By Karyn Bosnak (B.A. ’96)
[Harper, 2006. 368 pages, $13.95 paperback]
Reviewed by Elizabeth Burke-Dain
Have you ever wanted to go back and visit all the people you’ve slept with to find out if you might want to marry one of them? I haven’t, but Delilah Darling, the narrator of 20 Times a Lady, has.
After reading the results of a sex survey in The New York Post that says, “The average person has 10.5 sexual partners in their lifetime,” Delilah decides that she must take control of her life. She knows that she’s easy. However, having slept with 20 men (twice the average!), she is dangerously close to making the transition from easy to sleazy.
To avoid sleeping with another 20 men to find Mr. Right, Delilah decides to revisit this unseemly trough to reassess if any of the old cache will pass muster. The reader wonders if it will be Rod the Con; Wade the Muppeteer for Christ; Roger the Boss, who wears braided belts and the not-so-fresh trousers; Ian, who has a penchant for older ladies; or any of the other dysfunctional duds she encounters on her Homeric cross-country odyssey through past romances.
A chance encounter with a new tenant in her building, Colin, gets the ball rolling. Colin is young, has “great abs,” is fresh off the boat from Ireland (so he has a cute accent), and just happens to be the nephew of a successful private detective in New York. Colin has come to the Big Apple to follow in his uncle’s footsteps. While trying to keep her eyes off of Colin’s abs, Delilah enlists his services to help her track down “a few people from her past.” She doesn’t want him to know that he’s investigating a list of men she has boffed over the years. Plus, flirting with Colin could only lead to yet another man on her list, and the road to Slutsville is paved with guys like Colin.
Re-experiencing these men with Delilah Darling is like watching somebody who decides that the expiration date on the milk carton is wrong and gulps it down anyway. You want to run after her in slow-mo screaming, “Noooooo!” It’s funny.
Meanwhile, Colin the detective takes pleasure in watching these events unfold. The reader soon realizes what Delilah doesn’t: Colin will be the one she’ll get in the end. Colin is the pot of gold, but he’s also number 21, and her entrée into self-described slutdom. But in high romantic style, it turns out that the one who loves us is the one who will take us despite our impure ways. Think Mary Magdelen, Eliza Doolittle, Hester Prynne, and all the strumpets of old. Now all we can do is sit back and wait for Drew Barrymore and Colin Farrell to play them in the movie.
