Naked in Japan

When Ocean Kramer marries his childhood sweetheart, Theresa, in the mid -1970s, they seem destined for a happy conventional academic and monogamous future in the East Coast university town of their birth.  They are intelligent and beautiful in face and body. Their parents are deans, Theresa's father is the university president and all their friends are academics. Then Ocean becomes promiscuous, which leads to divorce and his being denied tenure. A lover finds him a university post in Japan through an unknown benefactor. He meets his saviors, a utopian collection of polyamorous and bisexual women who teach him about loving many people with sincerity.  Yet, ironically, his lovers, like himself, are obsessed with their first loves. Is the first love the one true love, or can there be multiple first loves? The novel looks at same-sex marriage, when it was not accepted, and at group marriage. Naked in Japan is comic, tragic, romantic, utopian and sexy.  The sex scenes are many and explicit. They express passionate attraction, tenderness and mutual aid.  This is a tale about a secret utopia without walls.  It stands against the misogynistic tradition of the femme fatale and the macho and androphobic traditions of the heartless seducer. Finally, the novel is about the "masks" Ocean and his lovers must wear in a world that does not understand them.