“Bending gender and conventional notions about love and marriage, Searle’s bold and beautiful book reaches right past the sensationalism of a love triangle to offer us an intense and moving portrait of the different ways people can connect.” Booklist
- Finalist, ALA Award
- Soon to be a feature film
Alice and JJ are in love, and it’s Alice’s first time.
Amid their tender revelations of intimacy, JJ’s former stint in a mental institution comes to light, as well as his sexual relationships with Bird, a young woman, and with Kin, who Alice later learns is a man. It was a three-way love that saved his life. When Bird and Kin reenter JJ’s and Alice’s life — Kin now living with AIDS — Alice must redefine the meaning and the boundaries of love.
Praise for A Four-Sided Bed
“Bending gender and conventional notions about love and marriage, Searle’s bold and beautiful book reaches right past the sensationalism of a love triangle to offer us an intense and moving portrait of the different ways people can connect.” Booklist
“Elizabeth Searle stretches the angles of friendship, the lines of love and the curves of lust… Her elegant prose and anything-but-PC gender play are pleasing to the mind and to the loins.” The Boston Phoenix
“In clipped poetic language, Searle skillfully unwinds a psychosexual narrative.” New York Times Book Review
“[An] intense, deeply moving first novel… Unusually intelligent exploration of sexuality…” Publishers Weekly
“Erotically charged… A moving meditation on loyalty and love.” Seattle Times
“Elizabeth Searle’s fiction is a physical experience.” Christopher Tilghman
“A powerful, unsettling first novel… A bright, distinctive, haunting debut.” Kirkus