Monique Van Vooren

I was trying to explain Monique Van Vooren to someone in the office the other day, and some googling turned up ths site. The reason she came up at all, I had been racking my brain to remember the last time I was completely nonplussed. Best I could remember it was 1983. I was in the Barnes & Noble in midtown Manhattan, and there was a huge display of Van Vooren's Night Sanctuary, which had just come out in paperback. Night Sanctuary was a roman à clef about a blonde euro-actress who had a boner for a gay Russian ballet star, and when it became obvious he would never return the actress's affections, she pushed him from an airplane in mid-flight. As I stood there stunned by the lead-like prose, who should stroll in but La Van Vooren herself, with what appeared to be a sextoy in his early 20s — probably not on a leash, but that detail has crept into the story over time. She immediately came up to me, snatched the book from my hand, and asked how I'd like it autographed. I stammered my name, and she handed it back, engraved, "Enjoy!" Then she went off to find the manager to find out how sales were doing.