Amo: The Feminist Centerfold From Outer Space - Paperback

by Alice Denham (Author)

Alice Denham's AMO is an amazing carnival of juicy sex, humor and horror, and lofty planetary ideals. The title character is a liberated alien who visits Earth to teach spaced-out sex and equality. She confronts Mal the homicidal revolutionary, Benno the hilarious Mafioso, Whit the insane psychoanalyst, and Pelf the nudie publisher. First she must fight off a nutcase who is choking her to death. Ms. Magazine said, "Denham writes better about sex than anyone." Newsweek called AMO "Tough and witty." Library Journal called its heroine "a superwoman in this super saga" and called AMO "a women's liberation classic." A New York Press feature story/interview described it this way: "The cult novel, AMO, bubbles with pop art fantasy. A work ripe for resurrection." First published in 1974 by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, AMO became a cult favorite soon after it appeared. This edition includes the entire original text.

Author Biography

Alice Denham (1927-2016) was the highly-praised author of the memoirs Sleeping With Bad Boys and Secrets of San Miguel, the novels AMO and My Darling from the Lions, and many stories and articles. She is the only Playboy Playmate who ever had a short story and a centerfold feature published in the same issue of Playboy magazine. Her short story was made into a festival prizewinning movie. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina in 1949, she won a scholarship to the University of Rochester. After graduate school she headed to New York City. According to the New York Times, "A stunning beauty with a talent for repartee, she made her way easily into Manhattan's literary salons." She was a founding member of the National Organization for Women. In order to make time to write, she modeled in photo shoots for magazines, novels, comic strips, movie posters, and photography clubs. She acted in low-budget films. Her Bad Boys memoir describes affairs with the actor James Dean, Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, and authors James Jones, William Gaddis, Evan S. Connell, Philip Roth. Alice's literary publications and family papers are being preserved in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC Chapel Hill.