Dr. Sex

[Andrew Gifford]

Way back in the early 90's, Pagan Kennedy was one of my favorite authors.  To this day, I still give folks a copy of  Pagan Kennedy's Living as a housewarming present. 

I've followed her career ever since and, now, come next September, I'm thrilled to be publishing what she describes as her "dream project." 

The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories is a collection of nonfiction essays originally published in newspapers and magazines as diverse as Details, New York Times Magazine, and Boston Globe Magazine. The essays in the book portray the lives of striving Americans, each trying--in his or her own unique way--to make the country and the world a better place.

In one essay, an aging scientist--a survivor of Japanese internments camps in California during WWII--seeks to bring water to the desert of drought-stricken Eritrea. In another, students at MIT struggle to make biodiesel fuels a better, more efficient means of powering cars. And in the title essay, the strange life of sexologist Alex Comfort, author of the bestselling The Joy of Sex, is brought to the public for the very first time. In each of these tales, Kennedy mines the odd, eccentric dreams of iconoclastic America--and shows us how a group of vibrant, future-thinking individuals can remake the country in the 21st Century.