Literal Madness — Kathy Acker

A collection of three novels from the experimental feminist writer: “Literal Madness is Acker at her most powerful, disturbing, and provocative.” -- Catherine Texier, author of Victorine

Kathy Goes to Haiti, the first of three novels in Literal Madness, “speaks to us out of a delightful mock-naivete that reminds one at times of the Dick and Jane readers rewritten as manuals for politics and sex . . . At once hilarious and terrifying, [it] has all the logic of a Caribbean tour and a nightmare combined” (Los Angeles Times).

My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini -- wherein, among other things, the late Italian filmmaker solves his own murder, with the help of, among others, Romeo, Juliet, and the Bronté sisters -- is a “scathing commentary on false values in art” (The Hartford Courant).

In the haunting Florida, Acker achieves “a nearly telegraphic reduction of the Bogart-Bacall movie Key Largo to fatalistic, tough-guy essentials” (Booklist).

“There's a haunting method to Acker's ‘madness': a rough, raw, erudite wail against the postmodern loss of meaning and emotion.” -- Kirkus Reviews