It’s that time of year again when the British magazine Literary Review nominates all the worst sex scenes “to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction, and to discourage them.” For the past 23 years, some of the best writers have won the famously humiliating award, including John Updike, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe (who won the Bad Sex in Fiction lifetime achievement award!). And this year, Morrissey can count himself among those prestigious, embarrassed winners.
Morrissey wasn’t the only big name among this year’s nominees: Erica Jong, Richard Bausch, Lauren Groff, George Pelecanos, and Thomas Espedal were all shortlisted (read their excerpts below). But when Morrissey’s book List of the Lost came out a few months ago, it was immediately mocked for its truly awful sexual descriptions, with many critics predicting he’d be a shoo-in for the Bad Sex award. Here’s one scene: “Eliza and Ezra rolled together into one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation …with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.” Literary Review tweeted this at the awards: “In an ideal world this award would be received by Morrissey. Or someone who publishes Morrissey. Or someone who likes Morrissey.” #BadSex
Ouch! In the mood for some howling, frenzied, snowballing fun? We love bulbous salutations!
Check out more excerpts of Bad Sex in Fiction nominees here: https://www.theguardian.com/
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