SoMa
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Welcome To The Neighborhood
To outsiders, San Francisco is all one big city. But to those in the know, there is SoMa, South of Market, where sleek eateries are squeezed between bail bonds storefronts and high-priced lofts look out over still rough edges. It's home to a generation of hipsters disillusioned by the dotcom bust, restless and searching for the next thrill, the next high, the next step too far. Sex, drugs, kink--you can find it anywhere in SoMa, if you know where to look. But first, you'll need your tour guides. There's Raphe, a writer torn between two worlds, belonging to neither. Lauren, the poor little rich girl living on the edge and pushing farther out. Mark, beautiful and cruel, who lives for games, the more extreme, the better. Baptiste, hot, smooth, and maybe as real as it gets. And Julie, both an object of desire and a pretty pawn to be played.
In a glittering, surreal subculture of private sex clubs and kept boys, identity theft and betrayal, nihilism, redemption, and sometimes love, they're spinning out of control and into each other's orbits, desperately looking for something real--something that will show them who they really are. In this provocative, intense novel, Kemble Scott puts a new neighborhood on the literary map for good, in a tale that is disturbing, gritty, wholly original, and utterly unforgettable.
Praise for SoMa and Kemble Scott:
"Scott provides us with an insider's look at a little known and gritty underground world. . ..Shockingly, his raw and gritty account of this dark world is all true, which makes for an even more fun ride." --Andy Behrman, bestselling author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
"I read the first page of SoMa and never put it down until I read the last page. . .I know people who are less real than these characters." --Joe Quirk, bestselling author of The Ultimate Rush
"SoMa tells. . .what's really happening in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. . .It's one man's story of a twisted journey and compromised redemption. San Francisco can be a city of extremes, and we see one here." --Craig Newmark, Creator of Craigslist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scott, the pseudonym of a Bay Area journalist, has compiled a fun, frisky novel of shock horror from a grab bag of urban legends, but it's somewhat spoiled by Scott's spin on the material as a Graham Greene-esque spiritual journey. In San Francisco, realtors and developers call the bohemian district that lies South of Market Street "SoMa," trusting that a trendy acronym will boost condo sales in a squalid neighborhood. Would be-writer Raphe survives the dot.com crash by manning a penis enlargement scam joint while testing the limits of his sexuality in the "anything goes" SoMa sex world. When a homeboy roue, Baptiste, shows interest, Raphe can't help but perk up and love him back, finally coming out in an explosive sex encounter. Simultaneously, Raphe pines for stylish, redheaded Julie, a successful web executive who persuades him to begin what turns out to be an addictive regime of high colonics. Will bisexuality suffice, or will Raphe's anomie seek bigger thrills? In separate subplots, a sadistic millionaire, Mark Hazodo, plays dangerous games with unprotected "bareback" sex, while two comic suburbanites, Lauren and Jessica, crash private sex clubs and erotic shows (like "Bondage a Go Go") in search of excitement. Raphe eventually novelizes his own hesitant journey from white bread to pansexual potlatch, and the top-level conceit is that the book one is reading is the book he'll be writing. Scott can turn an amusing phrase and has his ear to the underground of the sexual revolution, but his characters are thin as shadows and his story gets unbelievable very quickly.
