| When does pornography transcend smut and become something to be celebrated? And when exactly does our sexuality come to fruition?
These are just two of many issues raised in Canadian author Michael Turner's first novel to be published in the UK.
The novel's anonymous narrator plays back the rushes of a sex film career that begins by voyeuristic chance. Picture the scene: sitting in his mother's bedroom, our storyteller spies his new next-door neighbours making love al fresco. Like all good cameramen he shoots what he sees and captures what turns out to be the hottest sex flick in town.
This is the turning point in the novel. From here our storyteller begins to explore his sexual awakenings: a teenage cumming of age book, if you will.
He quickly becomes embroiled in the seamy underbelly (and the rest) of porn, despite a belief in the artistic and aesthetic side of sexuality. And with sex scenes that are genuinely sexy, The Pornographer's Poem manages to convey both the dirt and harmony of all things horny.
It also reads autobiographically, touching on Turner's upbringing. Dripping with pop-culture references from late 1970s Vancouver, it also draws on sexuality and film, two subjects very personal to the author.
Fittingly for a movie buff, Turner dips in and out of screenplay style, and back to normal prose which flows with ease, revealing him as a man who studies the rhythm and cadences of everyday speech. Put simply, The Pornographer's Poem blows you away.
Tom Morgan 13.11.00
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