Reviews of three new books.   Come Hither:A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex by Dr. Gloria G. Brame (Fireside, 320 pages, $13) YOU CAN TRY HARD A resource for wannabe kinksters, slave hopefuls and optimistic dominants, Come Hither is a guidebook to the world of safe, sane and consensual sex. Brame reviews cross-dressing and infantilism and includes a minor catalog of fetishists, from "balloon buddies" to vaccination-scar enthusiasts. However, her main expertise (and experience) is in the burgeoning field of domination and submission. Brame kicks things off by issuing a sexual bill of rights, then describes the causes of kink and administers certain "tests" (relax, they're Cosmo-style) to judge your Kink Quotient and Kink Readiness. She then attacks the really difficult subjects, such as how to find a kinky date; how to use equipment so it doesn't numb or maim your partner for life; how to navigate the tricky path between individual desire and social stigma; how to start a conversation with a dungeon dom without offending him or her with your lame neophyte bartalk. Hers is a playful, albeit frank, discussion of day-to-day practicalities. It's not always so sexy when Brame reminds us that wounds caused by D&S are judged no differently from assault and battery in the U.S. court system, that not every partner is happily surprised by latex body suits, and that not all doms know what they're doing. For fantasy, you're better off visiting her Web links at www.gloria-brame.com/love8.htm. But political cant and conversion are largely left to others and Brame addresses herself to the pretty-much-OK-with-it (even if they aren't yet active). A useful how-to for beginniners, and a worthwhile review for experienced players. Suey Chow   A Life on the Stage: A Memoir by Jacob Adler translated by Lulla Rosenfeld (Knopf, 386 pages, $30) DUCATS AND FLESH The story of Yiddish theater is perhaps one of the most interesting histories in the annals of the stage, though little has been written about it. It was born during the Russo-Turkish War when three Russian Jews, a poet, a bierkeller singer and a con-man collided in Romania. The theater they founded unleashed an explosion of creativity, which soon spread throughout Europe and beyond. No one did more to raise the standard of Yiddish theater than Jacob Adler, and his memoir (finally published in English 70 years after his death) details the trials and tribulations he and other Jewish artists endured to keep the young theater movement alive. Adler's memoir is the history of that movement, which carries the reader from stage triumphs to the brutality of the pogrom. After a directive against Yiddish theater was promulgated by the Czar, Adler and his small band of players fled to New York. Broadway at the turn of the 19th century was little different than at the turn of the 20th, where musical spectacles and melodramas reigned. But on the Lower East Side, Adler's struggling Yiddish theater was soon noticed by serious critics who believed that his company was producing the finest work in New York, something Adler writes about with great pride. So respected was Adler as an actor that he played a sympathetic Shylock on Broadway in Yiddish surrounded by an English-speaking cast, becoming the first Jew to take on the role. For artists, his life is a lesson in perseverance. For readers of history, Adler's stark evocation of Czarist Russia, with first-hand accounts of the pogroms, creates a powerful narrative. But most of all, this remarkably honest memoir--translated and superbly edited by his granddaughter Lulla Rosenfeld--reveals how much serious theater in America owes the Yiddish theater. Steffen Silvis   The Museum at Purgatory by Nick Bantock (HarperCollins, 114 pages, $25) HALFWAY HOUSE As divine comedians know, the afterlife isn't limited to heaven and hell. There's a liminal place called Purgatory, here imagined as a surreal city where the newly deceased mull over their lives. In his latest book, the author of the Griffin & Sabine trilogy constructs his vision of Purgatory through a catalog of its museum and the curator/narrator's personal story. Since Purgatory is a mutating world where no one sleeps, it's a good thing there's a place like the museum where a dead guy can stretch his legs while ruminating on his life's mistakes. The galleries are named for the people who created the collections, either bringing the objects from life or creating them during long days in Purgatory. The Gazio Room is filled with shrines and navigational boxes that travel addict Lizbeth Gazio built while waiting to continue her journey beyond Purgatory--it taught her patience. Garrick Nathius spent his life competing with his internal twin brother, a perfectly preserved, lifeless fetus lodged in his right lung. His collection of games represents his competitive quest for the perfect game with which to beat his ever-present opponent. He eventually realizes the error of his ways. Yet Bantock's comic and rich psycho-Babelian prose pales next to the visuals. The remarkable images in the book provoke both a casual, page-flipping wonder at his imagination ("Where does he get this stuff?") and an intense curiosity about the objects' provenance ("Where the hell does he get this stuff?"). Bantock's heirlooms are so bizarre that they steal the show from his very original story. We can only hope the afterlife is as kooky as Bantock describes. Susan Wickstrom   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published January 26, 2000