MÉMOIRE SEXUEL

Three steamy years in the life of an insatiable, pleasure-seeking Parisian Lolita.

Racking up at least four random sexual encounters on an average day, Tasso aims to achieve her “personal marathon” of 10,000 sexual conquests, scrupulously scribbled in diary entries that make up this “international bestseller”—all with her dear grandmother’s blessing. Ravaging men like a lioness and then hastily retreating, the author sleeps her way through tour guides, obese “pachyderm”-like men, cops and scores of others. Her best friend, Sonia, offers comic relief during Tasso’s downtime, but soon, the promiscuous author is sexing her way across Europe again, thanks to the travel perks afforded by her cushy advertising job. The dark, dangerous hills of Lima, Peru, France, Barcelona—all provide a fertile environment for the ravenous Tasso to carry on the countless, spontaneous erotic encounters that she never seems to regret. Her only “golden rule” is to remain detached from these anonymous trysts, to be enjoyed on a one-time-only basis: “A repeat session with a stranger doesn’t interest me. I prefer to pick up someone else in the street.” Ultimately, real life intervenes, stagnating much of the second half of Tasso’s formerly vigorous adventures. She gets laid off (from work, that is), her beloved grandmother dies and she has an abortion, all of which serve as sobering reality checks. Working as a freelance translator barely keeps the author afloat, though an attempt to score more permanent employment leads only to an extended melodramatic affair with Jaime, the cash-strapped compulsive liar who’d first interviewed her. Turning 30, desperate times force her to become a prostitute at a brothel, a job that provides easy money, though the demeaning, aggressive customers and a malicious “boss” eventually take their toll. And then love rescues the happy hooker. Amazingly, the worst physical malady Tasso contracts is gastroenteritis. Though written in deceptively dulcet tones, Tasso is a drama queen, and her initially titillating thrills are deflated by her many halfhearted theatrics.

Limp, literary porn for the soft-core set.