flesh-and-blood older woman in Leone Ross's haunting "The Contract." The sex is hot, and it's not just het: newlyweds grapple with the husband's bisexuality in Patricia Elam's "Scenes from a Marriage," while a gay artist and his new accountant indulge in fantasies in John Keene's "Sums." Refreshingly honest, unflinchingly explorative, wildly erotic and sometimes just dirty, this energetic anthology should find its way to plenty of bedside tables. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.