William Walsh's Without Wax
William Walsh’s Without Wax tells of the rise and fall of a great fictional porn star named Wax Williams, starting from his early adolescence and continuing through the end of his career. The story is told through oral biographies, interviews, movie scripts, court depositions, and traditional narration, all adding up to what Walsh calls a documentary novel, an apt name for the mash-up of forms that fills the pages of Without Wax.
An awkward teenager, Wax Williams shows some promise of becoming a professional baseball player, except for one problem: a series of medical treatments has left Wax with an enormous penis, an organ so big that it impedes his ability to run the bases or field stray balls. At the same time, a former standup comic and aspiring pornographer named Lyle Mammon shows up at the Williams house. Drawn to Wax by an unpublished medical study written by the boy’s doctor, he offers to pay Wax's parents ten thousand dollars for a five year contract pledging Wax as his apprentice. Although it is the prospect of filming Wax's genital freakiness that originally draws him to the boy, it is Wax’s boy-next-door quality that convinces Mammon that he's found something special:
Wax was smiling. Mammon liked that smile of his. This kid was gonna be a big star. The smile was capable of magic. A really sweet smile. Nothing dark behind that smile. No calculation. Charm, not the effort to be charming. Just a nice smile. Clean face. Handsome face. The kid was much better looking than the photos that Doc Johnson had trotted out in that wacho paper of his. Good skin. Nice hair. Smart eyes. Male model material, really. A leading man in any era of cinema. He would be eighteen in six weeks.
This is the most vivid description in the entire novel of any part of Wax besides his penis, and it’s worth remembering as the rest of the book unspools. The repetition of Wax’s smile showcases an innocence that is forever at odds with what Wax does for a living and which he’ll spend the rest of his life holding on to even as he enjoys his sexual endeavors and the fame they bring him.
Try as you might, the image will prove hard to remember as Mammon begins building Wax an impressive career in pornography. From the moment Wax shoots his first film, he rockets toward fame and fortune, impeded only by the usual showstoppers of pride, greed, and self-doubt. Still, it's obvious that both men feel that what they are doing is important work. As Wax thinks after talking to a purveyor of amateur voyeur photos, "It's not porno or erotica if the folks involved aren't trying to make something pornographic or erotic. It's just sex, and that's nothing to look at." There is a distinction being drawn here, a case being made for pornography as art and pornographers as artists.
Much is made of Wax's interactions with his female co-stars, but it is Wax's relationship with Mammon that provides most of the joy and strife in his life. Mammon fills a variety of roles for Wax, including those of best friend and father figure, of producer and manager, of best ally and worst enemy. Their fluid relationship is the one constant variable in Wax's life from the time he leaves his parents' home on through the end of his distinguished career.
Inevitably, Wax rebels against Mammon and tries to leave the porn industry, leading to a conclusion that is both fitting and surprisingly tragic. As the novel winds up, it manages to hit a tone perfectly fitting its pretense as documentary. The final chapters are both dramatic enough to provide a sense of completion but also open-ended enough to suggest that the story winds down only to reveal Wax’s real life waiting beyond last page.
The basic plot arc of Without Wax may sound familiar enough in summary, but the particulars are as fascinating as the style they're written in. Just like a film documentary, Without Wax is full of candid interviews and the special sort of moments where the speakers forget that the "camera" is watching. A favorite scene cuts from an interview where Wax is asked about the possibility of performing oral sex on himself to his own thoughts, a memory of how "some mornings--many a morning--[he] wakes curled in a fetal ball, the head of his cock in his mouth." Lines like these are among Walsh's best writing, creating beautifully detached images that reveal his characters' inner landscapes even as they revel in Walsh’s taboo-breaking brand of black humor.
It probably goes without saying that anyone uninterested in or overly offended by pornography should most likely steer clear of this particular novel. For everyone else, there’s just so much to like here. This is a book that is infinitely quotable, full of lines that are sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and often just drop dead sexy, all coming together to create a wide variety of surprising responses, an effect that Walsh pulls off again and again. After all, it's not every book that can tug at your heartstrings while simultaneously trying to stiffen your shorts. Without Wax is truly a must read, one of the finest independent novels published recently and an impressive debut from William Walsh.
Matt Bell
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Reader Comments (1)
Good review, Matt. I liked novel a lot.