Blood of Mugwump: A Tiresian Tale of Incest (Black Ice Books) [Paperback]

Doug Rice (Author)

Book Description

Series: Black Ice Books | Publication Date: September 13, 1996

The blood of the Mugwump clan of Catholic, gender-shifting vampires has become infected by decadent words and confused memories. (Not to mention the grey and muddy bodies that have washed ashore and that the Mugwumps have eaten.) Quirky flesh and cryptic desires created by a mysterious looking-glass (that refuses to reflect reality) have driven the Mugwumps beyond the thunderdome into their own house of incest.

Now, trapped inside a kinetic body that is always changing from male to female, Doug Rice (the youngest Mugwump) sets out to discover himself in his sister's body. All the while, the familial matriarch - Grandma Mugwump (a woman who once-upon-a-time really was a man) - feeds on the flesh of young Doug. Once through the looking-glass, Doug realizes that Caddie (a polysexual Faulknerian nightmare of a sister) is more terrifying and holy than your average saint. A frenzied sexual virus, genetically conveyed, mutates and possesses the meat of Doug's and Caddie's bodies forcing them to love each other in unspeakable, yet classical, ways. Rice's parasitical language is akin to the acts of those naked 18th century pirates of desire. None of this autobiographical fragment is in Rice's original words. In Blood of Mugwump Rice cannibalizes the likes of Joyce, Faulkner, Burroughs, Eliot, and a whole host of dead angelic others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 139 pages
• Publisher: Fiction Collective 2; 1 edition (September 13, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573660183
• ISBN-13: 978-1573660181
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,741,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doug Rice was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received his BA in English from Slippery Rock State College and did his MA in creative writing at SUNY-Binghamton, where he studied under John C. Gardner, and his MA in English Literature at Duquesne University. He studied for his PhD in Literature at the University of Pittsburgh. His first novel, Blood of Mugwump, was selected by Kathy Acker as a runner-up for the FC2 First Novel Award. He has taught at La Roche College, Kent State University-Salem and currently teaches creative writing, literary theory and film history and theory at Sacramento State University. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including Avant Pop: Fiction for a Daydream Nation, The Dirty Fabulous Anthology, Kiss the Sky, Alice Redux, Phantoms of Desire, Discourse, Gargoyle, Zyzzyvya, and others. His work has been translated into Polish, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Faulkner would turn in his grave, July 31, 2001

By 

Arthur Gideon (in another dimension) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood of Mugwump: A Tiresian Tale of Incest (Black Ice Books) (Paperback)

if he knew what Rice was doing with his "Cady," the family, and the literary legacy. He'd probbaly turn in his grave with delight. Rice says this book was almost impossible to write -- maybe he shouldn't have written it. It's pretty unreadable, like language poetry, but I give him three stars for some damn fine images and perverse sexual longings.

This isn't a novel. It's more like a prose poem. I've read some other works by Rice in literary zines and he's getting more and more obscure, and writing about the same characters in this book.

The photos are a nice touch.

Whatever this thing is, it's worth a try.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love of Language, July 29, 2006

By 

Brian King "I B King" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood of Mugwump: A Tiresian Tale of Incest (Black Ice Books) (Paperback)

Look... read it if you love literature. Rice is a secret cartographer, a cave painter. In response to an earlier review, I would say he is bold enough excavate to depths most writers wouldn't even dare, nor know how to dig that far. If you are afraid of language, or don't have the courage to look inside it, quite frankly, you will hate this book and call it stupid. If you are patient enough to hunt the white whale, to see the beauty of a terrible transmorgriphication, brave enough to swim to the bottom of the pool that Faulkner's characters swam in... then read it.

But... if you don't understand it, please don't run around bashing it. Remember, Faulkner told his students to read "The Sound and the Fury" multiple times to understand it. Sometimes you have to learn to re-read. They couldn't read Joyce, they couldn't read Faulkner. Rice will challenge the hell out of you and your ability to think, to feel, to be honest, and to listen. Shhhh.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a feast for the brain, January 29, 2000

By 

Matthew L. Moffett - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood of Mugwump: A Tiresian Tale of Incest (Black Ice Books) (Paperback)

Based on the technique alone, this novel is a feast for the brain. Most if not all of the text was appropriated from various sources and is seemlessly woven together in bizarre patterns. The narrator is pulled along, forced to discover and re-discover him/herself and the family background as s/he continually switches from male to female and back again. It is disturbing, funny and touching, and often all at the same time. I read this over a month ago and I still find myself asking questions and re-investigating this work. A must-read for anyone interested in the avant garde side of contemporary american fiction.