The deceased author Norman Mailer was awarded the Bad Sex in Fiction Award for the most awkward description of an intimate encounter. This dubious accomplishment was for his blue prose in THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST. Passage of this failed eroticia was read to the attending crowd by emotive actresses.
“His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety.”
Good, huh?
But better than most of the tales of sex you hear the morning-after a night in Pattaya.
“I three-holed her in the toilet of the go-go.”
The Viagra had me heart pumping like an oil rig to keep me a Man of Steel.”
“She said I was the only one who made her finish. I think I’m in love.”
Bragging to your mates about nocturnal conquests might not be literature, but it can make for some embarassing moments as your descriptions get back to your partner of the previous encounter or you misdirect an email as I had to a longtime family friend.
“Don’t even think about showing up to the Christmas dinner.”
Whatever I wrote must have been bad, yet I received no nomination for the Bad Sex Award.
An acquaintance David Huggins won this honor for his sexual sound descriptions in his novel THE BIG KISS and not just squeak squeak goes the bed.
He’s my hero, although my family friend might not think so.
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Jeanette Winterston and Harry Potter actor David Thewlis were also among those in the running for crude and tasteless literary depictions of sex.
Four hundred guests toasted Mailer’s memory at a ceremony in London.
The occasion was also used to pay homage to the renowned American literary figure and the rich variety of his work.
“We were sure he would have taken the prize in good humour,” said the judges.
His mouth lathered with her sap, he turned around and embraced her face with all the passion of his own lips and face, ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety.
Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest
Now in its 14th year, the prize is awarded by Literary Review magazine in an attempt to discourage authors from writing such accounts.
It is given to the passage considered to be the most redundant in an otherwise excellent novel.
David Thewlis was nominated for his first novel, The Late Hector Kipling, and Winterson for The Stone Gods.
Highlighted passages from each of the novels were read out by actresses at the event.
Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest