Private Pleasures by Lawrence Sanders
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

"My first small success resulted from the addition of potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate to the solution of synthetic testosterone. I had clear evidence [...] that male mice injected with the altered testosterone show a small but discernible lessening of their desire to copulate."

The above quote shows one of the few sentences in Lawrence Sanders' Private Pleasures (1994) that do not sound idiotic or cliché. I am now inclined to suspect that "Lawrence Sanders" was not an actual person but a team of writers using a joint pseudonym. The team included accomplished writers, such as - for instance - the author of the Archy McNally series, and then also amateurish, incompetent writers such as the author of this appalling dud.

This "sizzling new shocker" by the "bestselling master of sinfully daring suspense" (as the back cover claims) is a complete failure in most conceivable aspects: totally implausible plot, caricature characters, pedestrian writing. The only redeeming feature is the proverbial "the book is so bad that it is fun to read." In this sense this is not as bad a book as The Fight Club - my standard of complete failure in literature - because Mr. Sanders, or whoever has written that "suspense novel," does not pretend to write literature (as Mr. Palahniuk does). That's also why I kept reading to the boring and predictable end.

Among the protagonists in this insipid story is a senior chemist in a research lab who works on a new and hush-hush project - developing a testosterone pill to improve battle performance of soldiers. Another main character is also a chemist working on developing a new perfume. Both researchers have marital problems: the former with his vapid, bored wife, the latter with her philandering husband. Totally implausible characters of an invalid Vietnam veteran and a psychotherapist falling in love with her patients round up the set of adults. We also have two children who play a role in the story. The two kids are characterized most plausibly of all the characters.

Speaking about plausibility: we have this research chemist in a leading industrial lab who develops a cutting-edge new cosmetic that uses a human hormone. The chemist does not know that the product has to be approved by FDA before it can be sold to people. Oh my God, what a surprise for the chemist: "All these months of work wasted!"

And what about wince-inducing writing like in:

"He had lost his legs and would never regrow them. I had lost [...] part of myself as well. The loving part. I didn't want that gone. I wanted it to thrive."

The author's power of observation of human inability to regrow extremities astounds me. I am asking again: who wrote this book? Can't be the Lawrence Sanders, the author of many interesting, well-written and often charming novels. Anyway, since it is a vastly better book than The Fight Club, it escapes the lowest possible rating.

One-and-a-quarter stars.


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