Joe Gores wrote the best chimpanzee sex scene you'll ever read

That sounds like a joke (and a rather tasteless one given that Gores died this week). It's not. The scene occurs in the book Menaced Assassin and in the most unlikely of settings it goes from wrenching despair to a moment of extraordinary sympathy. It was, like much of Gores' writing sentimental, but it was always honest and hard-earned sentiment.

And damn, the man could write.

Continued (battery issues)

My first exposure to Gores was the short story "The Second Coming" about two hipsters who volunteer as witnesses to an execution, just for kicks. It was published in 1966 in a now forgotten men's magazine and was, in its way, as unlikely as that chapter in Menaced Assassin. There was no mystery -- the accused was guilty -- and no violence except for that mandated by the state, but like the chapter in Menaced Assassin, it will stay with you.