Customer Reviews

Sexual Blood (Black Ice Books)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mark Amerika just presented his work in the Whitney Biennial 2000 here in New York and gave a reading from his novels at some alternative art space and both me and my girlfriend came home right after the reading and bought both Sexual Blood and Kafka Chronicles. I'm a big William Burroughs fan but there's no question that Amerika's work, though influenced by the Beats, is much more in tune with what's happening in contemporary culture. It's part cyberpunk (near-future city with walking Viruses), part experimental postmodernism (a so-called "concept album" within the heart of the book), part erotic thriller (the guy, Mal, transforms into a woman, but only internally -- externally he looks like the same slacker/musician that he is -- and his mission is to make up for all the bad things he did with his old girlfriends, only he has trouble following through on his mission :-) ...

My girlfriend says the writing reminds her of Kathy Acker (which makes sense, Acker gave the book a great blurb comparing Amerika to Burroughs). She also sees some Mark Leyner in his sense of humor but Amerika is much darker!

Sexual Blood is easily a 5-star read just for the brazen content alone, although some of the sex scenes are quite explicit and not for everyone.

This book was just awful. I liked the writer's first book, The Kafka Chronicles, but this one just didn't cut it. It tries to be a novel and fails. It tries to be hip and fails. It tries to be shocking and fails. It tries to be clever and fails. And the cover is not appealing with the transexual playing a guitar. It's no wonder this author hasn't published another book since 1996.

america is under attack from the media, drugs, sex, paranoia, and ourselves. Sexual Blood is the follow up to The Kafka Chronicles(1993) and serves as the dramatic leap into the unknown where Amerika is the King and the rest of the world is huddled in corners too busy smelling themselves.