Nude Men: A Novel

by Amanda Filipacchi

Book Overview

Jeremy Acidophilus's life is going nowhere, until he meets a beautiful woman in a coffee shop. Lady Henrietta paints new nude men and wants Jeffrey to pose for her. But things get complicated when Henrietta's precocious, voluptuous 11-year-old daughter seduces Jeremy.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670847852
• ISBN13: 9780670847853
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Viking
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

guilty pleasure...

I felt guilty and twisted for being so wrapped up in Nude Men. I found it at a thrift shop and picked it up solely based on the cover, and the name of course! And then to hear it's out of print... what a lucky find! The story is engulfing, the characters come to life with Amanda Filipacchi's comfortable writing style and there wasn't a single page that didn't make my jaw drop in complete disbelief. Throughout the book I was morbidly intrigued by the plot... as said before: Disturbing. Not a book for everyone, but I totally enjoyed it! I look forward to checking out other works by Filipacchi.

Not for everyone but definitely for me!

I can't say enough about the beautiful imaginative writing in Nude Men. For a first time novel, the story is a page-turner. I found it to be brilliant, clever and wonderfully surreal. The characters are warm and sympathetic-especially the protagonist, Jeremy Acidopholus (yes, like the active yogurt culture). What more can I say? This book made me laugh out loud. Amanda Filapacchi is a writer gifted with the ability to paint a vivid world of intriguing characters and bizarre situations. I'm sad that this book is out of print.

Wonderfully Brilliant and Full of Yogurt

I read this book quite a few years ago and I LOVED this book. It has stuck out in my head forever. I lost my origional copy and couldnt find it ANYWHERE! And now I have. This book, unlike any others,is a book that I can read over and over and over again. I highly reccomend this book. This is a book you can lose yourself in and come out of with a totally different perspective on life and reality. I would thoroughly love to be able to correspond with the author as i find her utterly compelling her mind must be a vast land of stories and humor. READ THIS BOOK!

Still one of my very favorites....

Review updated 2/25/2007 I picked up Nude Men right after reading Vapor. I was enamored with Amanda Filipacchi and her surrealistic comedy and had to read everything she'd written. I was lucky to have found Nude Men at a bookstore because the book was out of print shortly after. It has been seven years since I first read this book and I still marvel at Filipacchi's dark humor, magic realism and philosophical insights whenever I reread this novel. This is the story of Jeremy Acidophilus, a twenty-nine-year-old loser with low self-esteem, a nagging girlfriend and a job at an entertainment magazine where he gets no respect. Amid his misery, he receives an interesting offer from a beautiful woman he meets at a diner: a painter of nude men, and she wants him to be her next subject. Jeremy thinks he's found the woman of his dreams, but it is Sarah, the woman's eleven-year-old daughter, who ends up seducing him. The novel is both disturbing and endearing. Disturbing because the author and the interesting characters and world she creates push you beyond the level of your comfort zone. Filipacchi makes you think and see the logic in the illogical. But these things are also endearing because they are told with an irresistibly ironic tone that isn't lost on the reader. Whenever I read her books I feel like I'd like to sit down and have a chat with this author over coffee. She must be a very interesting person. Based on the synopsis, some people may think that this novel is similar to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, but it is not, it is a story all its own. My favorite parts are the ones in Disney world -- with Jeremy's mother hitting on men and Sarah playing word games. I still laugh out loud after having read this book dozens of times. I also love the ending because it is so dark, ironic and disturbing that it leaves you thinking longer after you've done reading it. And even though some readers may find Jeremy's actions inconceivable or unacceptable, you still feel a great deal of sympathy for the character because the author does an amazing job with character study and mixing things up with keen humor. All in all, I adore Nude Men (no pun intended). This is a must read for those who enjoy comic surrealistic and thought provoking novels. I also recommend the other books by this author: Vapor and Love Creeps. Good luck finding Nude Men at an used bookstore though, or you can wait for a reprint. I still have the same copy I bought by chance seven years ago and I'm not letting go of it any time soon.

A Sudden and Overwhelming Surprise

Really a brilliantly funny and intelligent book