Kathy Acker Books

In this illustrated, interview-format volume, 16 women performance artists animatedly address the volatile issues of male domination, feminism, race and denial. Among the modern warriors here are Diamanda Galás, a composer of ritualistic "plague masses" about AIDS who refuses to tolerate pity or weakness; Lydia Lunch, a self-described "instigator" who explains that her graphic portrayals of exploitation stem from her victimization as a child; and Wanda Coleman, a poet who rages against racism and ignorance. Goddess worshipper and former porn star Annie Sprinkle enthusiastically promotes positive sexual attitudes; bell hooks eloquently discusses societal power structures in terms of race and gender; Holly Hughes, Sapphire and Susie Bright expound on lesbianism and oppression; pro-choice advocates Suzy Kerr and Dianne Malley describe their struggles for reproductive rights. Incendiary opinions of current issues such as the Gulf War and censorship and frequent allusions to empowering art and literature make this an excellent reference source. These informed discussions arm readers verbally, philosophically and behaviorally and provide uncompromising role models for women actively seeking change.

The incredible variety of Acker's body of work has been distilled into a single volume that reads like a communique from the front lines of late-20th 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.

"Boxcar Bertha Thompson describes her life as a hobo and her misadventures with pimps, addicts, anarchists, wobblies, and criminals." -- Amazon.com viewed August 25, 2020.

This collection features three early self-published novels by Kathy Acker, showcasing her pioneering voice in experimental literature. Accompanied by a new introduction from Kate Zambreno, the book highlights Acker's unique narrative style and thematic explorations. Readers can expect to delve into Acker's unconventional storytelling and bold exploration of identity, sexuality, and the boundaries of language.

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).

"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 correspondence is 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."--Page 4 of cover

A collection of early and not-so-early work by the mistress of gut-level fiction-making.

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's characteristically outrageous, lyrical, and hyperinventive novel concerns three characters who share an impulse toward self-immolation through doomed, obsessive romance. Teetering somewhere between the Beats and Punk, IN MEMORIAM TO IDENTITY is at once a revelatory addition to, and an irreverent critique of, literature of decadence and self-destruction.

Kathy Acker's Don Quixote features a determined woman on a bold quest to become a knight and combat modern America's evil enchanters by pursuing the audacious idea of love.

In her 10th novel, Acker's heroine, Laurie, is a woman helpless before the fury of her emotions. Love-obsessed, Laurie is plunged into a harrowing dilemma--sexuality and her feminism are the two poles that threaten to obliterate her inner poise, the false magic of her woman's identity.

A literary collection of explicit writings--fiction, poetry, and essays--addresses "high risk" subject matter, such as illicit sex, incest, bondage, drug use, and transsexuality, and features contributions by progressive writers including Dorothy Allison, William Burroughs, and Kathy Acker. Reissue.

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

This volume presents three works by Kathy Acker, renowned for works that combine graphic eroticism with detailed politics and what the author calls 'pop content' including expositions of anti-social values and attacks on religion, education, and government

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 reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, Treasure Island, in which two prostitutes--O and Ange--use their earnings to hire a band of women pirates to mount an expedition to find treasure. A tale of sex and sado-masochism with thoughts on the human condition. By the author of My Mother: Demonology.

The new introduction by Neil Gaiman emphasizes the contemporary relevance and urgency of the book, suggesting it addresses themes that resonate powerfully in today's world. It hints at a narrative that may challenge societal norms and provoke thought, reflecting on the dangers and complexities present in its subject matter. Gaiman's endorsement indicates a significant impact, making it a compelling read for those interested in literature that engages with pressing issues.

'Acker gives her work the power to mirror the reader's soul' William S. Burroughs 'Kathy Acker's writing is virtuoso, maddening, crazy, so sexy, so painful, and beaten out of a wild heart that nothing can tame. Acker is a landmark writer' Jeanette Winterson This is the story of Janey, who lived in a locked room, where she found a scrap of paper and began to write down her life. It's a story of lust, sex, pain, youth, punk, anarchy, gangs, the city, feminism, America, Jean Genet and the prisons we create for ourselves. A heady, surreal mash-up of coming-of-age tale, prose, poetry, plagiarism and illustration, Kathy Acker's breakthrough 1984 novel caused huge controversy and made her an avant-garde literary icon. Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Kathy Acker's untimely death, Blood and Guts in High School is published for the first time in Penguin Classics, acknowledging the profound impact she has had on our culture, and alongside the authors her work pulsates with the influence of: William S. Burroughs, Cervantes and Charles Dickens, among others.

Two terrorists ponder the dangers of love and language in Kathy Acker's "twisted re-creation of quest sagas and Bildungsroman and TV sitcoms" (Philadelphia Enquirer)

'INTENSE SEXUAL DESIRE IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD' A tale of art, sex, blood, junkies and whores in New York's underground, from cult literary icon Kathy Acker Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.