Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary (Hardcover)

by Lydia Lunch (Author)
Key Phrases: Lydia Lunch, New York, New Orleans (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Art-rocker, filmmaker and '80s doyenne Lunch opens this confession, first published in the UK in 1997, with an account of her childhood sexual abuse: "So twisted by men, a man, my father, that I became like one." She's not looking for healing or sympathy, but to explain her transformation into a sexual predator. From Lunch's arrival in pre-AIDS New York as a teenager, she matter-of-factly "targets marks," trades her body for rooms and drugs, and uses increasingly transgressive sex for a high of its own: she deflowers runaway teenage boys ("supping on their energy like an insatiable bloodsucker whose belly would never fill"), dabbles with a cannibal (whose room smells like "barbecue and old leather"), and turns tricks with a lesbian mother trying to put her girlfriend through law school. Of johns and men in general, she writes that they all "get milked." She describes the beginnings of her performance work as "a bigger hustle" that she undertakes because it "took up too much time servicing just one john at a time." Beyond the book's chronicling of Lunch's desires, it serves an overarching, exhibitionist desire to perform, and it brings a decrepit, vanished New York to life. Lunch's book is explicit, and it sometimes matches a rawness of experience with a purpleness of prose, but it recreates its time and place with vivid authenticity.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review
A tantalising read. -- Express

It's extremely rare to read a book so virulent and honest. Do so, and be enlightened. -- Neon

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: The Tears Corporation/Creation (December 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1871592496
• ISBN-13: 978-1871592498
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,729,338 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ready for a Kick in the Head?, June 10, 2004

By	Baroness Von Grim "Ophelia Grim" (Verslums) - See all my reviews

If you are not familiar with Lydia Lunch, then you may be in for a rude awakening. Lydia's specialty is brutality - brutal honesty, brutal emotions, and a brutal no-nonsense delivery. She revels in kicking down pre-fabricated houses of illusion and letting the cold harsh light of day in to expose all festering wounds, withering sins and those nasty little trolls that like to hide in the shadows. Her imagery is an assault to the more refined senses. Jane Austen she's not.

I've heard this book described as fiction, then as non-fiction, then as a fictionalized autobiography. I don't think it matters, really, because it's all true somewhere, in some way, to somebody. Tales of people abusing other people, abusing themselves, struggling to crawl out of the gutter only to stumble right back in. Messed-up heads, bruised hearts, ravished souls, all going around in circles reliving the same nightmare over and over again. Some survive, some don't, some break free while others pray for salvation. And there's Lydia declaring that if you want saving then you gotta do it yourself. Wake-up and smell the stench, folks.

Some accuse her of possessing no compassion, no humanity, no sense of beauty. But I think it's there, just painted in various shades of gray instead of the black or white to which many are accustomed. It's there, just raw and aching and unadorned. Sometimes you just have to be cruel to be kind.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Adventure Story, December 19, 2000

By	"brainswired" (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paradoxia : A Predator's Diary (Paperback)

An adventure story is not like cartoons on Saturday morning. An adventure is truly dangerous and forces the participants to face their worst fears in exchange for pain, enlightenment, joy, freedom, and a new set of treacherous obstacles.

Lydia Lunch brings us along her twisted sexual landscape in Paradoxia where everything is allowed to the point where it almost kills her and others die or episodes of extreme ecstasy and pleasure transpire. What she achieves through the series of violence, sex, and psychosis is what we all should be trying to do instead of working some job.

She illustrates the consequences of living an autonomous life, thereby refusing the status quo and security of the "straight life" in exchange for living life to its extreme boundaries of death, pain, and suffering. And where has it all gotten her? Well, I believe she's what you call an artist.

Paradoxia is also partially a documentation (and I assume everything she is saying is basically true) of New York in the late 70's and L.A. into the early 80's when artists still had a chance to be just that instead of working 40+ hours/wk just to pay rent. She was living an adventure not a routine, and paying for it every step of the way. In return she received her personal freedom, which simply meant continuous struggle with either other people or her own mind. Life ain't easy.

Paradoxia stands as a constant reminder to continually recreate your life, to live it as an adventure, in order to retain control of it from your psychotic lover, your totalitarian government, or your own personal demons.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sick And Twisted, January 8, 2003

By	ThroughTheseEyes.net (Rocky Hill, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paradoxia : A Predator's Diary (Paperback)

I can't remember where I first heard of Lydia Lunch. Maybe it was in "Our Band Could Be Your Life". All that I know is that whatever I read intrigued me enough to want to learn more about her. I did a little research online, found this book, and asked for it for Christmas.

I should've known something would be a little off with this book when my Mom gave me a note with the book saying how she couldn't believe that I got her to buy this book. But being the good sport that she is, she still got the book for me. Go Madre!

Within about one page of this book I realized that it probably wasn't the kind of booking I was looking to read. I thought I was going to be in for a biography of someone I had hoped would give me more insight into punk music and the punk ideals of her time. What I got was the story of a girl who took out her hate of herself and her life on many, many men (and women).

In essence, Lydia Lunch was the type of girl that all of the other girls hated. She'd steal their boyfriends from right in front of them, take them to the bathroom, have her way with them and send them right back to when she was done. She's the girl that the guys wanted for their girl in High School because she put out. She's NOT the girl they brought home to show Mom, she was the girl they brought around when Mom wasn't home.

This book basically covers the various messed up relationships and sexual escapades that Lydia had had throughout her life. Whatever freaky thing you are into, whether it's as extreme as S&M or as mild as plain ole normal sex, this book covers it all. It even covers some stuff you probably haven't even heard about yet. I don't even really know how else to describe this book. There might be one or two pages in the book that don't deal with sex... maybe... I'd give some examples of some of the nastier things in this book, but I'm keeping this place PG-13 for now.

Another disappoint was that the cover claimed that "No names were changed because no one is innocent." I took this to mean that I was at least going to get some nice gossip on some punk stars that would shock me, but I think that sleeping with a musician was only mentioned one-time during the whole book!

But the book isn't all bad, after all I did read it all in just a few sittings. One of the highlights were the tales of her exploits in California with her adrenaline-seeking boyfriend of the moment. You just had the feeling that by the end of that doomed relationship something big was going to happen. Nobody died, but there was some serious damage done and I can't even imagine how either made it out of the relationship with their sanity. I don't know why, but it was nice to read about the dysfunction of others.

After reading this book, you'll find yourself thinking that it's pretty amazing that Lydia Lunch even survived to write this book. You'll probably also find yourself thinking that you can't even believe half of what you just read. How could anybody live such a crazy life and not either A) Die or B) Be commited or jailed.

If you are into the more perverted and twisted side of life, this is the book for you. If you are looking to learn more about the life of a famed punk icon, you might want to do like I'm going to and try another one of her books.