In Eve’s Delight (a state Sandy, the Eve in the book, constantly aspires to, but finds impossible to reach without dejectedly resorting to her vibrator), a thirty-something art critic with a teenage daughter endures a unsatisfactory and unsatisfying marriage with low-earning couch potato Steve. Sandy, egged on by her therapist, reluctantly tries to set up an affair with some other man who will satisfy her. She lets Steve in on her plan, but Steve wants to hang on to her. The rest of the book charts the resulting series of embarrassments. Half way through we find a very different rendering of Plato’s Retreat when compared to Jeremy Leven’s take in Satan. Sandy’s male companion is a German, Ernst, who has approached her party at the entrance to ask her to let him escort her inside. ‘They do not let men in alone, you see.’ Sandy gives in. She notices the many rules: ‘Before they were admitted, everything was done in a completely methodological fashion. They had to sign a release form saying they were not prostitutes. (…) Then she was instructed by the management that since she had come with this man she had to leave with him.’ Ernst’s mouth has a Humpty-Dumpty look which she finds ‘comically unattractive.’ The place isn’t much more attractive either, ‘like nothing but a rather tacky health club with a regulation pool, a whirlpool bath, saunas and some cheap indoor-outdoor carpeting. There were utilitarian picnic chairs and tables near a big table laden with food. (…) The last thing Sandy had come to Plato’s Retreat for was food. “Maybe I’ll have drink.” – “No alcohol here,” Ruth answered.’ Things remain unattractive. ‘Men with full-fledged erections were jumping into the swimming pool.’ Ernst and Sandy go into one of the orgy rooms to watch people couple, but Sandy is just put off. Skip forward. Ernst makes some timid attempts to stroke her leg, which leaves her cold. ‘If anything, his presence made her feel worse. She wondered If the right man would have made her feel different.’ Sandy wants to get out. ‘Her German friend sighed softly, then dutifully followed her out.’ There is a lot of such tepidness and unpleasantness, and the prose does not put any spin on this material. Each dull sentence seems to nudge out a little dent for the next dull sentence. It is not entirely clear if this a conscious choice: an ironic exercise in redundancy, or just a rather lacklustre style.