With My Body
Pymble
:
Fourth Estate
,
2011
Z1813756
2011
single work
novel
'... With My Body addresses the questions of what is intimacy and whether it is ever truly possible to know another person. It is at once a manifesto of married mothers everywhere and a highly personal story of one woman's sexual awakening. A wife, comfortably married and with several children, is contemplating middle age along with all the constraints of motherhood. Finding herself numb and locked down in an unending cycle of school runs, laundry and meal times, she cannot at first see a way to live with honesty. Even her husband, whom she loves, has never reached the core of her. Despairing of ever finding a way through her family to her own identity, she returns to the memory of an old love affair - the consequences of which she has never resolved. This is beautiful, literary writing at its best - exquisitely raw, emotional and bold, and deeply resonant of the classic French erotic writings of Colette, Nin and Duras, but with a modern and provocative twist.' (Trove record)
Kate Holden explores her curiosity at the use of pseudonyms by women writers of erotic literature. She concludes 'Playfulness, coyness, mystique and titillation are part of the erotic. In the age of bold women and admirable authors, though, it seems a shame to be so shy. It may be that "Anonymous" has the allure of teasing seduction, but a tease can go on only so long before it starts to look like apprehension.'
