Love Junkie by Robert Plunket

Some books vanish from the shelves only to become legends. This is one of them.

Adored by the likes of Amy Sedaris, Madonna (who optioned the film rights), and the legendary editor Gordon Lish, Love Junkie is Robert Plunket’s cult novel of the heady heyday of gay New York at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic. Scandalously long out of print, it’s now gloriously reissued for a whole new generation of readers to discover.

Meet Mimi Smithers. A modern-day Emma Bovary, she’s a fortyish suburban housewife with an eye for décor and big dreams of hosting lavish cocktail parties. Reflecting on her time in Tehran with her Union Carbide executive husband, she muses, “In the waning months of the Shah’s regime, entertaining became more and more difficult. Hams—always a problem in Islamic countries—were as rare as hen’s teeth.”

After a Westchester party for Mrs. Rockefeller goes wonderfully wrong, Mimi tumbles into a funk. And then? Life takes a turn. She stumbles down into the gay rabbit hole of Manhattan and Fire Island society, meets Joel, a porn star with a chest “as smooth as a Ken doll,” and starts helping him run a rather lucrative mail-order business. That’s where her real adventures begin.

It’s wickedly funny. It’s tender. It’s unlike anything else on the shelf.

So pull up a chair, listen to the gulls outside, and let Mimi pull you into her world. This is the kind of book you’ll press into a friend’s hands the moment you finish the last page. A true rediscovered gem, waiting for you to find it.

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