Kathy Acker

A masterpiece of surrealist fiction, Blood and Guts in High School is the book that established Kathy Acker as the preeminent voice of post-punk feminism upon its initial publication in 1984. This new edition includes an introduction by Chris Kraus that elucidates the book's composition, and presents the final two sections - "The Journey" and "The World" - in their correct order for the first time. With 2017 marking the twentieth year since Acker's death, this controversial, transgressive work of philosophical, political, and sexual insight continues to grow more relevant than ever before.In the Mexican city of Mérida, ten-year-old Janey lives with Johnny - her "boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father" - until he leaves her for another woman. Bereft, Janey travels to New York City, plunging into an underworld of gangs, prostitution, and imprisonment. Then, in Tangier, she meets Jean Ganet and begins a torrid affair that will lead Janey to her demise. Along the way, the text is illustrated with intricate sketches from Janey's journals, as well as theatrical dialogue and cinematic description. Fantastical and fearlessly radical, Blood and Guts in High School is at once a comic and tragic portrait of erotic awakening.

"It is necessary to go to as many extremes as possible."A tale of art, sex, blood, junkies and whores in New York's underground, from cult literary icon Kathy Acker.

Set in the near future, in a Paris devastated by revolution and disease, Empire of the Senseless is narrated by two terrorists and occasional lovers, Thivai, a pirate, and Abhor, part-robot part-human. Together and apart, the two undertake an odyssey of carnage, a holocaust of erotic. "An elegy for the world of our fathers," as Kathy Acker calls it, where the terrorists and the wretched of the earth are in command, marching down a road charted by Genet to a Marseillaise composed by Sade.

Using postmodern form, Kathy Acker's Great Expectations moves her narrator through time, gender, and identity as it examines our era's cherished beliefs about life and art.

A reinterpretation of Treasure Island is told from a girl's perspective, placing such colorful characters as O, Ange, Lulu, Pussycat, and Antigone on a wild adventure from an Alexandrian whorehouse to Pirate Island.

The tempestuous email correspondence between Kathy Acker and McKenzie Wark, shimmering with insight, gossip, sex, and cultural commentary. “Why am I telling you all this? Partly 'cause the whole queerness/identity thing for me stretches through everything, absolutely everything. Slipping between straight/gay is child's play compared to slipping between writer/teacher/influence-peddler whatever. I forget who I am. You reminded me of who I prefer to be.” [M.W.] “It's two in the morning... I know what you mean about slipping I love it, going high low, power helpless even captive, male female, all over the place, space totally together and brain-sharp, if it wasn't for play I'd be bored stiff and I think boredom is the emotion I find most unbearable... ” [KA]—from I'm Very into You After Kathy Acker met McKenzie Wark on a trip to Australia in 1995, they had a brief fling and immediately began a heated two-week email correspondence. Their emails shimmer with insight, gossip, sex, and cultural commentary. They write in a frenzy, several times a day; their emails cross somewhere over the International Date Line, and themselves become a site of analysis. What results is an index of how two brilliant and idiosyncratic writers might go about a courtship across 7,500 miles of airspace—by pulling in Alfred Hitchcock, stuffed animals, Georges Bataille, Elvis Presley, phenomenology, Marxism, The X-files , psychoanalysis, and the I Ching . Their corresepondence is a Plato's Symposium for the twenty-first century, but written for queers, transsexuals, nerds, and book geeks. I'm Very Into You is a text of incipience, a text of beginnings, and a set of notes on the short, shared passage of two iconic individuals of our time.

Kathy Acker's Don Quixote is an indomitable woman on a formidable quest: to become a knight and defeat the evil enchanters of modern America by pursuing "the most insane idea that any woman can think of. Which is to love.'"In this visionary world, Don Quixote journeys through American history to the final dys of the Nixon administration, passing on the way through a New York reminiscent of prerevolutionary St. Petersburg and a brutally defamiliarized contemporary London. Here transvestites who might play at being Nazis and beautiful she-males enact the rituals of courtly love. Presiding overt this late-twentieth-century Levithian is Thomas Hobbes--the Angel of Death.

My Demonology [hardcover] Acker, Kathy [May 03, 1995] …

In this characteristically sexy, daring, and hyperliterate novel, Kathy Acker interweaves the stories of three characters who share the same tragic flaw: a predilection for doomed, obsessive love. Rimbaud, the delinquent symbolist prodigy, is deserted by his lover Verlaine time and time again. Airplane takes a job dancing at Fun City, the seventh tier of the sex industry, in order to support her good-for-nothing boyfriend. And Capitol feels alive only when she's having sex with her brother, Quentin. In Memoriam to Identity is at once a revelatory addition to, and an irreverent critique of, the literature of decadence and self-destruction.

This volume brings together three of the postmodern punkster's earliest novels, all originally published by obscure presses in the Seventies. As much as one wants to give Acker the benefit of a fair reading, it's hard not to be bored by the lengthy repetitions, the obscure plotlines, the complete disregard (deliberate, of course) for conventional notions of time. In The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula, the fictional ``I'' decides to become various murderesses from history, as well as Yeats and Sade. Speaking in a cacophony of voices, she ``can't handle her own horniness,'' though ``sexual ecstasies become mystic communion.'' I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac, another historical hallucination, further emphasizes Acker's sense of the self in disintegration--the reason one assumes the roles of so many other characters from history and literature. Here, a story of sexual obsession somehow transforms into a bland litany of case histories of prisoners whose rights have been abused. This political dimension to Acker's porno-anarcho prose becomes most explicit in The Adult Life of Toulouse-Lautrec, which begins by imagining the artist as a sex-starved, deformed woman. A murder plot sort of develops, to be solved by Hercule Poirot; van Gogh's daughter is actually Janis Joplin, who becomes the lover of James Dean. A profile of Henry Kissinger illustrates how society is corrupted, and individuals like Toulouse-Lautrec/Joplin/Dean suffer. A long political speech, full of half-digested left-wing notions, demonstrates America's decline into ``friendly fascism.'' All of which leads to the facile equation, dramatized in the last section, that the CIA and the Mob are like-minded institutions of repression. The sexual details of Henry Miller, the numbing prose cutups of William Burroughs, the relentless assault on the senses of thrash music--to point out the excess of Acker's entire enterprise only serves her sense of striking out against the bourgeoisie. But it is possible to understand exactly what she's trying to do, and still find it a worthless exercise. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini imagines the Italian filmmaker and writer returning to the Roman homosexual hustlers he knew, in a “scathing commentary on false values in art” (The Hartford Courant).

Kathy Acker pushed literary boundaries with a vigor and creative fire that made her one of America's preeminent experimental writers and her books cult classics. Now Amy Scholder and Dennis Cooper have distilled the incredible variety of Acker's body of work into a single volume that reads like a communique from the front lines of late-twentieth-century America. Acker was a literary pirate whose prodigious output drew promiscuously from popular culture, the classics of Western civilization, current events, and the raw material of her own life. Her vision questions everything we take for granted — the authority of parents, government, and the law; sexuality and the policing of desire — and puts in its place a universe of polymorphous perversity and shameless, playful freakery. Spanning Acker's '70s punk interventions through more than a dozen major novels, Essential Acker is an indispensable overview of the work of this distinctive American writer and a reminder of her challenge to and influence on writers of the future.

With enervating experimentation but touching directness, postmodern novelist Acker ( Portrait of an Eve , 1992; My Demonology , 1993; etc.) explores art, politics, and being in her first essay collection. Subjects are various, ranging from William Burroughs to Goya to San Francisco; many of the pieces have been published previously (prefaces to books, articles in Marxism Today, the Critical Quarterly , etc.). Despite the variety of subjects and sources, the collection is neatly Essays are grouped agreeably by subject-'On Art and Artists,' 'The City,' 'Bodies of Work.' Though Acker says she aims to 'destroy' the essay form, she does more of what the form openly invites--to tinker and confess. For example, she interweaves stories into a piece on artist Nayland Blake and applies Wittgenstein's 'language games' to 'In a gym, verbal language or language whose purpose is meaning occurs, if at all, only at the edge of becoming lost.' But she also reveals her current weightlifting goals and describes a childhood desire to be a pirate. Not surprisingly, her most accessible works are those written for a wide audience, particularly an illuminating essay for the Village Voice on film director Peter Greenaway and a moving piece for the MMLA on copyright in the age of the Internet. In all, these essays are serious and reflective of a discontented mind bent on deconstruction. Some may find dreary her tale of patriarchy, dualism, and linearity of time; her elliptical tales and stark sentences may lack immediate clarity. For sure, her essays aren't casually authoritative like Updike's or reassuringly religious like Dillard's. Read Acker when you're patient and don't want to be comforted--or even satisfied. An unthreatening introduction to a vexing writer.- Kirkus

When Kathy goes to Haiti for a holiday she discovers that every man she meets wants to be her boyfriend. She dives into a sexual whirlpool in pursuit of love, craving more and more sex, for once is never enough.In what is perhaps her most accessible novel to date, Kathy Acker captures the most sensuous and secret aspects of female sexuality; that complete satisfaction is rare, so rare that once found it cannot be given up...Praise for Kathy Acker'Kathy Acker is in the great tradition of experimental American writers, Jack Kerouac out of Bill Burroughs, with a big musical influence.'Punch'Post modern fiction at its most incisive.'The Listener

A collection of early and not-so-early work by the mistress of gut-level fiction-making. You can say I write stories with sex and violence and therefore my writing isn't worth considering because it uses content much less lots of content. Well, I tell you 'Prickly race, who know nothing except how to eat out your hearts with envy, you don't eat cunt'... Edited by Sylvere Lotringer and published in 1991, this handy, pocket-sized collection of some early and not-so-early work by the mistress of gut-level fiction-making, Hannibal Lecter, My Father gathers together Acker's raw, brilliant, emotional and cerebral texts from 1970s, including the self-published 'zines written under the nom-de-plume, The Black Tarantula. This volume features, among others, the full text of Acker's opera, The Birth of the Poet, produced at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1985, Algeria, 1979 and fragments of Politics, written at the age of 21. Also included is the longest and definitive interview Acker ever gave over two a chatty, intriguing and delightfully self-deprecating conversation with Semiotext(e) editor Sylvere Lotringer—which is trippy enough in itself as Lotringer, besides being a real person, has appeared as a character in Acker's fiction. And last, but not least, is the full transcript of the decision reached by West Germany's Federal Inspection Office for Publications Harmful to Minors in which Acker's work was judged to be "not only youth-threatening but also dangerous to adults," and subsequently banned. Acker is the sort of the writer that should be read first at 16, so that you can spend the rest of your life trying to figure her out; she confuses, infuriates, perplexes and then all of a sudden the writing seems to be in your bloodstream, like some kind of benign virus. She's definitely not for the easily offended—but then, there are worse things in life than being offended. Such as the things that Acker writes about...

Recently discovered and never before published, these two short novels were written in the early 1970s, at the beginning of Kathy Acker's writing career. Rip-off Red reads as a kind of Raymond Chandler for bad girls, as Acker's typical literary playfulness transforms the genre conventions of detective fiction into a book that is simultaneously a mystery and a personal, raunchy, and politically astute account of life in New York City. The Burning Bombing of America is a dystopian vision of the destruction of America, combining crypto-Socialist class critique with the visceral surreality of the Book of Revelation.

Black Tarantula is a pseudonym for Kathy Acker.

"If one day, a bad girl named Dante met a mean dyke called Hieronymous Bosch, this is the book they'd make."—Jenny Livingstone, director, Paris Burning ."Scarified sensibility, subversive intellect, and predatory wit make her a writer like no other" — The New York Times Book ReviewKathy Acker holds a unique place among American novelists, as a writer who constantly pushes at the frontiers of modern fiction, with each new work advancing further into uncharted territory. Pussycat Fever is a hallucinatory amalgam of emotion and desire. Join Pussycat and the anonymous narrator on a journey filled with sex and dangerous liaisons. Coming of age was never like this! Kathy's words are complemented by the artwork of Diane DiMassa —best known for her long running comic book series Hothead Paisan —and the intriguing collages of famed artist Freddie Baer.

This is an anthology of short fiction and other writings by Acker, including Politics, her debut work written at the age of 21, and The Translations of the Diaries of Laure the Schoolgirl, plus The Birth of a Poet, a play in three acts. It also features an interview with Acker.

'There is a young woman writing on the west coast who has received not attention at all. Her name is Kathy Acker. She is literally the wildest writer going... Her prose is direct, fast, sexy, hot, horny, furiously honest... Insofar as I can see, she's the dark horse in American Lit. Not for fame, but for influence. Originality. Sheer voice. Guts.'Now for the first time on either side of the Atlantic a major publishing house will be publishing Kathy Acker's most recent work.Her novels have been described as everything from post-punk porn to post-punk feminism, first person narratives which combine detailed eroticism with detailed politics and what Acker calls 'pop content'. Acker hasn't lacked controversy. She doesn't shy away from what is brutal, violent, and ugly. She describes sexual acts graphically, frequently and seldom in the approved 'feminine', 'Romantic' manner. Her narrative is both poetic and powerful - a montage of conversation, description, conjecture, moments snatched from history and from literature. Short, episodic, outspoken and outrageous, Acker's eerie exposition of anti-social values, her attack on religion, education, and government, chart the emergence of a new culture. BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOLJaney lived in the locker room. Twice a day the Persian Slave Trader came in and taught her to be a whore. Otherwise there was nothing. One day she found a pencil stub and scrap paper in a forgotten corner of the room. She began to write down her life...GREAT EXPECTATIONSGreat Expectations begins when a young boy, Pip, learns he has come into great expectations. What these expectations actually are, or the change from the total disparity between Pip's ideas of 'expectations' and what is real to Pip's learning to feel, is the narrative of this plagiarized Bildungsroman. This book is totally sensuous. MY DEATH, MY LIFE BY PIER PAOLO PASOLINIThe renowned philosopher, poet, cinematographer, painter and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini solves the mystery of his own death.

Kathy Acker was a punk-rock counter-cultural icon, and innovator of the literary underground. The interviews collected here span her amazing, uncompromising, and often misunderstood 30-year career.From Acker's earliest interviews--filled with playful, evasive, and counter-intuitive responses--to the last interview before her death where she reflects on the state of American literature, these interviews capture the writer at her funny and surprising best. Another highlight includes Acker's 1997 interview with the Spice Girls on the forces of pop and feminism (which reads as if it could have been conducted with a new generation of pop star in 2018).

A vida adulta de Toulouse-Lautrec entrelaça acontecimentos e personagens históricos com passagens ensaísticas e elementos ficcionais. Vincent (van Gogh) critica a arte de Toulouse e ela se irrita. Como de costume, Acker usa os gêneros das personagens de maneira deliberadamente fluida. Aqui, Paul Gauguin é a faxineira do bordel onde uma bobalhona foi assassinada. Em meio às cenas com personagens famosas que são apresentadas ao longo do livro, também dão as caras Janis Joplin e James Dean, jovens amantes que ainda não sucumbiram às pressões e ao cinismo de Hollywood. Henry Kissinger e outros figurões da política também surgem ao longo do texto. A autora, ainda que deixe clara sua posição nesse emaranhado de personagens, dá liberdade a quem lê para tirar suas próprias conclusões. Entre comentários sobre a política estadunidense do século XX e suas reverberações em países como a República Dominicana, Acker faz cortes abruptos e se lança em uma busca por prazeres desenfreados. Em outra passagem, retoma o final do século XIX e, em meio a conversas entre Toulouse e Vincent sobre Paris e São Francisco, pipocam greves em todos os cantos. Anarquistas se reúnem na Haymarket, um grande espaço aberto em Chicago, a fim de protestar contra um tiroteio policial que reprimiu uma manifestação de grevistas. De repente, uma bomba explode na multidão. Anarquistas são presos em nome da lei, batem na polícia em nome da liberdade e se defendem frente ao juiz. Fariam de novo.

Originalmente publicado em 1974, o livro é escrito em primeira pessoa. “Meu nome é Kathy Acker. A história começa comigo totalmente entediada”, logo declara a autora. E sua prosa é escrita no ritmo do pensamento, por isso convoca quem lê a embarcar em sua viagem vertiginosa. Conforme um sonho se repete também são parágrafos inteiros que reaparecem, em um exercício literário no qual conteúdo e forma são inseparáveis um do outro.A cada capítulo, Acker já não é ela mesma, e as personagens nas quais se converte contam suas histórias de prazeres, vícios, delírios. Nesse sentido, mais do que produzir um discurso supostamente verdadeiro sobre sexualidades, o livro experimenta múltiplas possibilidades do corpo, do gênero e da linguagem.E para quem espera uma escrita frenética sobre prazeres, o livro surpreende. Acker consegue articular sua experimentação a cenários muitas vezes compostos por instituições disciplinares — escolas, hospitais, prisões — que modulam os desejos e possibilidades de nossas vidas. Parece ser, pois, de suas amarras que a autora busca escapar.

Contains:Kathy goes to HaitiThe adult life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse LautrecFlorida

Artist's book with prose / poem by Kathy Acker and original artwork by Michael McClard.

Novel of Kathy Acker Translated by Omid Shams

Throughout her career, Cindy Sherman (born 1954) has been interested in exposing the darker sides of human nature, noticeable both in her selection of subject matter (fairytales, disasters, sex, horror, surrealism) and in her disquieting interpretations of well-established photographic genres, such as film stills, fashion photography and society portraiture. Delving relentlessly into the more grotesque extremes of delusion, vanity and self-image, Sherman probes deeply into the masks and distractions we all employ to set apart our public and our private personae, and challenges us to consider how bizarre and unconvincing our attempts at projecting a semblance of normality can be. Attracting a certain degree of notoriety, intense and ongoing public interest as well as extensive critical acclaim, Sherman's works continue to challenge and intrigue in equal measure. This richly illustrated publication deploys a selection of works from across her career to highlight and acknowledge these particular aspects of her art. These images are accompanied by more recent work, as well as essays from well-known authors, filmmakers and artists who likewise deal with the grotesque, the uncanny and the extraordinary in their practice.