Review of "Picture Perfect: The Best of Donna George Storey"

Picture Perfect: The Best of Donna George Storey

I like the erotic fiction of Donna George Storey like I like wine and chocolate for dessert, an indulgence all too rare, yet never to be forgotten; I like it like I like making love to the symphonies of Rachmaninoff, like I like massaging a pair of beautiful feet and the feel of their owner’s response; like I like the quickening wonder of discovery, the texture and taste of homemade vanilla ice cream, and the films of Michael Powell, the beauty of the night sky beyond artificial illumination, the orgasmic thrill of insight, and the way a lover sighs when I kiss the back of her neck.

And I like these six superbly-crafted short stories, all impressively understated, yet powerfully, ineluctably sexy. Storey clearly understands that the quickest way to an intelligent reader’s turn-on is through his or her brain. This approach may strike some as oddly low-key, perhaps a tad too cerebral and slow-paced for the average smut-slut, the heat-factor a bit on the lukewarm side for the more voraciously undiscriminating members of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am crowd. Yet, this author clearly knows her audience, richly rewarding those willing to stay with her. Seldom falling back too heavily on paraphilic gimmickry or kink for the sake of mere shock value, never descending into gratuitous raunch or vulgarity, the aphrodisiacal potency of the writing is nonetheless undeniable. If this is “vanilla” it is the sweetest, most potent vanilla one could ever hope to taste, as in this passage from Blinded, the story that opens the collection:

I was wrong. I’d never realized how beautiful his body was. Not that I hadn’t appreciated it before, but I’d always focused my gaze on his eyes, his expressions. The rest of him I knew better by touch. But now, with his eyes hidden, I could see him with a new clarity: the rich, taut curves of his arms and chest, the hint of soft flesh at his waist that I found oddly pleasing. I noticed that the hair on his belly fanned out more luxuriantly on the left, and by contrast, his right thigh was slightly more muscular, a legacy of his college fencing days. It didn’t take long for him to get hard—it never did when we used the blindfold—and I got to watch that, the delicate jerking movements of his penis as it rose and thickened, drawn upward by invisible strings, which, I imagined, led straight to my hands.

This is marvelous writing by the standards of any genre, and there is a good deal more to be enjoyed here, from the pruriently playful title story to Spring Pictures, a return to the world of Amorous Woman, Storey’s remarkable novel of life in Japan, with all its deeply inscrutable erotic mystery and breathtaking wonder, to the odd sensual magic of Being Bobby, a diverting tale of imagination and physical empathy, to the outstanding To Dance at the Fair, a multi-part short story with the complexity and impact of a full-length novel, remarkable for its wealth of erudition, insight, and depth of feeling.

Unhesitatingly recommended!