With the Kisses of his Mouth by Monique Roffey

With the Kisses of His Mouth: A Memoir by Monique Roffey


I've been reading this memoir on and off for a year or so. In a way it explains why books get remaindered, potential readers are unsure about them, and they tend to put them back on the shelves rather than take them to the cash desk. Moreover, I'm left with two questions: why did the author decide to publish this self-centred, self-indulgent, hedonistic account of her sexual adventures? I can understand why she wrote it, after all writing about experiences, good or bad, can have a cathartic effect, but to publish this intimacy? Presumably, an agent or an editor thought it might be a good idea based on the author having been shortlisted for the Orange Prize. The second question is why did I bother to read it to the bitter end? Simple curiosity? literary voyeurism, titillation? I honestly don't know, but what I do know is that reading this book I entered a metro-sexual world vicariously, and it's a world I would not want to enter in reality. It's a world I feel that I don't need to know and would be wary of. Easy to dismiss it as New Age twaddle, but that does a disservice to Roffey whom I think, wrote from the best of motives. Having said that, public catharsis carries obvious risks and Roffey was brave to accept such risks, but courage alone is not enough to justify the publication of this rather mediocre memoir. Nevertheless I look forward to reading The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, the novel that was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2010.