Cover image: Szinyei Merse, Lovers (detail, 1869)

Herb ’n’ Lorna

“The novel is all about sex, and sex, in Herb 'n' Lorna, means everything in life that is good — craft and art and imagination and hard work and humor and friendship and skill and curiosity and loyalty and love.”
 
      Cathleen Schine
      The New York Times Book Review (front page review)

Peter Leroy investigates and reconstructs the life stories of his maternal grandparents, Herb and Lorna Piper.

On the surface, Herb and Lorna seem to be a typically sunny 1950s American couple. Herb sells Studebakers to the citizens of Babbington, a Long Island seaside town, and Lorna is his cheerfully coy and clever wife. Their story seems like an American myth: small-town origins, Jazz Age romance, Depression trials, postwar prosperity.

However, this book begins with Peter Leroy’s discovery, after Herb and Lorna have died, “that my maternal grandparents were involved in—virtually the creators of—the animated erotic jewelry industry.” From that moment, the story takes on a tone of mingled awe and delight, propelled by a pair of secrets that dovetail, at the end, into a luscious and bawdy revelation.

“A beautiful book.”
      Marc Munroe Dion, The Kansas City Star

“A wonderful love story.”
      Lisa Jensen, San Francisco Chronicle

“Funny, raunchy, and clever.”
      Justin Kaplan

“Nothing short of brilliant.”
      Armistead Maupin

“Wonderfully odd, comically rich.”
      Anne Bernays

“A funny, sexy story told with consummate skill.”
      Malcolm Jones, Jr., The St. Petersburg Times

“It restores the blush of youth.”
      Barbara Holliday, The Detroit Free Press

“Wise and humorous, affectionate and witty.”
      Publishers Weekly

“There aren’t enough adjectives to praise this delightfully generous storyteller. Herb ’n’ Lorna is a classic. Savor it.”
      Andrei Codrescu, National Public Radio

“Kraft es, en mi opinion, un maestro.”
      Robert Saladrigas, La Vanguardia (Barcelona)

“One of the undiscovered gems of recent American fiction: a romance of uncommon tenderness and complexity, a work of prodigious comic invention—and a damn sexy book.”
      Jim Ridley, Nashville Scene

RECOMMENDED BY THE READER’S CATALOGUE

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR (1988)

Copyright © 2008 by Eric Kraft. All rights reserved. Photograph by Eric Kraft.