Description
Sex, A Love Story by Jerome Gold
ISBN: 978-1-936364-36-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-936364-37-4
Price: $16.99
Fiction
349 pages
“Sex, A Love Story” is a coming-of-age novel about a boy and a girl, seniors in high school, who use sex as a way of encountering the world after high school and establishing their individual identities. The novel takes place at the end of the Eisenhower administration and the beginning of the Kennedy era. It is set in Orange County, California. Bob and Jen are the children of parents who entered the middle class after World War II. Life for these kids has not reached the level of affluence the professional class knows. Life, especially for middle-class (white) kids is often boring. Anticipating life after high school, kids are concerned with finding work or going to college or into the military. Much of the sex is erotic, although other parts read more clinically (as in: Oh, I see. If I do this, he’ll do that. Or, if I do that, she’ll do this.) If, for Bob and Jen, sex is at first a way of exploring the adult world, it soon becomes a way to defy the world. But the world intrudes. Bob worries about money, the recession, finding and holding a job. The book emphasizes the kinds of unskilled-labor jobs Bob finds, the people he meets, and his anxiety when he is out of work. While sex with Jen and his growing love for her are immeasurably important to Bob, so is his desire to write and travel, “to learn how the world works.” Jen and that imagined life are rivals. Bob knows this, but wants both. Jen doesn’t see herself as a rival to Bob’s future, but as a part of it. Even more than Bob does, she sees herself as a sexual being. Both characters grow increasingly complex as they gain experience of the world. While their relationship ends, or appears to end, each of them moving toward a different way of living in the world, we can say, ultimately, not that love conquers all, but that it endures, whether or not we will it, despite the world and despite ourselves. This is a pre-feminist novel in that while feminism has not yet become a movement in the years most of this story occurs, many of the issues that feminism is concerned with are depicted in rudimentary form in this book.
Reviews
“Bob and Jen are high school seniors and sweethearts at the end of the Eisenhower era, and their story is set in California, where the two meet in a creative writing class. While readers might think that this would make the novel suitable for young adults, it should be cautioned that the fair amount of erotic description makes it more appropriate reading for new adult and adult readers, who will appreciate both its depth and focus and the erotic encounters experienced by not just Bob and Jen, but characters surrounding them.
From the sunny culture of Southern California to descriptions of the girls Bob dates and the relationships he fields, the story assumes a realistic tone that draws readers in with not just sexual escapades, but the efforts of two lower middle class white kids to fit into a changing world.
Those who choose this story for its sexual promise alone will find it a tale that embraces all kinds of new adult concerns, from getting married in Mexico to trying to forge lives and careers in a rapidly changing USA.
From Bob’s adventure trying to steal a turkey when they can’t afford one for Thanksgiving to family affairs, the possibilities of having children, and warehouse work that enhances his strength but presents health challenges that are unexpected and largely unidentified, readers move through an era replete with challenges.
Jerome Gold’s choice of making his main characters somewhat under-educated (Bob has never heard of the Green Berets, even though he’s a new adult) and under-employed lends a tone of realistic assessment to their world and experiences. This is a satisfying difference between this story and new adult coming-of-age tales which take place under different socio-economic settings, revealing the special struggles of two young people as they try to find a way to afford the American dream.
Bob’s frustration with his life is nicely portrayed: “Sometimes when she wasn’t home when he returned, he wanted to scream loudly enough to destroy the world. He imagined himself yelling at her, throwing things against the wall—a lamp, dishes, an ashtray—and he would pace the living room, unable to keep himself from looking out the window each time he came to it, hoping to see her in the distance, walking back to their apartment from Tom’s.”
Social issues of the times, including the rise of anti-Semitism and prejudice, are nicely wound into the plot to give it a full-bodied flavor.
The result is a fine saga not just about a sexual relationship or love, as the title suggests, but about new adults who field sex, the future, a breakup, new beginnings, and full circles of return and connection. It’s a warm story that will engage any reader interested in how relationships grow, change, and eventually move from couple-oriented visions to embrace the possibilities of the world.”
— D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review (MBR Bookwatch), January 2021
“Sex, A Love Story is a moving and terrifying story of the intersection of sex and identity, all the more moving because those personalities are still being formed. When I tell students about the distinction between erotica and pornography, I say that erotica is rooted in character and pornography is not. What I most admire about this novel is the way this distinction is challenged, straddled actually, and what makes it break my heart is that Jen and Bob hurt each other so deeply before they know themselves at all.”
— Simone Zelitch, author of Judenstaat and Louisa
“Exploring sex and love with seductive abandon, Jerome Gold’s relentlessly compelling characters wander in and out of tough spots where Holden Caulfield would surely fear to tread. With raging hormones and not much guidance, they stumble through young adulthood in a beguiling tale that is as perceptive and original as Gold’s Sergeant Dickinson, one of the finest novels to come out of the Vietnam War.”
— Ivan Goldman, best-selling author of Exit Blue
“Change—an unforgiving phenomenon worshipped by some and absolutely abhorred by others. As the new decade continues to seethe with momentous events, the electric pulse of change seems to hang in the balance of our everyday reality. Similar to the start of the 2020s, the beginning of the 1960s teemed with revolution, as the newer generations fought to replace the outdated systems they had come to despise. At the precipice of this social upheaval was the youth—a viewpoint that author Jerome Gold explores in his newest novel, Sex, A Love Story. Bob and Jen are teenagers with the world at their feet; a world that’s seemingly starting to spin on a completely unheard-of axis….
As someone identical in age to the couple, too, maturing in an era ubiquitous with social upheaval and cultural unrest, there is indeed something so tempting about abandoning all reality for the thrill of instantaneous gratification. For many millennials and fellow Gen Z’ers, 2020 has been incredibly befuddling to navigate, what without perceptions on life, understanding of society, and faith in supposedly trusted authority figures changing from day to day. Despite the chaos that coiled around the early 60s,wide-eyed wanderers like Bob and Jen eventually matured into admirable individuals with passion and purpose who immeasurably impacted the world around them and, rest assured, I’ll bet we all will too.”
— Caitlin Boos, “Exploring Jerome Gold’s Sex, A Love Story,” She’s SINGLE Magazine Fall 2020
“On first view, the story seems like teenagers discovering adulthood by sex…
Sex and love aren’t the same thing. They may go hand in hand. Or better, sex is the addition to love. But when it’s just sex, what do you do the other 22 hours a day? These 22 hours may lead partners in different directions that over time go farther and farther away like an open pair of scissors. And that’s the End?! Not really! The author succeeds well in growing and developing the characters and their changing identity.
Think post-war middle-class kids in Orange County. The parents’ trauma of the Depression and the war. The teenagers’ angst of making a life, finding a job. The book throws a nice historic glimpse on the time and worries of its young generation as well as the societal and political changes.
The author describes the sex in a rather clinical way, like in a biology book. It’s almost like Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. More your fantasy than the written words.
This book…is interesting due to its multiple layers of societal influences and growing characters. Read it!”
— Nicole Molders, High Latitude Style April 19, 2021
“Sex, A Love Story Delivers Intimate Tale of Fledgling Romance.
Sex is a powerful tool that can simultaneously establish one’s sense of self and anchor that sense of self to another individual. And in the hands of teenagers, the unintended result of the coupling is that sex can take on a life of its own.
In Sex, A Love Story, author Jerome Gold shares an erotic exploration of the complex role of sex in the lives of two high school seniors fumbling to reconcile the inner turmoil that accompanies adolescence with the onset of adult expectations.
I sat down to read Sex, A Love Story because the story line intrigued me. Not that I condone SEX between teens, but we have all been there, and I wanted to see how they handled it because I am a mom of a pre-teen boy who will one day have a girlfriend and face these feelings. But once I began the story I couldn’t put it down because I wanted to know what was going to happen. I loved how well the author handled all the situations the kids faced and how they handled themselves. This is a book I would recommend to other adults.”
— Glenda Cates, The Mommies Reviews
Additional Information
Click HERE to do a search for this book. You will find more information, reviews and additional purchase locations.
