Topical Guide 992
Mark Dorset
Sexual Fantasies, Male, Heterosexual, Specific to Writers
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 38:
The inmates slipped quietly into the back of the room, and I began reading episode thirty-eight of Dead Air, “A Technical Question.” As I read, I played to the entire house, as a good reader should, but whenever I came to one of the bits that I thought most effective — not the punch lines, but the throwaway phrases that make the punch lines work and carry the import of the piece, the subtle bits — I turned my eyes to that pretty pupil sitting on the sofa and for a moment slipped out of character, by which I mean that I slipped out of the character of the benign old man reading his reminiscences and into the closest approximation I could manage without practice of the dream lover of a pubescent virgin, the experienced man, a writer (every girl’s dream), . . .
Charles Barsotti in The New Yorker, June 27, 1994:
See also:
Sexual Fantasies, Male, Heterosexual, Adolescent and Beyond: Miss Clam Fest TG 53; Nymphs; Myths: Hylas; Dark-Haired Girl, the TG 59; Déjeuner sur l’Herbe TG 428
Subscribe to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy
Share The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy
Watch Well, What Now? This series of short videos continues The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy in the present.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, Where Do You Stop?, What a Piece of Work I Am, and At Home with the Glynns.
You can buy hardcover and paperback editions of all the books at Lulu.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.