They Whisper

This review is for the Penguin Books paperback edition published in 1995. This is an incredible story. In 1994, it was on USA Today's bestseller list for three weeks, peaking at 105. Perhaps the puritanical hangover that plagues the righteous majority impeded its ascendancy, or maybe too many browsers, thumbing a fast flip two or three times noticed very little white, too many pages square with solid blocks of type, some all italics, some sentences so long nary a period for a page or two, and no chapters either, no place to stop and go pee, decided they'd rather not and tucked the book back on the shelf. Indeed, it took me about forty pages to get comfortable with the writing style. THEY WHISPER is the first person narrative of Ira Holloway, an erogenous and sensitive man who loves women, who finds rapturous beauty in the crinkle of an instep as easily as in "her henna nipples" (pg. 300) or the "soft sargasso struck with this same sunlight there between her legs" (pg 308). Ira is so sensitive and responsive that he hears the ethereal whispers of a woman's thoughts. Mr. Butler does not push this phenomenon on the reader, he just lets it happen, and we accept it as a necessary device for Ira to adopt an omnipresent point of view in order to tell his story. The whispering, along with the long runs of indirect and interior dialogue, interior monologue and stream of consciousness without chapters, at times feels like automatic writing but it eventually captivates. Around page 149 the story was dragging, but recovered enough until page 192 when I wanted to quit, and then on page 193 I sensed the shadow of tragedy and kept on going. I'm glad I did. Ira and his whispering women touch first on a nebulous relationship between sexuality and death, sexuality and fear, and then delve into sexuality and jealousy and particularly sexuality and religion. For his incredible sentience, Ira seems a larger than life character. He loves women and respects them; he perceives them precisely and is therefore able to respond in word or deed without risk of presumption or failure. If we were all like Ira and his whispering women, we truly would be making love instead of war. A few caveats. The timeline is tough. Mr. Butler swirls his tale around in a 25-year period from 1955 when Ira is ten to 1980 when he is 35. You have to keep in mind that the "present" is supposedly 1980. Then, on page 223, Ira says, "Now in my thirty-sixth year." There are 37 proper names in THEY WHISPER, and some of these are caught in the swirl of events, popping in and out of Ira's head. Some names you might forget, and the pages on which they first appear, are Karen Granger (1), Sam or Samantha (60) Amanda (96) Tran Thi Hoa (111), and Rebecca Mueller (117).

Worth the read just for the prose. Butler is the current king of erotic literature, with an ability to write it out so that you feel every single nuance of his desires.

I have loaned this book to many female friends. I am amazed at the number who return it unread. They have no clue to the sumptuous secrets that are revealed.

Butler tells a great story here, as in all his books, but this one stands out for his best use of the language. It is quite erotic, but also bespeaks deep empathy with a beloved woman slowly going mad. An unusually successful attempt by a male author to hear women's thoughts.

The way men approach sex is very different from the way women approach it, and Butler epitomizes the male approach. A little bit predatory, a little crude, with not a small amount of self-centeredness and condescension, Butler writes lovingly of the smells, tastes and heat of sex. His tales of pursuit and conquest are the closest thing in print to a real affair. He genuinely loves women -- all women -- and his desire to possess all of them is startlingly real and musky.