The Wrestling Party

by Bett Williams

A raucous mixture of cultural criticism and erotic tell-all, this is in-the-field journalism that reads like a novel you can't put down. In an era marked by social isolation and paint-by-number... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555837859
• ISBN13: 9781555837853
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Alyson Books
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Hilarious, honest, true to life, sadly underappreciated

I was doing random subject searches at the library and came across this. Although early on it is full of passages that seem completely "lesbian only", it quickly turns into the reminiscences of a slacker 30something Angeleno doing rather funny and mundane things. Williams has some startlingly spot on points, and the sexiness of the title will drown out some of the more intimate, quiet moments. Some good lines are: It seems odd then, at age thirty-one, after years of hiding out in dark bars where guys named Jimmy tell stories of `Nam, and after deprogramming myself from using words like "energy," I chose to move back to my hometown of Santa Barbara, California. The New Age, just another unseemly `80s subculture, had disappeared, along with diagonal zippers and Milli Vanilli. I recently saw a documentary on dolphins. It turns out they're not the loving, spiritual creatures we thought they were. They are violent territorial animals driven by sex who will fight each other sometimes to the death and even kill their young. I was quite happy that these symbols of Californian New Age culture were not, after all, the cute baby golden retrievers of the marine world but in fact a bunch of seething hussies and wife-beaters. I watched the show religiously until I began having a series of dreams about Angela Chase. In one of them, she was washing her hair...in the school cafeteria. She began pulling scrolls of words out of her ears that she read out loud and every word was Ultimate Truth, more powerful than music. Thank you for carrying it, for carrying me. You never said to my face that you understood love mattered in just this way. But you showed up. Buy this book, and her other work too.

knock-down, drag-out fodder for your brain

The Wrestling Party will most likely be touted as a salacious lesbian extravaganza or pop culture commentary, but it's much more than that. Williams expertly pulls the reader in and drags us through her physical and mental worlds. Like all great writers, she remains vulnerable throughout. Whatever your gender, sexual orientation or body identity politics, this book is witty, tender and heartbreakingly romantic.