If you’re not familiar with the Bad Sex in Literature Awards, you’re missing out. Every year, the Literary Review (U.K.) selects some of the worst-written sex scenes in literature and excerpts them for the enjoyment(?) of readers. Then they choose a “winner.” Normally, the Bad Sex Awards aren’t fodder for us here at Crime HQ, despite how funny we may find them. But this year, a couple of our own peeps, Lee Child and Stephen King are on the list. Here are their “entries.”
Stephen King, from 11.22.63:
She was wearing jeans. The fabric whispered under my palm. She leaned back and her head bonked on the door. “Ouch!” I said. “Are you all right?”
(The editors of the Literary Review found this hilarious and wondered whether King knew that bonked in the UK meant boinked. Since it also means that in the US, we are pretty sure he does.)
Lee Child, from The Affair:
Faster, harder, faster, harder. The room began to shake. Just faintly at first, like a mild constant tremor, like the edge of a far distant earthquake. The French door trembled in its frame. A glass rattled on the bathroom shelf. The floor quivered. The hall door creaked and shuttered. My shoes hopped and moved. The bedhead hammered against the wall. The floor shook hard. The walls boomed. Coins in my abandoned pocket tinkled.
Now, I doubt either of these guys will get the actual prize. Some of the other contestants have hard-to-top entries, but you never know. (For the entire shortlist, see the HuffPo UK.) We wish them luck, whatever that means in this case!
Most of Child’s writing is pedestrian, so it’s no surprise that his sex scenes are considered ridiculous.