Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad For Me

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A bacchanalian celebration of food and sex, Sarah Katherine Lewis? second memoir is rife with brazen declarations ("Who am I trying to kid? My whole life has been an ?experimental? phase, both sexually and culinarily.") A bisexual former porn star and model in Seattle, Lewis, 36, now transcribes business documents, work she equates to living in a Cathy cartoon, but her passion remains the pursuit of sybaritic pleasures. "I have eaten well," proclaims the size-12 peroxide blonde, seen brandishing a skillet on the cover, "and I have loved well, and I will joyfully do every bit of it again, over and over, until I am consumed." In between X-rated accounts with male and female lovers, she encourages women to relish fattening foods, take pride in their bodies, and to love completely. One chapter declares her fondness for Britney Spears, demonized for craving junk food when "every single one of us fights the same war, attempting to forge a tenuous d‚tente between what we want (everything) and what we?re supposed to want (nothing)." The book?s limitation, which she pinpoints, is its lack of plot; Lewis doesn?t render a story, but a portrait. Luckily, her personality easily fills 300 pages, and even at her most offensive, she is a spirited narrator. It was poet George Herbert who wrote, "You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat," and 400 years later, it?s Lewis, in between devouring family packages of bacon by herself, who describes wanting to bite into her boyfriend?s lip "like a Ball Park frank." Her exuberance turns her musings into an oddly addictive, if lowbrow, polemic. In Lewis? company, it?s hard to deny that her enjoyment of what she?s eating looks awfully good.