Edmund Schiddel's 1975 novel "The Swing" sounds like it would be a sleazy good time: "Blazing with the tangled passions of three sexual adventurers," reads of the copy on the front of the paperback. in case that doesn't sell you, check out the back cover blurb: "Barbara -- the electrifying young model ready to retreat into the security of a rich, jet-set marriage. Jack -- the sexual adventurer whose Wall Street manipulations give him the wealth and leisure to pursue his primary interest. Gareth -- Jack's associate in business and in bed." Consider my prurient interests piqued.
Well, those expecting erotica or at least well-written trash best be warned the expression that you can't judge a book by its cover exists for a reason. (I know this, yet I continue to do it.) "The Swing" may turn on a trio of bed-hopping swingers, but at its heart it's a romance. Supermodel Barbara literally bumps into Jack, a successful asset stripper, while attending a London gallery opening, discovering that he's very happy to have done so (i.e., that's not a gun in his pocket). Barbara is already engaged to older, wealthy and boring Creighton, but Jack intrigues her enough that she sneaks off with him for a couple drinks. She resists his advances, however. It's only back in New York, when Jack tracks her down and surprises Barbara at her penthouse apartment that she agrees to go out with him, because who can resist a stalker, especially one who is so rich and good looking?
A whirlwind romance follows. Within days Barbara dumps Creighton and marries Jack. It's then that Barbara meets Gareth, Jack's younger business associate and, as mentioned on the back cover copy, swinging partner. Schiddel does his level best to imply Gareth might be gay, but quickly dashes that notion by explaining Gareth just likes to have other men present to fully perform with a woman (huh?). As for Jack, he makes a big deal about NOT being interested in men in the slightest (foreshadowing alert). But he's abandoned swinging -- or "the swing," as it's referred to here -- since marrying. He and Barbara have each other, and that's all they need. Except, Barbara finds herself becoming increasingly attracted to Gareth, who reminds her of her first love. Maybe there's something to polyamory after all... This is exactly what Jack has been waiting for, and after a few spirited three-ways, the trio starts hitting weekend swingers' parties, with Jack believing that his and Barbara's love can sustain recreational sex with strangers. But it's the ones they know they've got to watch out for.
When I first started this book I thought it read like a the novelization of a Radley Metzger movie. It has all the trappings: rich, beautiful people who devote their copious free time to pretentious conversations and sexual shenanigans. But as I read on I thought my early assessment proved overly generous. Too much of Schiddel's novel focuses on those pretentious conversations, with the characters often speaking like they are 1920-era English aristocrats rather than New Yorkers in the 1970s. The characters themselves aren't particularly likable: Jack's a smug narcissist, Gareth a shallow playboy and Barbara, the most sympathetic character, a cipher. Not helping is there isn't much about them that's interesting beyond the fact that they are rich, beautiful and sexually adventurous.
And what about those sexual adventures? When it comes to writing about sex I personally prefer that authors either strongly hint about what's about to happen then close the bedroom door, or if they stay in bedroom they give a Penthouse Letters-style account of the action. What I do not like is picking up a novel about 1970s swingers and reading paragraph upon paragraph of passages like: "Then came awareness that his determined invasion was complete: she stiffened in a final moment of acceptance. She was astonished that, almost at once, the dark flower in her stirred to bloom[.]" With prose like that, I'll take abstinence.
Where Schiddel shocks isn't with sexual explicitness but with characters' attitudes. When Jack, Barbara and Gareth are combing swingers' magazines they laugh over an ad from an incestuous family soliciting partners. A couple swingers parties have teenagers in attendance (but, hey, at least they're over 16), and one party not only goes on while the hosts' child is sequestered downstairs with a babysitter, but these same hosts screen a vintage a stag reel featuring the rape of a 10-year-old girl, something viewers find hilarious (Barbara, to her credit, is sickened by the movie). Equally unsettling is the book's casual racism. Jack's Asian butler Ling is often referred to as "a Chinese," as though he were a breed of dog, and people of color are described as either exotic playthings (if they're women) or just dismissed with a racial slur (if they're men).
I've enjoyed the previous Edmund Schiddel books I've read, "The Other Side of the Night" and "Bad Boy," both books pushing the boundaries as far the eras in which they were written would allow, with 1954's "Night" teasingly lurid and 1982's "Bad Boy" flippantly sleazy. "The Swing," though, takes itself too seriously. Instead of swinging, it hangs, then slowly sinks under the weight of Schiddel's pretentiousness.
Well, those expecting erotica or at least well-written trash best be warned the expression that you can't judge a book by its cover exists for a reason. (I know this, yet I continue to do it.) "The Swing" may turn on a trio of bed-hopping swingers, but at its heart it's a romance. Supermodel Barbara literally bumps into Jack, a successful asset stripper, while attending a London gallery opening, discovering that he's very happy to have done so (i.e., that's not a gun in his pocket). Barbara is already engaged to older, wealthy and boring Creighton, but Jack intrigues her enough that she sneaks off with him for a couple drinks. She resists his advances, however. It's only back in New York, when Jack tracks her down and surprises Barbara at her penthouse apartment that she agrees to go out with him, because who can resist a stalker, especially one who is so rich and good looking?
A whirlwind romance follows. Within days Barbara dumps Creighton and marries Jack. It's then that Barbara meets Gareth, Jack's younger business associate and, as mentioned on the back cover copy, swinging partner. Schiddel does his level best to imply Gareth might be gay, but quickly dashes that notion by explaining Gareth just likes to have other men present to fully perform with a woman (huh?). As for Jack, he makes a big deal about NOT being interested in men in the slightest (foreshadowing alert). But he's abandoned swinging -- or "the swing," as it's referred to here -- since marrying. He and Barbara have each other, and that's all they need. Except, Barbara finds herself becoming increasingly attracted to Gareth, who reminds her of her first love. Maybe there's something to polyamory after all... This is exactly what Jack has been waiting for, and after a few spirited three-ways, the trio starts hitting weekend swingers' parties, with Jack believing that his and Barbara's love can sustain recreational sex with strangers. But it's the ones they know they've got to watch out for.
When I first started this book I thought it read like a the novelization of a Radley Metzger movie. It has all the trappings: rich, beautiful people who devote their copious free time to pretentious conversations and sexual shenanigans. But as I read on I thought my early assessment proved overly generous. Too much of Schiddel's novel focuses on those pretentious conversations, with the characters often speaking like they are 1920-era English aristocrats rather than New Yorkers in the 1970s. The characters themselves aren't particularly likable: Jack's a smug narcissist, Gareth a shallow playboy and Barbara, the most sympathetic character, a cipher. Not helping is there isn't much about them that's interesting beyond the fact that they are rich, beautiful and sexually adventurous.
And what about those sexual adventures? When it comes to writing about sex I personally prefer that authors either strongly hint about what's about to happen then close the bedroom door, or if they stay in bedroom they give a Penthouse Letters-style account of the action. What I do not like is picking up a novel about 1970s swingers and reading paragraph upon paragraph of passages like: "Then came awareness that his determined invasion was complete: she stiffened in a final moment of acceptance. She was astonished that, almost at once, the dark flower in her stirred to bloom[.]" With prose like that, I'll take abstinence.
Where Schiddel shocks isn't with sexual explicitness but with characters' attitudes. When Jack, Barbara and Gareth are combing swingers' magazines they laugh over an ad from an incestuous family soliciting partners. A couple swingers parties have teenagers in attendance (but, hey, at least they're over 16), and one party not only goes on while the hosts' child is sequestered downstairs with a babysitter, but these same hosts screen a vintage a stag reel featuring the rape of a 10-year-old girl, something viewers find hilarious (Barbara, to her credit, is sickened by the movie). Equally unsettling is the book's casual racism. Jack's Asian butler Ling is often referred to as "a Chinese," as though he were a breed of dog, and people of color are described as either exotic playthings (if they're women) or just dismissed with a racial slur (if they're men).
I've enjoyed the previous Edmund Schiddel books I've read, "The Other Side of the Night" and "Bad Boy," both books pushing the boundaries as far the eras in which they were written would allow, with 1954's "Night" teasingly lurid and 1982's "Bad Boy" flippantly sleazy. "The Swing," though, takes itself too seriously. Instead of swinging, it hangs, then slowly sinks under the weight of Schiddel's pretentiousness.
