Lovers XXX

Rowbottom (Aesthetica) offers an intimate and kinetic tale of friendship and betrayal in the 1980s Los Angeles porn world. As teens, Jude and Winnie dream of escaping their backwater burb north of L.A., especially Winnie, who’s sexually abused by her stepfather. She runs away at 16 in 1980 and Jude follows two years later. In L.A., Jude shacks up with a slightly older guy named Laird in a seedy motel, doing heroin and pulling stick-up jobs. After Laird winds up in jail, Jude finds Winnie at a strip club. Her feelings for Winnie have never been strictly platonic, and she’s excited when they move in together. Winne doesn’t do porn (“those girls are tragic,” she tells Jude), but Jude tries it anyway, initially through Winnie’s boss, and believes she’s found “her destiny.” Soon Jude gets in deep, and after she makes a ruthless move, putting her career before the friendship, Winnie cuts ties. The novel’s second half, set 30 years later, revisits the events from Winnie’s perspective. Now a writer, she takes stock of what led to the friends’ break and the trouble she found in trying to make a life for herself. Rowbottom’s portrayal of the porn demimonde is exciting and gritty without feeling lurid, and the novel doubles as a moving ode to the value of a female friendship. It’s a knockout. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary. (June)