Singular Pleasures Author:Harry Mathews, Francesco Clemente (Illustrator) The first paperback edition of Singular Pleasures, sixty-one vignettes on the sole subject of masturbation, records the imaginative varieties of this activity in prose that is playful, intimate, quirky and humane. The soloists range in age from nine to eighty; the locales from Australia to Zaire; the means of masturbation from the commonplace to... more » the bizarre. The young man in Gaza with his hair dryers, the woman in Manilla with her cello bow, the long-eared bat, the charioteer, the candelabra--this swirl of unlikely individuals and objects is brought together in such a way that it floods a world born fresh once more. Illustrated throughout with watercolors by Francesco Clemente that offer an intriguing counterpoint to Mathewss fictions. The illustrator has also collaborated with such writers as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and John Wieners.« less