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Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals: Confessions, Highly Subjective Journalism, Old Rants and New Stories
 
 
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Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals: Confessions, Highly Subjective Journalism, Old Rants and New Stories [Paperback]

Maggie Estep (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)


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Book Description

August 26, 2003
“Maggie Estep is the bastard daughter of Raymond Chandler and Anaïs Nin. Her prose is hard-boiled and sexy; she turns a good phrase and shows some leg. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals is one hell of a great book! By the way, when Chandler and Nin left her at the orphanage, she was adopted by Charles Bukowski and Dick Francis.”
—Jonathan Ames, author of What’s Not to Love?

Charting Life at Its Most Bizarre . . .
is an obsession for Maggie Estep, and in Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals this obsession reaches a fever pitch that is as readable and as entertaining as it is strange.

Here is your chance to experience the world according to one of our most original and honest voices. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals showcases some of the best of what Maggie Estep has to offer. Here, gathered together for the first time, are Maggie’s infamous spoken word pieces—including “Sex Goddess of the Western Hemisphere,” “Hey Baby,” and “I’m an Emotional Idiot,”—that landed her on MTV and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. This varied collection also brings together a myriad of writing styles, such as diary-style magazine columns, articles highlighting Estep’s friends and heroes—from punk godfather Iggy Pop to Permanent Midnight author Jerry Stahl—and short stories that feature Maggie’s own brand of original fiction.

From her many smoking relapses, to her obsession with horses and horse racing, to her manic love life, to her motley assortment of friends, to her battles with an onslaught of killer attack “biker” fleas, to an epistolary short story that is a collaboration with Rick Moody, Maggie Estep offers a humorous if twisted view of reality in Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of spoken and journalistic pieces by New York writer-performer Estep is an uneven effort. The "Confessions" fare the worst in the transition from fugitive magazine to book (many of them appeared first in the monthly Shout): tales of Brooklyn apartment-hunting, short-term shack-ups with German composers and Italian painters, and bikers swilling Pabst Blue Ribbon are fun to read while waiting for the train but start looking awfully alike next to each other in a book. The "Old Rants" section, which collects the spoken-word pieces that rocketed Estep from Lower East Side poetry slams to a Lollapalooza tour (ah, the '90s!), come off with much less urgency than Estep puts into her performances. But Estep's journalistic narratives, including portraits of Iggy Pop, Jerry Stahl and the jockey Chris Antley are charming. In one piece on horse racing, Estep's passion for horses and the seedy world of the racetrack comes through in spades: "[W]e're on the A train heading out to Aqueduct and I've got the Daily Racing Form spread out in my lap and we're sitting with our shoulders touching as the train rattles through the bowels of Queens and I explain how to read each horse's past performance and how to factor in the many many things one has to factor in, from the weight of the jockey to the win percentage of the trainer to the last time the horse raced." This is Estep at her best, as her words rush to meet the minimalist and episodic speed of the race, but such comings together are less frequent here than all but diehard fans will want.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap

?Maggie Estep is the bastard daughter of Raymond Chandler and Anaïs Nin. Her prose is hard-boiled and sexy; she turns a good phrase and shows some leg. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals is one hell of a great book! By the way, when Chandler and Nin left her at the orphanage, she was adopted by Charles Bukowski and Dick Francis.?
?Jonathan Ames, author of What?s Not to Love?

Charting Life at Its Most Bizarre . . .
is an obsession for Maggie Estep, and in Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals this obsession reaches a fever pitch that is as readable and as entertaining as it is strange.

Here is your chance to experience the world according to one of our most original and honest voices. Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals showcases some of the best of what Maggie Estep has to offer. Here, gathered together for the first time, are Maggie?s infamous spoken word pieces?including ?Sex Goddess of the Western Hemisphere,? ?Hey Baby,? and ?I?m an Emotional Idiot,??that landed her on MTV and HBO?s Def Poetry Jam. This varied collection also brings together a myriad of writing styles, such as diary-style magazine columns, articles highlighting Estep?s friends and heroes?from punk godfather Iggy Pop to Permanent Midnight author Jerry Stahl?and short stories that feature Maggie?s own brand of original fiction.

From her many smoking relapses, to her obsession with horses and horse racing, to her manic love life, to her motley assortment of friends, to her battles with an onslaught of killer attack ?biker? fleas, to an epistolary short story that is a collaboration with Rick Moody, Maggie Estep offers a humorous if twisted view of reality in Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1 edition (August 26, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1400047552
  • ISBN-13: 978-1400047550
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #764,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, delightful, October 10, 2003
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This review is from: Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals: Confessions, Highly Subjective Journalism, Old Rants and New Stories (Paperback)
Never have I read a collection of such incisive, heartful, eclectic, poetic, hilarious essays and stories as this one. By the second entry I was hooked; a few more pages in and I felt I would choose Maggie Estep as my one companion on a desert island, just so I could have her wry, penetrating, yet compassionate insights on every event and creature that might befall us. A bargain at any price. Bring me more Maggie Estep!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely, and Badass, September 11, 2010
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This review is from: Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals: Confessions, Highly Subjective Journalism, Old Rants and New Stories (Paperback)
The book is like a diary. There's good days for Maggie and there are bad days for Maggie. I love this book. It just sucks that the book came to me in bad condition. And it said it was in excellent condition. So i got my money back, but overall. The book was fantastic.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!, September 3, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Love Dance of the Mechanical Animals: Confessions, Highly Subjective Journalism, Old Rants and New Stories (Paperback)
This collection is a must-have for any die-hard Estep fan - and if you're not yet a fan, you soon will be after reading an assortment of columns, interviews, articles and spoken word pieces. Estep is a writer with a heart as big as the planet, and she possesses an honesty and down-to-earth-ness that seems to be rare among today's writers. In the introduction to the section of spoken word pieces, she writes, "The greatest thing about spoken word is its lack of elitism and its ability to speak to people from a wide variety of economical, educational, and racial backgrounds.... What I want most as a writer is to transport people away from pain and depression and show a light at the end of the tunnel." In this collection as well as her other works, Maggie accomplishes this with flying colors. This book is entertaining, intense, vivid, funny, poignant, and real. A fantastic read.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Writing for Shout was a happy accident. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tan panty hose, composer guy, hairy bags, sex goddess
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Glenn Gould, New York, Kelly Sue, Little Anthony, Black Book, Gallus Mag, Chris Antley, Sadie the Goat, Wonder Boy, Coney Island, Extremely Young Guy, Kentucky Derby, Martin Scorsese, Monk Eastman, Permanent Midnight, Sister Heloise, Cat Lady, Jerry Stahl, Little Sammy, Married Guy, Sammy Diabelli, Triple Crown, Cathy Park, Daily Racing Form, Eldridge Street
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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