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She tipped her head sideways, her lips offering themselves to his. He remembered the fire those lips contained, the promise her kiss held. . . . In 1962 David Carkeet's drowsy hometown of Sonora, California, snapped awake at the news that it had inspired a smutty potboiler titled Campus Sexpot. Before leaving town on short notice, the novel's author had been an English teacher at the local high school, where Carkeet was a hormone-saturated sophomore. Leaving was a good idea, it turned out, for most of the characters in Campus Sexpot had been modeled after Sonora's citizens.Carkeet uproariously recaptures his stunned, youthful reaction to the novel's sleazy take on his hometown. The innocent nowhere burg where he despaired of ever getting any "action" became, in the pages of Campus Sexpot, a sink of iniquity echoing with "animal cries of delight." Blood pounded, dams of passion broke, and marriages and careers--not to mention the basics of good writing--went straight to hell.As Carkeet relates his own romantic fumblings to the novel's clumsy twists and turns, he also evokes the urgently hushed atmosphere in which the book circulated among friends and neighbors. Eventually, Carkeet stumbles into adulthood, where he discovers a truer definition of manhood than the one in the pages of the pulp fiction of his youth. A wry look at middle-class sexual mores and a witty appreciation of the art of the hack novel, Carkeet's memoir is, above all, a poignant and hilarious coming-of-age story sure to revive our own bittersweet teenage memories.
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this page intentionally left blank Campus Sexpot Campus Sexpot rk e a C d D av i y b r oi A Mem THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS Athens and London et Published by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 © 2005 by David Carkeet All rights reserved Set in 10 on 16 Scala Printed and bound by Maple-Vail The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the United States of America 09 08 07 06 05 c 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carkeet, David. Campus sexpot : a memoir / by David Carkeet. p. cm. “Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction.” isbn 0-8203-2755-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Carkeet, David—Childhood and youth. 2. Carkeet, David—Homes and haunts—California—Sonora. 3. Novelists, American—20th century—Biography. 4. Sonora (Calif.)—Social life and customs. 5. Fiction—Authorship. I. Title. ps3553.a688z464 2005 813'.54—dc22 2005008514 isbn-13 978-0-8203-2755-6 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available Portions of this memoir first appeared in the Oxford American, St. Louis Magazine, and River Styx. Winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the early readers of this memoir for their suggestions and support: Barbara Carkeet, Laurie Carkeet, Anne Carkeet, Carole Carlson, Ross Carkeet Jr., John Dalton, Roger Hart, Gwen Hart, Gerry Corneau, and Jessica Corneau. For enriching my memories of these events with their own, I give special thanks to Roger Francis, Larry Leonard, Clint Paxton, Bob Finnegan, Colleen Finnegan, Al Martinelli, Jose Maciel, and Colleen Bill. Several editors and writers have encouraged me in my nonfiction work, whether they know it or not: Suzannah Lessard, Joseph Epstein, Michael Caruso, Marc Smirnoff, Jeff Baker, Harper Barnes, Julia Hanna, Robert Hartwell Fiske, Robert Atwan, Glenn Stout, and Robert Bostelaar. Many thanks to the Association of Writers and Writing Program