Masquerade: 15 Variations on a Theme of Sexual Fantasy

Ronald Conrad is a professor of English at Ryerson University in
Toronto.

According to the cover notes of this book, Lisa Kroniuk immigrated several years ago to Canada from a country in Eastern Europe, where she had published an earlier work “on the theme of sexual ambiguity.” Also according to the cover, the present work is “a novel in fifteen parts about sexual fantasy, sexual illusion, magic, and role playing.” While Masquerade is about all these subjects, it is hardly a novel — rather a series of interrelated sketches, cryptic and Eastern in manner, more like parables on diabolic morality tales than explorations of people and their characters. The dialogue is stilted, the action mannered, the meaning explained for us at every turn. Yet the book is strong in concept, if not in execution.

On the corner stands a large house. To it come those who have lost their illusions. As they regain them, as they fulfill their every fantasy in this house of illusion, we meet the cast: Ilse the She-Bitch of Berlin, the three little nuns, Julio the beautiful boy, Raven the vamp in the crypt, Turk the friendly truck driver, and more players — all directed by a seasoned observer of humanity, “Momma.” We might call these players type-cast; one complains that “it’s a limited role with scarcely any speaking lines.” However, all do their best to both delight and instruct the clients.

Ironically, their greatest success story is that of painfully shy Kristofer, who requests an erotic encounter to be staged at an unknown time and place. Momma takes his payment and considers her work done. She’s right: Kristofer now responds warmly to a succession of erotic opportunities in real life — believing each to be the one he has paid for. Lesson learned.

This whorehouse as theatre becomes at the end a school; the potentially pornographic finishes as the didactic.