| Title | : | The Lurid Sea |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1626399115 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781626399112 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 182 |
| Publication | : | First published March 1, 2018 |
The Lurid Sea Reviews
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Pornography, and graphic novels for that matter, are what Samuel R. Delany calls ‘para-literature’: liminal genres that straddle the boundaries of what is accepted and what is transgressive. In masterful works like ‘The Mad Man’ and ‘Through The Valley of the Nest of Spiders’, not to mention ‘Hogg’ and ‘The Tides of Lust’, Delany shows just how artificial such distinctions are.
One also has to bear in mind that writing about sex is notoriously difficult. Many a so-called ‘literary’ writer has fallen foul of Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Added to this, writing about a particular fetish, or one particular expression of sexuality, adds another layer of complexity.
(Delany really knows about sexual ‘triggers’, and how to turn these into a kind of inter-textuality – without turning the reader off, of course, which means a fine balance has to be struck between eroticism and disgust, another expression of the eros/thanos equation.)
Which is why ‘The Lurid Sea’ is such an extraordinary novel, one of those books you want to shove a copy of into the hands of all of your friends and family. And complete strangers, come to think of it. Read this! It will transform what you think you know about the possibilities, and potential, of literature itself.
In a wonderful postscript entitled ‘A Note to Readers and Recommended Readings’, Cardamone comments that “talking about books can be almost as fun as reading them – and certainly writing them.” This erudite and generous postscript, in which he references his own seminal ‘The Lost Library’, had me agog at the number of books and writers I know nothing about.
What struck me too is that, rather than being separate to the book itself, the postscript is very much a refraction, and a reflection, of ‘The Lurid Sea’, in which Cardamone firmly positions his book in a particular genre subset of gay literature. The only other writer I can think of who forges such strong bonds with his readers, so much so that the reading experience itself becomes a kind of love affair, is Stephen King in his ‘Dear Reader’ ramblings.
The King reference is particularly apt, as the title ‘The Lurid Sea’ is derived from ‘The City in the Sea’ by Edgar Allan Poe, one of King’s favourite writers. (One can only imagine what Poe would have thought of being associated with a book awash with “a cornucopia of cocks”.)
I think the following extract from the Publisher’s Weekly review is an apt summary:
Cardamone (Night Sweats) indulges himself terrifically in this mythology-themed pornographic paean to the art of fellatio. It features only minimal plot, but his delightfully florid descriptions of variations of the male body, and his ability to communicate simultaneous degradation and exultant joy in the act of submission, make this a fascinating if repetitive work.
I certainly didn’t find the book repetitive at all, as Cardamone manages to add something new to every single sex act in the book – and there are many, including a Grand Guignol Roman orgy known as the Fellatiolympics.
As for the plot, the godling Nerites has been cursed by Neptune, his father, to wander immortal through time, using bathhouses as a kind of gay Tardis. This takes Nerites from San Francisco to Japan to New York and, of course, Rome. How Cardamone manages to differentiate these settings and periods simply through his description of men (and their appetites) shows just how masterful a writer he truly is.
So is the murderous Obsidio, whose ‘Pluto’s Kiss’ brings death to all he touches, a “crude allegory” of the AIDS crisis, as Publisher’s Weekly comments? “Yes and no” is my honest answer. Obsidio plays a much more complex role in terms of the yin/yang, light/dark dichotomy that Cardamone loves to, er, probe. It is no accident that the scenes of godling incest/rape are among the most erotic, and violent, in the long litany of such encounters in what is actually quite a short novel. -
This review is NSFW
"The erotic is eternal. To touch is to forget your age or inexperience and simply commune."
My summary: After immortal demigod Nerites is cursed by his father Neptune to suck d*ck for all time, he helplessly follows the swirls and flushes of bathhouse drains, arriving in new eras and lands to please infinite men. After a timeless time, he realizes his half-brother Obsidio, son of the death god Pluto, is following him, leaving carnage in his wake as he weaponizes his possessive, black semen of doom.
Review: After glancing at the book cover alone, I thought I was going to dive into a queer mermaid tale a la Mermaid at Chelsea Creek. I didn’t realize this title is erotica—not romance, not erotic romance, but a straight up fever dream of hazy and primal lust. This book contains: incestuous demigods, poesy, meandering time travel, dubious consent, the word “fellatiolympics,” hallucinogenic phantasmagoria, underworld rivers of semen, and fecal matter. This book does not contain: a storyline, deep characterization, anything more than the faint resemblance of a plot. I recommend it enthusiastically to the open-minded reader.
Tom Cardomone takes us on a surreal, deep-conscious dream of unrestricted desire. Here is a person’s masturbatory brain, laid out on the page. Its atavism is presented in poetic prose that fires off literary synapses with its unexpected phrases such as “ouroboros of timeless semen” and “my impious mouth, needing to be filled, pummeled.”
The negative ratings and minimal attention The Lurid Sea has received makes the perfect point about how the m/m community pushes out actual gay writers and their stories. This book, whether it was intended to be or not, is a refutation to the heteronormative porn-inspired smut of m/m romance. So often I read sex scenes and feel utterly bored, as otherwise well-developed characters imitate the performative motions of real life sex workers. I don't want to see porn ever, not even in my own head when I’m reading romance or erotica. I don't want to see something stilted, scripted, unimaginative, exploitative, and heteronormative.
Tom Cardamone, in contrast, describes insane scenes of erotica, using imagery I've never thought of before, employing phrases that have never entered my head before. It's gay, literary ingenuity. It’s pure carnality that could only be described accurately with sophisticated prose. Cardamone comes from academia and his afterword is a long list of book recommendations, giving us an appreciated glimpse into his inspirations and influences.
The Lurid Sea comes from the bath house, AIDS era of gay America. It is in conversation with other texts, and won’t be appreciated by many readers. I've been thinking a lot about who this community makes room for, and it's often not writers like Tom Cardamone and his cohorts, even though they're the gay writers who first influenced me, spoke to me, touched my soul. These are the books I really want to read. The Lurid Sea was a great and bizarre antidote to so much of the strife going on in m/m right now. Open it up and be immediately sucked, bathhouse style, into someone else’s dream. -
TW: Incest, Pedophilia, 18+
I just want to start this off saying I think this is just a case of this book wasn't for me, and that's ok. Honestly I think I missed something.
It starts off straight into the porn. At first I didn't think there was any plot to it, but by 1/3 in I did start to like it and see there is. Mostly I was just confused, and grossed out. Not from the porn/cock-sucking part, but from piss and shit stuff. However it was an easy and quick read that kept me attention enough to finish it, particularly with the MC's deadly brother. There were moments that I liked, and it was sad at times, and sometimes where I felt like something was just going over my head. Over-all it just wasn't my cup of tea, but if the synopsis intrigues you, give it a shot.
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Netgalley #37
Many thanks go to Tom Cardamone, Bold Strokes Books, and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.
I honestly don’t know how I want to rate this book. It has some excellent aspects, but there were a few hiccups. It's very repetitive focusing on one specific sexual act, which I suppose makes this a fetish book? How does that work! The relationship between the brothers is just ghastly but necessary to make the book work. I like that Neptune is the main character's father. That's perfect for what's to follow. And the time travel is necessary or he'd run out of places to go. But honestly this book just made my jaws hurt. -
The story of Nerites is a lesser Greek myth, though one that for centuries has likely captured the fascination of queer readers who stumbled upon it, including me. Like his better-known counterparts Ganymede and Hyacinth, Nerites was an icon of youthful male beauty who ignited the obsession of the gods. He was said to be the only son of a sea god Nereus and brother to the more notable sea nymphs of legend: the Nereids.
There are versions of his tale that are tragic, ending in Nerites being turned into a snail by jealous Aphrodite or jealous Helios alternatively. But one version is triumphant and irresistible. Courted by both Aphrodite and Poseidon, Nerites chooses love with the moody King of the Sea and becomes his lifetime companion (and one could imagine, he has a tempering effect on the notorious bully).
I was therefore excited to read Tom Cardamone’s take on Nerites, who is the narrator of The Lurid Sea. Besides my affection for that little myth, I had previously read Cardamone’s Green Thumb and immediately became a fan of his raw, psychedelic style.
Read the rest of my review at
Queer Sci Fi. -
I requested this because I figured it'd be a fun different read. This is straight up erotica from the first page on. It is listed as erotica so I mean..
It is descriptive heavy in my opinion. I've never thought it was possible. Which take from what you are reading. -
Lambda Literary Award Winner, Tom Cardamone's, new novel is a hyper-sexualized erotic tale that uses time travel to move its' narrative briskly forward. The young godling, Nerites, guides the reader through time and space, from bathhouses in ancient Rome, Japan and New York City, amongst others.
Nerites finds pleasure servicing gods, warriors, mythical beings and slaves. The bathhouse serves as the great equalizer among men and Caramone dares to ask whether love might, if only for a moment, be found in these places of desire and lust. Through his sexual encounters, Nerites discovers himself to be an oral bottom, finding more pleasure in giving oral sex than receiving it. As Oscar Wilde said, "An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young." In the case of Nerites, an inordinate passion for giving pleasure, along with the gift/curse? of immortality allows him to travel agelessly back and forth in time.
Nerites' half-brother, Obsidio, introduces a sinister and darkly erotic presence to the novel. Some of the hottest moments occur when he is teaching young Nerites the sexual ropes. Ultimately, Nerites will have a choice to make and the novel's ending will leave the reader satiated. Cardamone has brought back a genre of gay literature that hasn't been seen since the '80s with authors such as Aaron Travis and his novel Slaves of the Empire, but with Cardamone's unique voice and twist. -
The Lurid Sea by Tom Cardamone
Prepare yourself to become immersed under a tidal wave of erotica like no one but Tom Cardamone can offer. The novel follows Nerites, a godling who finds himself cursed to do what he loves best. Despite being limited to water environs, he manages to travel through time and space. The antagonist is his half-brother, who is determined to undermine Nerites’ lust-filled adventures. Award winning writer, Tom Cardamone, manages to balance erotic ardor with a suspenseful narrative. -
I knew going in that this was an erotic book. (No pun intended.) But I suppose I've been spoiled by a softer sort of erotica. This starts out with, "The hot tub was a frothy mix of foam flecked with minuscule bits of fecal matter, white ribbons of semen and filmy water. I basked in this heady broth of hunger and lassitude." That's the first two sentences, and it never pulls back from the grit and grime of the bathhouse sex scene.
The writing is very pretty and Nerites is a lot more introspective than you'd expect from a man cursed to suck cock for all eternity. (He doesn't seem to do anything else). And though it takes a good 1/3 of the book for anything resembling a plot to develop (just long enough to fear there isn't one and that the Fellatiolympics is the more noteworthy thing about the book), one does eventually. Not much of one mind you, but one does develop.
This feels like someone from an academic background trying to make porny incest, pedophilia, slave sex and debaucheries intellectual. Like we're supposed to read it as meaningful, instead of base and onanistic. And if you don't like it, well, you just must not be intellectual enough to look beyond its purposeful prurience and "get it." Sure, ok, whatever. I see it, but It's not really for me. Because even with the pretty writing and some hot scenes, 140 pages of blow jobs gets boring. I struggled to finish it.
In fact, I read 41% in one sitting, then went to bed. Having put it down, I really struggled to pick it up again, reading a chapter here, a chapter there and then forcing myself to push through and finish the sucker all at once. (Pun, again, intended.) My trouble came not with the amount of sex, number of faceless partners, frequency of orgies, the plot that just peeks out here and there, the incest, or the fact that modern ideals of age of consent don't matter to Greek immortals. My problem sits in that first sentence.
I know this is a personal preference kind of thing. I appreciate having the fantasy of at least minimally hygienic, consensual sex preserved (or not trampled on too badly). There were just too many times Nerites sucked a cock and tasted shit—rolled it around in his mouth and considered it, even—got peed on, was the recipient in Bukkake, reveled in smegma, was borderline raped (though he's always up for it), had sex on a corpse, etc. etc. etc. I know that for every thing that wrenched me out of what little story there was with a shudder, there's someone out there for whom that's a kink (and good for them), I just NOPED out on all of it in one book, after a while. I could have taken any individual thing, just not all of them all together. No doubt, that was partly Cardamone's intent, to push people's boundaries. But...
I appreciate the pretty writing. I read the afterward and appreciate how many books the author references (though he claims not to have done too much research, a statement contradicted by the those same recommendations). I liked Nerites as a character. And if I hadn't so often been squinked out, I might have liked the book. In the end, I'm sure it will find it's audience, it's just not me. -
Wild from start to finish!
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If you like dirty boys, then this is the book for you because, for some reason, they do not know how to wipe their butt cracks or pooing while getting their dick sucked/suck dick (power to the men that can multi-task).
Spoilers
Fecal matter is a reoccurring theme. If you cannot stomach that, then stop. Run. This erotica is built differently different.
I just want to say that I will be referring to the main character as MC. The reason is it doesn't seem fitting to call him by his first name when his name was uttered four times total outside the synopsis. There were many highs and many lows during the MCs journey.
The lows are the MC's disjointed way of time traveling and the lack of chronological time stamps of his journey. I know traveling time to different eras is a thing, and he can go into the future and back, but I am talking about his ticking clock. How old is he? How long has it been since he's been time-jumping? The other low for me was his need to suck dicks and the brief description of them all as he swallows copious amounts of unclean men in the bathhouses. It was a weird reading of descriptive and sort of not as if the MC was reaching a quota for the day and then moving on to the next. From the way the narration was presented, it inferred that it was before he was cursed. Maybe? Tom didn't really explain, and the MC was an unreliable narrator when it came to his need to have a salty, sour, fleshy, rotten raisin breeding ground for smegma-loving bacteria foreskin dicks. Without his dad cursing him, he would still suck dick like water.
The highs.
The story was beautifully written, but that wasn't what pulled me in to read through the Rivers of Semen and the pooping escapades.
I find Obsidio to be a very intriguing character. His name was said 60 times outside the synopsis, and every time he is in the scene, it is a nice change of pace. The demi-god with the perfect dick and inky viscous semen that can kill mortals, as well as his kiss of death. The way the MC describes his brother is loving and enchanting. He is Death. I was excited, and I wanted more interactions between the two. And that's the main reason why I continued reading between all the really questionable thought processes of the MC, as he finds one problem or creates them and leaves, and there was plenty.
Back to the low
Tom and MC did Obsidio dirty in the end. Pun intended.
I would have rated this book a three because of the way the MC just praised and praised and wanted to be with his brother in a twisted incestual way kept me reading, wanting to know if Tom would delve into the dynamics of a God who has no choice but to kill involuntarily when he wants to get off and his younger brother who is the only one that cannot die and please him sexually.
But we didn't get any of that; just wishful thinking.
Because many dirty dicks are better than one immortal perfect dick that gives the MC ambrosia semen. -
Beautiful prose married to potent, sensual erotica is something truly magnificent to behold.
Our hero Nerites lived after the reign of the Five Good Emperors, with the Pax Romana slowly devolving into the chaos of the Late Empire marked by military adventurism and decadence. A Roman godling borne of carnal congress between a lascivious matron and the god of the sea, he inherited the intense sensual appetites of both. He discovered his predilection for cockgobbling during an otherwise routine sexual congress with his half-brother Obsidio, himself sired by the god of death Pluto at the moment their mother triumphed in bringing about her first husband's death. He was later cursed by his father Neptune after a sexual mishap during the Lupercalian fellatiolympics. Seeing how he debased his divine patrimony by kneeling down before mere mortals, he was doomed to travel across time, landing in different bathhouses to sate his voracious appetites, albeit temporarily.
What could have been a stultifying journey through wastelands of the same were leavened by the diversity of the locales Nerites found himself in. From Italy (both ancient and modern) to Japan to Germany to the US to Canada to Hong Kong to Spain, it was akin to a joyous travelogue, a celebration of the myriad permutations of oral sex. I like how the author sometimes dipped into the mythologies of other countries. From the wizened kappa and playful fox spirits of Japan to the satyrs of idyllic Greece, these lend a pleasing diversity to the characters featured here. Tantalizing details also abound, like how certain baths also doubled as libraries, or how Nerites's peculiar anatomy can alchemize the mass of jism he ingested into pearls.
The book has the rudiments of a plot, but it's only towards the end that any real conflict was established. While I see Nerites's curse as terrible in its shifty aimlessness, he seems to have adapted to and even enjoyed it, riding across centuries of wanton lubricity. Seldom has damnation been so ecstatically milked.
However, it seems like Obsidio has been following him, leaving a trail of massacres through his fatal seed. It's up to him to stop this black widow(er?) from spoiling his wonderful jaunts. He may be a dissipated lecher, but he still has a conscientious heart.
I'd read Cardamone's other works in the future, if only to experience how it would be like if his gorgeous wordsmithery were wedded to themes that are not so vulgar.
7.5/10; 4 stars. -
I have no idea what to rate this.
The language at time was very interesting, other times hard to understand, and yet other times so boring. But what always fascinated me was the author's obsession to inform us if there was poop in the room, the water, the buttcrack, the penis, etc.
HIS DESCRIPTIONS OF THINGS, OMG. For example:
Then comes the ocean, slow and sure, an internal tide that issues forth in driblets from between my bruised lips. Regurgitated white honey tapped from countless, breathless men.
But despite Tom surprising me with something new or unsavory in nearly every chapter, the ending was just so pathetic. I slogged through the MC's wandering mind, confusing time jumps, buckets of semen and shit, and I get a lackluster and 1 paragraph quick ending? Lol. No.
The book details are almost misleading. The problem with his brother begins in chapter 19, I think. And the book has only 23 chapters. His brother only appears in chapter 22, like, at 90% of the book. Ugh, I wanted so much more.
AND So many things that were mentioned, foreshadowed even, were never brought up again. So disappointed. I expected a lot more from the brother. And the MC. And Tom
I guess I'll give it a 3? I don't like these kind of endings. -
A gorgeously written erotic novel that proves sex can be as literary as it can be dirty.
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Yeah, so this book was not very good. I was excited to read it, because I was looking through the reviews and saw that the subject matter was pretty taboo, and I'm all about taboo in literature. Anyway, as it turned out, this book wasn't really even a book. Don't get me wrong, it did meet my expectations in that it was taboo, and I was all about that, but dear god, there was no story or really even characters in this book. It was just sex. Nothing else. At least books like 50 Shades of Grey have the decency to try to put a story amongst all the sex, but not this one. And it wasn't even good sex, just sloppy, cringe-worthy sex. I don't even know why I finished this book. I think I was hoping that I would get some semblance of a story or character growth, but alas. So I mean, if you want to read 200 pages of a guy giving blow jobs, then this is the book for you. If not, you probably shouldn't pick up this book.
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Again, I feel compelled to remind everyone: My stars are quite literal, and three stars is what it is - I liked it. Nothing more, nothing less.
My god, though, this book - this is a book which would be worthy of a callout post among certain subsets of M/M readers (mostly those of the modern purity culture variety, who think that writing about certain things automatically leads to normalization of them [funny, since I don't think fecal matter floating among a froth of semen will ever be normalized enough to be arousing to most anyway]), and yet, it's so beautifully written that I didn't find it repulsive.
Boring, yes; repetitive, yes, in many places. It's very nearly a PWP, and as I don't find blowjobs particularly exciting, much of this book fell well short of titillating for me. Add in frequent references to piss and shit, and I admit that it took me a damn long time to get through this. I almost regret suggesting the library purchase it (almost).
However, I'm not the target audience for this. This is a work firmly situated in a certain corner of gay male culture, specifically among gay men who remember a time before the AIDS crisis, and as a young woman dating another young woman, I'd say I'm fairly well removed from that audience! The only overlap? My interest in M/M fiction. Not quite enough to make this my sort of book.
However - and I can't stress this enough - this is beautifully written. Worth a read for that alone, if you can breeze over the most unsavory references to shit-coated cocks. -
Within the first two lines of this book I knew it wasn't for me. I never got beyond the first chapter.
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OMG just loved it so much. One of the most interesting readings I've had!
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A delightfully filthy, transgressive book, a plotless celebration of fellatio set entirely in gay bathhouses. The book is a throwback to Eighties gay erotica. It's set primarily in ancient Rome, but also jaunts through time to several other cities, including Tokyo, Montreal, New York, and San Francisco. The main character is the demigod Nerites (son of Neptune) who has been cursed to orally service bathhouse patrons for eternity. The villain of the book is his sadistic half-brother Obsidio, son of Pluto, whose kiss is fatal and who serves as a metaphor for AIDS. The climax, a confrontation of the two half-brothers—eros and thanatos—is suspenseful and moving. Cardamone's gritty, gorgeous prose elevates the book above the pornographic subject matter, and he includes a postscript that cites the erotic novels that inspired him.
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I enjoyed this book quite a bit! The end slowed down some which knocked some points off for me but I still enjoyed the narrative and sexy prose! A very fun read!
