The downside of writing sex scenes is that
my mother reads my books.
Until I die I will be haunted by the memory
of my mother confronting me after reading
my first novel. She stood in my living room
of my San Francisco apartment with one slightly
arthritic hand resting on her robust hip
and the other waving my book in front of
my face. "I ask you," she said,
"how can a nice Jewish girl write such
a thing? It's not bad enough you should
give me ulcers with all this talk of killing
but now you have to write about naked people
too? I thought
