After year's of hype, Tom Wolfe's Miami-set epic novel Back to Blood arrived to savage literary reviews and a telling indifference from local book readers. That doesn't mean the tome isn't getting any literary award love. It's been nominated for the very prestigious "Bad Sex in Fiction" award by the United Kingdom-based Literary Review.
"New York is the city of money. Washington D.C. is the city of power. Miami is the city of sex," Wolfe himself told NPR. So, maybe it's not much of a surprise that Back to Blood not only failed to capture the true spirit of Miami, but also the spirit of sex as well.
According to The Guardian, The Literary Review specifically singled out this queasy passage:
Now his big generative jockey was inside her pelvic saddle, riding, riding, riding, and she was eagerly swallowing it swallowing it swallowing it with the saddle's own lips and maw -- all this without a word.My own lips and maw are doing the exact opposite of swallowing swallowing swallowing right now -- all this with a disgusting hurling sound.
Wolfe will compete against several other authors for the award, which will be presented in London next month.
Though he won't face competition from 50 Shades of Grey author E. L. James (the awards forbid intentionally pornographic material) or J. K. Rowling. The journal's editors decided that The Casual Vacancy, her first adult effort following Harry Potter, wasn't quite bad enough.
Wolfe will have the chance to be the award's first two-time winner. He took home the prize in 2004 for his previous novel I Am Charlotte Simmons.
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