Sex Is Forbidden
A Novel
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Sex is forbidden at the Dasgupta Institute, the Buddhist retreat where Beth Marriot has taken refuge, and that’s a big advantage. Beth has been working as a server, assisting in the kitchen and helping out—discreetly, so the meditators aren’t disturbed. The meditators are making big sacrifices to come here and change their lives. So the servers must observe the rules, and silence and separation of the sexes are chief among them.
But Beth is fighting demons. She came here at a crossroads in her life, caught between an older lover who wouldn’t choose her and a young one who wants to marry her, and she may have caused another man’s death when she risked her own life swimming out to sea in a gale. A singer in a band, vital and impulsive, fleshy and sexy, she has been a rebel and a provocateur. And now, conflicted and wandering, she stumbles on a diary in the men’s dorm and cannot keep away from it, or the man who wrote it. At the same time, desiring—all too hard—to achieve the inner peace that Buddhist practice promises, she yearns for the example set by the slim, silent, white-clad teacher Mi Nu, and maybe yearns for something more.
Comic and poignant at the same time, swiftly paced and completely engaging, Sex Is Forbidden is an entertaining novel about two profoundly different attitudes to life, and Beth—our narrator—is a character to be savored.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in a contemporary Buddhist retreat, this sluggish novel by Parks (Europa) reflects on one women's quest for self-purification, despite her love of trouble. Beth Marriot has escaped to Dasgupta Institute to forget her destructive love affairs, events we learn about through a series of disjointed flashbacks. There was the dependable Carl who adored her, but the unavailable and much older artist Jonathan had more of her heart through we don't get to know either well enough to care about this love triangle. As Beth stalls in her decision between these two lovers, her recklessness causes a fatal accident that causes her to flee to Dasgupta. Working as a server at a Buddhist retreat, where contact with the opposite sex is forbidden, Beth is forced to confront the "painful formations of the mind, sankharas." But even as she's meditating on how to emulate the stoic retreat leader, Mi Nu Wai, she is sneaking into a male guest's room to read his diary, finding solace in his hardships and pleasure in the drama of his attention. Beth's characterization as contrite reformer one minute and seductive troublemaker the next makes for a schizophrenic narrative. While the inner turmoil of someone struggling to achieve mental and spiritual balance is intriguing, the repetitive descriptions of Buddhist practices and an unconvincing character make this a frustrating read.
