Sex, Lies and Pillow Talk

Newsweek, June, 2008 by Jessica Bennett

William Butler Yeats once said that sex and death are the only things that can interest a serious mind. If that’s the case, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler is one serious guy—and seriously clever. His last book, “Severance,” was told through the voices of recently severed heads. His latest, “Intercourse,” is about, well, sex— but it’s not erotica. It’s the inner monologues of coupling couples throughout history, all (OK, most) based on actual period research.

The Couple

Adolf Hitler

Inga Arvard

Robert F. Kennedy

Marilyn Monroe

Bill Clinton

Hillary Clinton

Santa Claus

An Elf

The Play-By-Play

The place: Berlin, 1935. Hitler’s office, during an interview with the reporter. “It was...