Gordon: A Novel
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| Author: | Edith Templeton | |
| Publisher | Pantheon; 1st edition | |
| Released | March 04, 2003 | |
| Pages | 240 pages | |
| ISBN-10 | 0375421947 | |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0375421945 | |
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From Publishers Weekly
First published pseudonymously in 1966, Templeton's first novel was banned in England for its sexual content and found an underground following when it was picked up by the notorious Olympia Press two years later. Templeton (The Darts of Cupid) offers a compelling portrait of a woman in postwar London who falls into a submissive relationship. Louisa is the soon-to-be-divorced 28-year-old narrator who gets picked up at a pub by an imperious stranger. She isn't sure how she feels about this enigmatic, chilly, inquisitive man who shows little emotion and forgoes conventional courtship rituals, taking her to his back garden and to her unexpected pleasure-summarily ravishing her. The stranger turns out to be-what else?-a psychiatrist, Richard Gordon, continues to anticipate Louisa's thoughts and erotic needs. Gordon has increasingly rough sex with Louisa, holding her in his erotic thrall while remaining aloof throughout the affair. Louisa is entranced with his effect on her and increasingly obsessed with him. The unlikely erotic interludes are intriguing, and Templeton adds a delicious bit of comedy when Gordon and Louisa attend a dinner party as a couple. The idea of a coldly omniscient psychiatrist feels dated, and some of Gordon's psychoanalytic observations are bound to strike readers as unintentionally parodic; he virtually reads Louisa's mind and endlessly prompts her with his impassive "go on." Louisa's predicament, however, is believable and captivating. Templeton's study of submission is psychologically acute, and she brings the couple's oblique power struggle to a fascinating climax.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Amazon
Originally written under a pseudonym, this thrilling novel of passion in post-World War II London was banned upon its publication in the late 1960s and is only now being republished under the author’s real name. Edith Templeton creates an indelible character in the smartly dressed Louisa, a savvy young woman in the midst of a divorce who meets a charismatic man in a pub and within an hour has been sexually conquered by him on a garden bench. Thus begins her baffling but magnetic love affair with, and virtual enslavement to, Richard Gordon.
Gordon, a psychiatrist, keeps Louisa in his thrall with his almost omniscient ability to see through her and she, in turn, is gripped by the deep, unexpected pleasure of complete submission. As they venture further and further into the depths—both psychological and sexual—she begins, for the first time, to understand her troubled history and the self that has emerged from it.
In her clean, precise style, with every social nuance and motive exquisitely observed, Templeton delivers a tightly wound drama, unsparingly forthright in its description of how this form of love can bring incomparable rapture. Louisa’s unsettling story has more than the ring of truth to it: it is told with urgency and relish, and its outcome, which leaves Louisa enlightened and changed forever, is profoundly satisfying.
isbn: 0375421947
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