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My zero-to-fling with great prejudice occurred on PAGE ONE of Murder at the ABA by Isaac Asimov, temptingly blurbed "sudden death at the publishing world's glittering annual convention." How could that premise, written by a publishing veteran like Asimov, be anything other than delightful?
Here is how. Remember: page one.
She was scheduled to face the members of the press at 4:00 PM and she had to decide what to wear. There, it seems to me as I try to reconstruct her motives in my own mind, she was faced by a dilemma. On the one hand, she was young and good-looking and had a body in which all parts fell smoothly into place, so she had the natural desire to display said body to the world. On the other hand, she was a feminist, and the book she was pushing was feminist, and there was the possibility that to use the lure of the body to promote the book would be a non-feminist thing to do.
I don't know whether she hesitated at all; or if she did, how long. I don't know if she tried on different dresses or settled the matter by pure reason in her mind.
The point is that she ended with a white dress which, above the waistline, was made up of generous swatches of open network, and under it she had above the waistline nothing at all but her own gorgeous self. When she remained in repose, her breasts remained safely behind the small, strategically placed opaque sections. When she raised an arm, as she might, the dress hiked up on that side and one nipple went peek-a-boo.
He then goes on to say that if she'd dressed more modestly, maybe she'd still be alive. However, I will never know how her peek-a-breast caused her death, because that book is now in the "donate" box, there to titillate or appall some unsuspecting reader who, like me, was presumably expecting something different.
Here is how. Remember: page one.
She was scheduled to face the members of the press at 4:00 PM and she had to decide what to wear. There, it seems to me as I try to reconstruct her motives in my own mind, she was faced by a dilemma. On the one hand, she was young and good-looking and had a body in which all parts fell smoothly into place, so she had the natural desire to display said body to the world. On the other hand, she was a feminist, and the book she was pushing was feminist, and there was the possibility that to use the lure of the body to promote the book would be a non-feminist thing to do.
I don't know whether she hesitated at all; or if she did, how long. I don't know if she tried on different dresses or settled the matter by pure reason in her mind.
The point is that she ended with a white dress which, above the waistline, was made up of generous swatches of open network, and under it she had above the waistline nothing at all but her own gorgeous self. When she remained in repose, her breasts remained safely behind the small, strategically placed opaque sections. When she raised an arm, as she might, the dress hiked up on that side and one nipple went peek-a-boo.
He then goes on to say that if she'd dressed more modestly, maybe she'd still be alive. However, I will never know how her peek-a-breast caused her death, because that book is now in the "donate" box, there to titillate or appall some unsuspecting reader who, like me, was presumably expecting something different.