Wendy Perriam: Bad Sex is OK

Being nominated two years running for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award - the first writer in the 8-year history of the award to be so honoured - may seem a dubious distinction for a serious author, but novelist and short-story writer Wendy Perriam isn't remotely phased by it.

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Q. What is the award all about

A. Described in the Guardian a couple of years ago as 'essentially an excuse for old, lecherous men to look up the skirts of frighteningly young women who believe it the thing to wear very little (and who must surely catch chills on their kidneys on the way home)', the Bad Sex in Fiction Award was launched in 1993 by the literary critics Rhoda Koenig and late Auberon Waugh, then editor of the Literary Review, which still organises it. The founders intended it 'to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it'.

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Q. What does Wendy have to say about it all

A. Wendy told theAnswerbank: 'Writing about sex is incredibly difficult. You either end up sounding like a biological textbook or get into the realms of "and the waves pounded". The awards themselves are a bit of a send-up, of course, but there are really weighty people on the shortlist, such as Jonathan Franzen. I thought the extract read out from his book was brilliant and very erotic.

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'Maybe the awards are a victim of their own success. In the early days it would have been embarrassing to be nominated, but now I don't think it does a writer any harm at all to be put forward. In fact, it could be to their advantage. The press are there en masse, and plenty of literary luminaries. The party itself is lovely. Very fitting that the venue, the Naval and Military Club, is also known as the "In and Out Club".

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'Maybe there should be alternative, a "good sex writing" award.'

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Q. And an example of the qualifying prose

A. Wendy's nomination in 2000 was for her novel Lying (ISBN 0 7206 1128 8), the story of a woman coming to terms with her sexual infidelity and loss of religious faith. This year's was for the story 'Three-Minute Egg', published in the collection Dreams, Demons and Desire (ISBN 0 7206 1109 1). Here's a taster: 'The sea was joining in: slavering towards her; panting, foaming, gathering speed; one headstrong wave swelling up and up, sweeping her to treacherous heights before crashing, pounding down.' Taken out of context any piece of writing - particularly writing about sex - can be made to seem silly; in the context of the story, this snippet is entirely appropriate.

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Q. What is that context

A. In brief: a woman goes for a pre-dawn walk along the beach, leaving her rather dull, fussy husband asleep in the hotel they are staying in. On encountering a young fisherman she begins to fantasise about rough sex with him there on the seafront. There's a twist at the end, but you'll have to read the book to find that out...

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Q. Who won this year

A. Christopher Hart, the editor of the Erotic Review - a bit of a head start there, then - for his novel Rescue Me. The award - a semi-abstract statue representing sex in the 1950s - was presented this year by Jerry Hall, who quipped: 'Bad sex writing is like bad sex - both are better than nothing.' She then went on to say: 'It gives me great pleasure to present someone with an award for bad sex. I usually present them with divorce papers.' Possibly a reference to last year's presenter, one Michael Jagger

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Q. And the winning passage

A. 'Her hand is moving away from my knee and heading north. Heading unnervingly and with a steely will towards the pole. And, like Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Pamela will not easily be discouraged. I try twitching, and then shaking my leg, but to no avail...And when she reaches the north pole, I think in wonder and terror - she will surely want to pitch her tent.'

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Dreams, Demons and Desire is on the longlist of the Macmillan Silver PEN Award 2002 for the category of an outstanding collection of stories by one author

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For more on Wendy Perriam visit her site at www.perriam.demon.co.uk/home.htm

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See also the article on literary awards

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For more on Arts & Literature click here

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By Simon Smith