veronica-rich:

npr:

American novelist Christopher Bollen has been awarded this year’s “Bad Sex in Fiction” award, in recognition of a sex scene from his novel The Destroyers that read in part: “The skin along her arms and shoulders are different shades of tan like water stains in a bathtub.”

The following sentence is a little spicy for NPR, but suffice to say that the narrator compares his own anatomy to a “billiard rack.”

Those ill-advised analogies earned Bollen the dubious honor of being granted the Bad Sex in Fiction award by the Literary Review. The prize was announced on Thursday; Bollard “was unable to attend the ceremony,” the Literary Review writes.

Bollen beat out stiff competition for this year’s prize. Laurent Binet described a graphic action taken by a “mouth-machine”; Venetia Welby used the phrase “diabolical torso”; Wilbur Smith used blurred watercolors as a metaphor for sexual congress.

But Bollen’s beachside scene won out.

‘Bad Sex In Fiction’ Award Goes To Novelist Who Compared Skin To Stained Bathtub

Photo: Robert Easton/Flickr

And yet, so many fanfic writers can’t get publishing contracts.