Manny Lesko

About the Book

Manon in modern dress

In the 1950's Terry Southern burlesqued Voltaire's Candide, a send-up of Enlightenment-era optimism. The story of an ingenue braving a world of male sexual predators, Candy became a cult-classic, despite its initial and unpropitious reception: It was banned in France under its original title, Lollipop, and was also banned in the U.S.

Times and tastes change, ages-old hypocrisies remain. A generation later, Manny Lesko, or The Erotic History of Estelle Francine Antoinette Chevalier, derives its burlesque inspiration from L'Abbe Prevost's classic romance, Manon Lescaut. Call it a Manon Transmogrified, Prevost's heroine is re-inscribed as Manny Lesko, "the most beautiful azure-eyed bipartisan on the planet." A send-up of gender politics-parts switched, to put it indelicately-Manny Lesko is a triple threat concoction of romance, social satire, and memoir. A true and twisted tale of the American Nineties, and "going forward."

About the Author

Lilly Paige White is variously reincarnated in multiple works of fiction, including The Last Carnival, Satyricon 1990, Stay of Sentence, and The Cold Zone. Hedging her career bets, (s)he is an independent international business consultant to investors in emerging nations, with an MBA from the The School of Hard Knocks.