The Virginity of Famous Men, award-winning story writer Christine
Sneed's deeply perceptive collection on the human condition, features
protagonists attempting to make peace with the choices--both personal
and professional--they have so far made. In "The Prettiest Girls," a
location scout for a Hollywood film studio falls in love with a young
Mexican woman who is more in love with the idea of stardom than with
this older American man who takes her with him back to California.
"Clear Conscience" focuses on the themes of family loyalty, divorce,
motherhood, and whether "doing the right thing" is, in fact, always the
right thing to do. In "Beach Vacation," a mother realizes that her
popular and coddled teenage son has become someone she has difficulty
relating to, let alone loving with the same maternal fervor that once
was second nature to her. The title story, "The Virginity of Famous
Men," explores family and fortune. Long intrigued by love and
loneliness, Sneed leads readers through emotional landscapes both
familiar and uncharted. These probing stories are explorations of the
compassionate and passionate impulses that are inherent in--and often
the source of--both abiding joy and serious distress in every human
life.
