THORN: Critic worries about encountering author of so-so sex memoir

Critic worries about encountering author of so-so sex memoir

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Friday, July 18, 2008

Crown Publishing Group

Annie and Douglas Brown succeeded in their plan to have sex for 101 consecutive nights . . . then he wrote a book about it.

Douglas Brown is used to working the late shift. After all, he's the guy who spent 101 straight nights having sex with his wife and wrote a book about it. He also has a day job as a Denver Post reporter.

I bring this up only to explain some key logistics. The Rocky offices are on the floor below the Post, which means we share an elevator. Lately, I've been imagining the worst possible encounter: The doors slide open to reveal someone who looks like Brown's photo on the book jacket - if a bit more emaciated from all that nightly exertion. And here's our conversation:

"Uh. Hi."

"Oh! You're that horrible woman who eviscerated my book."

"Uh. Well. Eviscerate is probably too strong a word. I said some nice things. For example, I really liked the jacket art."

"But you called my wife annoying."

"I said that about your wife? Er, could you press the button for the lobby? Now?"

In short, I'm nearly as worried about writing this review as I would be if my husband suggested 101 straight nights of sex.

Given Brown's provocative topic, it's no surprise that Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned on Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!) quickly became a hot commodity: It was snapped up by Crown faster than you can say kiss and tell, then optioned for a film.

Then, in a twist even more surprising than some of the pictures in the Kama Sutra, it turns out it isn't the only book of its kind. A memoir from a couple that planned sex every night for a year (365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy, by Charla Muller with Betsy Thorpe) was released the same day as Brown's. What are the chances of that happening? About the same as Britney Spears buying underwear the exact week Paris Hilton takes her vows as a nun.

But my task today is not to reason why. It's to reason why not. So enough foreplay. Let's get down to business. For a look at 365 Nights, go online to a recent column by the Rocky's Mary Winter. Meanwhile, I'll focus on Brown.

Brown's "sexathon" started on his 40th birthday. The reporter who covers sex topics for the Post had just returned from a conference where he'd learned about Danish men who form clubs to commiserate when they've been deprived of sex for 100 days or more.

"I've got an idea," Brown's wife, Annie, tells him. "Why don't we start our own club, only we'll reverse it? Instead of not having sex for one hundred days, let's have sex for one hundred consecutive days." (Did I say annoying? This woman is downright insane.)

Brown hems. He haws.

Aw, just kidding: He jumps at the chance. "What a most excellent day!" he thinks. And soon, the cavorting commences.

Brown buys a silk robe that looks like it belongs on Thurston Howell III. Annie acquires panties with "100 Days" spelled out in rhinestones across the backside.

He buys Chinese herbal aphrodisiacs; she buys a few tasteful sex toys. He books a night at the Brown Palace; she books a weekend at an ashram in the mountains. He pops a Viagra; she schedules a Brazilian wax.

If I'm starting to sound a bit numb to the joys of this sex, I'm only trying to give you the book's flavor. There are flashbacks to their 14 years together, a few times when their kids interrupt at awkward moments and one memorable stint when Brown gets the flu and they soldier on anyway, into the sex storm of their own making.

But for the most part, the dramas are little, the repetition big: They get busy. Every night. Even when they'd rather read a book instead of give birth to one.

I'll say this for the author: Brown clearly adores his wife. In his telling, Annie is as cute as the cutest little button. She wears cute nighties, looks cute reading her laptop at the coffee shop, is "sexycute," "as cute as the day we met."

The couple rarely fight. On a daily - "sometimes hourly" - basis, they e-mail each other "ILYSM" (I Love You So Much).

With so much mutual adoration going on, spending time with these two is like being stuck on a bad double date as the other couple necks in the back of the car.

As for the sex scenes, well, I've had more erotic moments watching The King of Queens. Brown tries to walk a careful line. As a result, his narrative isn't detailed enough to sizzle - or sanitized enough to avoid some mighty cringe- worthy moments. There's a lot of this:

"We lay facing each other, between the sheets. Annie stroked my arm.

" 'We nailed it,' she said."

Let's just say that by Day 35, I would have rather watched depilatory infomercials than spend another night with the Browns. Still, I have to admit that Brown arrives at some interesting conclusions when all the acrobatics between the sheets - not to mention atop the exercise ball (don't ask) - are through. The couple's bold experiment, he insists, changed their relationship in significant ways.

While sex sometimes became a chore, he writes, they were always glad they made the effort. The sexathon spurred them to spend more time together and plan fun getaways, improved their communication and made the act itself more enjoyable.

And let's not forget the most important discovery of all: the joys of lube. "Why hadn't anybody told us about its sublime majesties? We had entered middle age entirely lubeless!"

You probably won't be surprised to hear that, after digesting such a mixed bag of revelations, I haven't thought much about what sex did for the Browns' marriage. Instead, I've been worrying about this elevator thing.

Brown, I'm afraid, might have trouble appreciating the position I'm taking on this account of his many positions. But as a critic, it's my job to be honest, even with a guy who seems decent and loving.

No wonder I can't stop imagining our surprise meeting - and that awkward moment as the doors close and I stammer to disavow any knowledge of this piece.

Ah well. We women are used to finding ways around unwanted encounters with men. In this case, a simple prophylactic should do the trick:

Forget the elevator, I'm taking the stairs from now on.

thornp@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5419

• July 18, 2008

  4:57 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  audreylangston writes:

  Wow, I wonder if we read the same book? The book that I read was absolutely wonderful. I thought it was hysterically funny, touching and a truthful look into the intimate side of marriage. Your review was so hateful, it makes the reader wonder if you have: 1. a personal vendetta against Mr. Brown, or 2. some real hang-ups about sex and your own, dare I say, loveless, marriage?

• July 18, 2008

  8:39 p.m.

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  KellyP writes:

  I wholeheartedly agree with audreylangston. I enjoyed this book. It made me take a look at my own "married with two kids and two jobs and just too tired to make time" life and want to do something to reconnect with the man I made vows to 15 years ago. We "nail it" quite more often than we did before.

  I would be embarrassed to run into Mr. Brown too, if I had written such a harsh critique that seems to have little to do with the book and more to do with belittling the couple and expressing your extreme distaste with the subject matter.

• July 18, 2008

  9:35 p.m.

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  janeelizabeth writes:

  I loved Just Do It. It is the perfect summer read - and it has started a lot of great conversations on the beach. This book makes you laugh out loud, think about relationships and connection, and ask your friends, and strangers, things you might not otherwise ask. As for Doug and Annie - they seem delightful. They are people you want to hang out with. I think Patti should relax. I imagine if she runs into Doug, he will have something funny to say and not be in the least worried about what Patti thinks. I mean, HE is the one who wrote the book that's getting all the attention, right!

• July 19, 2008

  10:48 a.m.

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  sactohack writes:

  So you don't like the book. Fine. Your job as a critic is to give your unvarnished opinion. I happen to disagree. I think the book is rich in humor and makes many trenchant points about intimacy and marriage.

  But why the bit about the elevator? Why would potential readers of this book care at all that you work in the same building as the writer? I'm sure your colleagues at "the rocky" thought it was hilarious, though - "ooh, I'm afraid to run into the sex maniac, too." What's the point of the ad hominem attack? You consider Brown to be unbalanced, dangerous? Whatever the case, leading off your review with that was a cheap shot and undermined everything else you wrote.

• July 19, 2008

  1:06 p.m.

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  Coggeshall writes:

  In your review of Just Do It, you at least picked up on the Douglas Brown’s love of his wife.

  And you’re right: The jacket art is appealing and apropos.

  Do you really equate possible untoward consequences of your review on a par with a suggestion from your husband, proposing a similar exercise?

  It appears that you missed many points, most saliently the intelligence behind the Browns’ sex mission. How was that overlooked?

  The Browns brainstormed, working together, to outline the project. They consulted the family doctor. And just like the first US astronauts, the couple had complete physicals before they went to the moon.

  In railing against Brown’s perception of his wife as “cute,” you seem blind to Mrs. Brown’s adventurous nature and inventiveness in scheduling different milieus for their quotidian exercise—a B&B in WY, an ashram in CO, a night at the Brown Palace in Denver.

  That, in addition to her role in family life, her work, her sense of humor and resolve, limn her as cute as a battleship. The woman’s a force of nature.

  As for the synchronicity of the release of 365 Nights (A Memoir of Intimacy) on the same day as Brown’s book, that smacks more of publishing Machiavelli than a twist in a prescribed position in the Kama Sutra.

  The comparison of Brown’s tightrope walk between sizzle and sanitation to the erotic level of The King of Queens, in describing The Actual Physical Coupling between him and his wife, is off the mark. Brown is not the Marquis de Sade. He prefers the simmer of understatement to sear or full boil. He eschewed a descent to slurp and slam.

  The book operates on many levels: A love story first and foremost. A paean to a red-blooded American girl who was born in the sixties, not 1934. A glimpse of parenting and life in suburbia in the 21st century. And a commentary on Sexuality USA. (Did you forget the junket to a porn convention in Vegas? The reaction of friends? Have you read The Scarlet Letter?)

  But at the book’s deepest level, a tighter marital bond is forged and Brown learns where to find home.

• July 20, 2008

  10:12 a.m.

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  nonayerbsns writes:

  YOU WROTE:

  "I've got an idea," Brown's wife, Annie, tells him. "Why don't we start our own club, only we'll reverse it? Instead of not having sex for one hundred days, let's have sex for one hundred consecutive days." (Did I say annoying? This woman is downright insane.)

  CAN YOU PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR CONTENTION THAT SHE IS INSANE? SEX IS WONDERFUL AND MOST HEALTHY PEOPLE I KNOW ENJOY IT IMMENSELY.

• July 21, 2008

  7:18 a.m.

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  mariannecalilhanna writes:

  Um, Patti? What's up? Why so focused on running into Doug Brown when your "criticism" is so insubstantial. The remark about his "annoying" wife? Huh? So let's see, you find her annoying because she suggests that she and her husband have sex and rediscover intimacy?
  Hmm, sounds to me like someone should spend a little supine time herself...but on a couch with a professional.
  Good luck with that.

• July 21, 2008

  7:56 p.m.

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  morwen writes:

  I tend to agree with the above comments. I read the book and found it to be inspiring. The sweetness of loving someone need not be frowned-upon, nor snidely hinted-about. These 2 seemingly ordinary people decided to do something extraordinary, with the unexpected result of falling in love all over again.

  I was very moved and now my husband is reading it. He says that Doug seems like a regular guy like himself--and this is why the book works--because it has the so-called "common touch" that resonates with everyman and everywoman.

  I think your sharpened ax of cynicism this time fell quite flat.

• July 22, 2008

  10:30 p.m.

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  newurban99 writes:

  It was a tough review to write, Patty. I know, because I used to write criticism for the Post. I'm sure you'd write it differently if you had two more months to think about it. That's always the case. But then the spontaneity would be absent. You did your job and you didn't pull any punches. Go ahead and use the elevator. Doug Brown is a grownup, and if nothing else he's bound to respect your honesty. No need to apologize for anything. -- Alan Katz

• July 28, 2008

  7:49 p.m.

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  tkardel writes:

  I have to agree with what others have eluded to: why would anyone care about your possible connection to the author? That you might ride the same elevator seems terrifically irrelevant and does not relate to the quality of the book.

  Indeed, your description of an imaginary 'run in' with the author only points to the fact that you may be too close to the topic to be objective. Or is it that you secretly hope that you *will* run into the author? That some deep sexual repression of yours will burst forward by just being in the presence of the man who had sex for 100 days in a row? What is it you really wish for? "Methinks thou doth protest too much."

  In fact, if I were to critique your review, I would have to say:

  1) the font you used was nice.
  2) for someone who has supposedly not met the principals, you make an amazing number of ad hominem attacks.
  3) your review demonstrates low level analytical skills.

  Sorry try again. You're entitled to your opinion about the book but, since it's published for public consumption, you have to at least give worthwhile reasons to support your positions.