The Snide Sex Goddess Of 'Details' Magazine Has Her Own Book
By James DiGiovanna
ANKA RADAKOVICH IS responsible for much of the ease with which
Details magazine has been parodied in recent years. Her
slut-chic persona and shallow-sex posturing are often funny in
spite of her lame attempts at humor, and by now there are probably
computer programs with very few variables that can spit out a
"Mistress Anka" column that would be hard to tell apart
from an original Radakovich. Nonetheless, taken as pure trash,
there's something fun about this collection of essays, as Anka
tries so hard to be snide while hanging out with swingers, perverts,
nudists and her parents. There's even a fairly touching tale about
the winner of the "Win a Date With Anka" contest, who
initially seemed like an ideal love-god, and then started asking
Anka for the phone numbers of her available friends.
Perhaps the most telling section is Anka's trip to the nudist
colony; it contrasts nicely with the essay on the same subject
by NPR mainstay David Sedaris. Whereas Sedaris expected to find
a hotbed of licentiousness and instead saw only extremely unattractive
naked people with no interest in wildly rutting with him, Anka
was surrounded by ogling men whose conversation did little to
hide their erections. I guess a party is only as good as the chips
and salsa you bring to it.
While Radakovich's prose and insights are a bit wan, some of
the experiences she sought out for these essays would make for
a good read even in the hands of freshman writing majors. The
swingers' parties and clubs are full of amusing anecdotes, and
Anka's vague attempts at ironic distancing in her recounting of
these events does little to detract from their pathetic and amusing
nature.
I imagine there's a limited amount of time in which Anka's persona
can keep up with her narrow range of topics, so we'll probably
be spared too much more of this. But in the meantime, it makes
decent reading while you're waiting at the dentist's office for
the anesthetic to wear off.
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