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DEEP DOWN, The New Sensual Writing by Women
Faber & Faber, 1988

Cloth & paper editions, UK edition
Quality Paperback Book Club

How do women really feel, deep down? In this enticing collection seventy-one of our best contemporary women writers explore female sensuality in its myriad variations, from the most innocent to the profoundly erotic. The new woman artist, says Chester, is writing stronger, more compelling work as she draws from her feminized sexual energy. Deep Down includes prose and poetry by 71 authors, from Kathy Acker to Alice Walker.

Excerpt From: Crazy:

My darling always thought he’d like to be a sex object until I made him into one. Now he thinks of strategies of escape before he dares stir in the morning, how he will pretend to go brush his teeth, and then quickly pull on his Levis. Seeing the disappearance of those muscular calves is like watching good wine being wasted… I know he will have to leave me, intending to return, but maybe I’ll be buried in snow by then, lost in this winter like his underwear in the big white mounds of his mind, snowed-in by him, this man who has driven me crazy, sex mad, snow blind, approaching irrelevant, because he wants to break me God dammit he does, because he thinks I always want things my way. Pot call the kettle black much? Suddenly, I just stop caring, and then he’s all over me. Nothing’s wrong as far as he’s concerned. All male, oh man, he makes his move, to grapple and to pin me. His physical love’s a vise wherein I struggle to return to sanity with him, until I just lie there, smitten.

Reviews of Deep Down:

"A veritable Who’s Who of contemporary women writers." Belles Lettres

"As delicious and diverse as a box of chocolate, Deep Down’s poems and prose ooze with pleasure." New Directions for Women

"More than just a collection of high-quality erotica (although it certainly is that) Deep Down shows the many ways in which writing can be sensual and the many kinds of sensual relationships a woman can have. Women have permission now to expose, explore and be bawdy." The Berkshire Eagle

"Savvy, artful, erotic prose and poetry that doesn’t shy away from the sticky issues." 7 Days