Hogg (Paperback)

by Samuel R. Delany (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Hugo-and Nebula Award-winner Delany?whose early books were fascinating but whose recent efforts have grown increasingly obtuse?has been trying to get this pornographic novel published since 1973. The main narrator here is an 11-year-old boy who joins up with a raping, murdering pederast named Hogg. Coprophiliac Hogg violates women for pay. He enlists the help of other pedophiliac murdering rapists?Nigg, Dago and Denny?and the group sets off to perform acts of hideous violence. After the attacks, a biker friend of Hogg's sells the boy into sexual slavery to dockyard slum resident Big Sambo, who keeps his 12-year-old daughter for prostitution and his own perversions. The traumatized little girl is gang-raped by Hogg's crew as well. Meanwhile, teenaged Denny goes on an insane mutilating and mass-murder spree, eludes the police and finally returns to Hogg and the hopelessly confused narrator, who has been "rescued" after Hogg murders Big Sambo. Gang-rape attacks and criminal sex orgies are detailed at excruciating length, with photographic realism. This potent emetic is all the more disturbing for want of modulators of honest outrage. In other works, Delany has examined the role of the criminal within society; with Hogg, he apparently was content merely to inhabit the criminal mind without exploring it.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Hogg is a truly significant book. It is distasteful, raw, and upsetting; it also treats some of the sexual taboos that Americans do not want addressed in either art or politics. Hogg is an artistic triumph, as well as a political one." -John O'Brien, Dalkey Archive Press
-- Review

"Hogg is a truly significant book. It is distasteful, raw, and upsetting; it also treats some of the sexual taboos that Americans do not want addressed in either art or politics. Hogg is an artistic triumph, as well as a political one." -John O'Brien, Dalkey Archive Press

"There is no question that Hogg by Samuel R. Delany is a serious book with literary merit."
-Norman Mailer

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 219 pages
• Publisher: Fc2/Black Ice Books (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573660116
• ISBN-13: 978-1573660112
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,311,085 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars WARNING: Not for the easily offended!, February 16, 1997

By A Customer

Well known amongst Delany fans as the one book that publishers wouldn't touch, the mystery was finally ended when "Hogg" was finally published in 1995. And,man, was it a shock! Devoted Delany readers were curious as to what could make this work so much more controversial than "Dhalgren", "Equinox" or the "Neveryona" series, complete with their descriptions of graphic sex, violence and madness. While it is true that some of Delany's works did contain such material, nothing compares to the nonstop, ugly and frightening scenes in "Hogg". This is easily the most repulsive, violent and disturbing book I've ever read. I've reread most all of Delany's books with great delight, but this one will surely stay on the bookshelf, untouched. While I am glad this work was finally allowed to see the light of day, I would caution anyone about to read it, that "Hogg" is not likely to titillate or excite the reader so much as frighten and horrify. Nonetheless, as a devoted Delany reader, I will pick up the next release without hesitation

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE READERS OF HIS FANTASY STORIES!, September 15, 1996

By A Customer

This book goes far beyond anything I have ever read by Delany. It deals with the issue of pedophilia in a very graphic and disturbing way. Knowing that not everyone is aware of of the inclinations of the author, it might be fair to warn readers that unless they have a fairly strong stomache, they should pass this book by. It isn't that he deals with a new concept here, he has used this imagery before in books like Equinox, and the Neveryon series, but that he concentrates the whole of this book on it. I buy anything that I can find by him, but would say this is only for that singular researcher trying to complete some project related to Delany's life. TRY SOMETHING ELSE!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most disturbing, July 21, 2007

By	Jason Mcdonald (Boulder, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hogg: A Novel (Paperback)

This has to be one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. I can understand why it was so difficult to get published. Even Olympia Press refused to publish this book because of its sexual content.

Bravo to FC2 for publishing this work. Although it is incredibly disturbing, it is also brilliantly written. Delany is a master of his craft, and spared nothing to make this a meaningful work.

I'm not sure how audiences might have responded to this work in the early seventies. I imagine it would have been even more shocking to them. But since then we've had decades of depravity (fictional: American Psycho and historical: Abu Ghraib). There were moments when I had to mentally distance myself from the page, but one can get used to just about anything. It was the sustained level of sexual violence and total lack of compassion in the characters that was most troubling.

But there was also something I recognized in the narrator (a young boy taken in by a rapist-for-hire). His attitude towards the suffering of others is often one of curiosity. Unlike most of the characters in the book, the narrator is able to empathize with others. But for this narrator, empathy doesn't translate into compassion. His morality and ethics have developed in a world brimming with violence and abuse. He is a survivor in a world where, as the book jacket says: "pity becomes a betrayal".