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Drinking, fighting, and cheating on her. Whatever! She’ll take him back like she’s done so many times before, right? As long as he can stay alive and out of prison long enough to prove he loves her.
Stephen, a connoisseur of 7-Eleven merlot and wild women, has the perfect life for a guy who is overloaded with prescription medications, suffering from rage and bipolar disorders, and on probation for the premeditated assault of a seedy porno producer. "…Red wine is served at room temperature and the floor around my bed is always room temperature."
Liza, his off-again, on-again fiancée is the only good in his forsaken life. She is book smart, but street dumb and willing to do anything to break into show business. Her poster-girl good looks and country-girl gullibility made her a perfect target for Nikolai, an aged porn star turned porn producer. Nikolai has tricked Liza into believing she is just filming a raunchy soap opera. He allowed her to fake-sex her way through the first half of the film, leading her to believe that fade-to-black means no real sex. Liza learns that in porn films, there are no special effects and the gooey white stuff isn’t dishwashing liquid mixed with baking soda. When she refuses to have real sex with the block-away ugly actor from a banned porn film called Really Big, she’s given a life-threatening ultimatum, and Stephen may be the only man who can save her.
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- ISBN13: 9780972714921- Condition: NEW
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By Chillyayo (NyC)
I think Stephen has come a long way since his debut novel "Confessions of a Womanizer". Furthermore, it seems as if he has found the right balance between the strong grammar he flexed in "Confessions of a Womanizer" by smoothing it out with a storyline. The novel is hilariously simple once you reach the second to last chapter. I like how he summed up everyone's predicament in a matter of a few paragraphs at the end. It's just like Stephen to have withheld the important part until the end. It always seemed as though Stephen was just leading the reader around, probably trying to cover up more of his lies, when we all knew how it would end all along.
To recap Stephen is a ex-boxer who's constantly in trouble with woman, the law and drinking. He rescues a woman whom he falls in love with. After that all hell breaks loose.
By S. Ryan (Baltimore, MD USA)
I picked this book for book club. I thought it would be quirky and different. From a black point of view but not the typical. Well this book was different, but all I got out of it was how to fight. There was so much fighting in this book, it just got on my nerves. I didn't finish the book and I was the host! This book just didn't keep me interested. I really tried to like it. It just jumped around too much from fight to fight, to the main character being thrown in jail, to his many sexscapades. Nobody read this book from my book club. I was kind of shamed that I picked it.
By Mahogany Book Club (Albany, N.Y.)
What a marvelously humorous and witty dialogue Stephen E. Chatman has endowed us with with his newest novel Cooking Bacon Naked. Throughout the meritorious depths of Cooking Chatman flaunts his stick-and-move philosophy, beguiling the reader with his flamboyant stunts as would the main event at Mandalay Bay. His epic storyline revolves around the lives of Stephen (an ex-boxer and guzzler of cheap Merlot with issues of grand proportions) and his love interest Liza, with notable appearances by Stephen's "other" women: Max, Melody and Rachel, the money-grubbing mother of his child.
As we each know, relationships and the maintaining of these relationships is often a 24-7 deal. (Ordeal in Stephen's case.) But what Chatman does is toss obstacles in the path of his protagonist's juggling routine, expecting him to maintain a perfect balance. This makes for hilarious entertainment: watching Stephen drop the balls and struggle to begin anew...
This brilliant melee is told from the perspective (or reality) of the male mind. And having the ability to gaze into the reality of what makes man tick is refreshingly well worth the read. As Chatman allows Stephen to stumble and trip over his often chauvinistic philosophy and fighter mentality, the reader is brought into that very reality. Thus is the skill of Chatman to entice with grand flare.
"Never let a guy come up behind you. You could get the life beat out of you," Stephen says frequently throughout Cooking, as if this is the most brilliant philosophy ever. In fact this philosophy is very reasonable. Though when considering how Chatman places Stephen in situations where the resolutions are so obvious to the reader - especially the female reader - "make sure your opponents gloves are in front of you" would suffice as a more plausible and respectable philosophy.
The repetition of that statement sets the mood for the hilarious scenarios and the laughable conversations we share with Stephen. This is what makes this novel truly special.
At one point in Cooking a hotheaded Stephen comes forth to do Max's bidding:
[pg. 67]
"So Max sent you? Max, Max, it's always Max. Answer me this," he quips.
Omar draws on his cigarette and exhales out of the corner of his mouth. Here it comes! I just knew he would blow the smoke in my face. That would have been majorly disrespectful and it's what I would have done, if I smoked...
Later in the menagerie we see another example of Stephen's great philosophy:
[pg. 115]
For years, the cronies took turns granting themselves big raises and fat-cat bonuses on top of bigger bonuses for their self-proclaimed vice-president titles. In my neighborhood, gang signs are flashed to identify your allegiance. Around the vice presidents, you gain allegiance by laughing heartily at anything they say that is an attempt at humor. Just to piss them off, I laugh as hard as I can before they even finish their joke. I suppose that's a form of reverse brown-nosing.
Chatman entices with his humor and stuns with the voracity of his truth. In one memorable scene Stephen is in jail after having punched a security guard in the nose for "being allergic to flashlights."
[pg. 149]
...Sometimes you have to ring a guy's bell to get him off your back. And if it's not the pervert, it's the convert who has spent his life stealing, beating and killing...but now wants to preach religion to me, while he awaits conviction for a quadruple homicide... This guy walks around with one of those picture bibles made for kids, since he can't even pronounce words on an eye chart. If you take the time to listen to his wild interpretations of the bible, you'll hear about Moses giving Eve an apple atop Mount Eden.
Humorous throughout without a doubt... And although the ending was a bit disappointing, what makes this novel such a rock amongst the sea of new literature is that Chatman doesn't shy away from taking risks. His "go-for-it" mentality really works wonders for the funnybone in all of us.
There are no if-ands-or-buts about it, if one fries up some bacon in his birthday-suit one is liable to get splashed by sizzling bacon grease. This analogy is likely the reason for the title Cooking Bacon Naked - one must be prepared to be splashed with Chatman's wit!
[...]
By Loose Leaves Book Review (Atlanta, GA USA)
It seems whenever the protagonist Stephen is determined to make the decision to tell Liza his feelings, he's either involved in a melee or he ends up sleeping with another woman. He can't keep his hands to himself or his penis in his pants. Those are just two of his downfalls; the others are his need for 7-Eleven brand merlots and his dependency on medication. His libations: Prozac café (coffee after taking Prozac) in the morning and a Lithium cocktail (a bottle of merlot after taking Lithium) in the evening.
Stephen gives recaps of all his adventures in first person singular. There are three sides to every story, yours, theirs and the truth...and this is Stephen's side of the truth. As an ex-boxer, he settles all disputes the old-fashioned way, with his fists. He's willing to fight anyone in Liza's honor. She is beautiful and men can't keep their eyes off her or their comments to themselves. That's disrespectful and the main reason Stephen doesn't have any male friends, except Hardy. It's time someone knew what drove him to this point. He wants you to know he can commit to Liza and agree to marry her. First, he has to stop his harem of women from throwing a monkey wrench in his plan when he least expects it. This may be his last opportunity to do it right. He was Liza's knight in shining armor and with every turn he's suddenly becoming the dark knight who should just go away.
It's like an amazing race to get to Liza and finally prove how much he loves her. Stephen's desperately trying to convince anyone who's willing to listen, how committed he can be to Liza. This is his last chance. He promises not to mess it up this time. The other times were just a test; this is the real thing, for real. After all the begging, pleading and fighting will Stephen finally get his woman, Liza?
Issues! That's what Stephen has. Chatman delivered this one with candor and a raw humor the average person may not get. It takes a certain level of wit to truly understand his sarcasm. I wanted him to digress but he wouldn't and I kept reading because the story is so addictive it kept me drawn into the drama. At some point you sympathize with this character. Other times you want to slap him and tell him to move the hell on. I really enjoyed this book. Many people would notice the title and ask, "What happens when you when you cook bacon naked?" Well the only obvious answer is: you may get burned.
Reviewed by Esther "Ess" Mays for Loose Leaves Book Review
By The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net)
Ever hear the expression, "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up way too much space?" Well, Stephen E. Chatman keeps his self-titled main character constantly hanging on for dear life. Fortunately, Stephen is the most charming bi-polar psychopath around. He is a retired prizefighter turned computer tech who finds himself constantly fighting guys who disrespect him. His "fight-first-and-ask-questions-later" attitude lands him on probation and in the bad graces of a gang of porn-producing Russians. He's also caught up in the mix with four influential women in his life: Liza, Max, Gigi and Rachel. Three are former lovers with unique significance and one is the love of his life. Although Stephen is a first-class ass, the reader can't help but cheer for him, even when it's clear he's about to screw himself again.
COOKING BACON NAKED is filled with raw sarcasm, graphic wit, gritty portrayals, and habitual violence. Stephen staggers through life in a merlot and drug induced haze as if he's not afraid of dying. And why should he be? His addiction and over-medication leave him feeling invincible and unaccountable for his actions. The effect is hypnotic. Chatman tells Stephen's story in the first person as if the character is sitting at the local watering hole swilling merlot and swapping lies. Chatman had the courage and foresight to leave himself room to bring Stephen back in a sequel to tantalize readers with more of his dysfunctional logic and questionable judgment. Undoubtedly, most readers would like a novel to end in a satisfying conclusion, but Stephen's life is just a little too complex to tie up in a predictable package. A commercial ending would not have fit the characterization. COOKING BACON NAKED is original, unapologetic, and crass; it will leave women rolling their eyes at the arrogance and men secretly wishing for a mental disorder as an excuse to act out.
Reviewed by Kim Anderson Ray
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers
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