Helpful Score: 2
Reading Obsession is like dining at a fancy restaurant. First there's the anticipation from the buzz: "Octogenarian heiress with a history of four marriages and affairs with notable men writes an erotic novel." Priscilla Bingham loses her famous architect husband Talbot at their tenth anniversary party to a massive heart attack, only to find among his papers letters wrapped in magenta grosgrain ribbon from his maitresse. A mysterious, sensual women named Bee had been chosen by Talbot from an exclusive sex club to "organize his erotica" from the palatial compound he built for her; her letters detail the pleasures of their kinky sex life. Priscilla, sexually tepid at best, becomes obsessed with Bee, who may or may not be a figment of her own imagination, or she of Bee's. Then there's the ambience -- all the kinky details are presented tastefully, in lavish, lush language that ushers one into a world where exotic things happen simply because the extremely wealthy wills it. Yet what does Vanderbilt--who identifies herself with Bee in the New York Times Book Review interview--really say about love, obsession, sex and the imagination? While it was an extravagant experience, this novella by the mother of CNN newscaster Anderson Cooper isn't very substantively filling.
