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Kathy Acker
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Blood and Guts in High School Paperback – November 21, 2017

by Kathy Acker (Author), Chris Kraus (Introduction)

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A masterpiece of surrealist fiction, steeped in controversy upon its first publication in 1984, Blood and Guts in High School is the book that established Kathy Acker as the preeminent voice of post-punk feminism. With 2017 marking the 70th anniversary of her birth, as well as the 10th year since her death this transgressive work of philosophical, political, and sexual insight—with a new introduction by Chris Kraus—continues to become more relevant than ever before.

In the Mexican city of Merida, ten-year-old Janey lives with Johnny—her “boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father”—until he leaves her for another woman. Bereft, Janey travels to New York City, plunging into an underworld of gangs and prostitution. After escaping imprisonment, she flees to Tangiers where she meets Jean Genet, and they begin a torrid affair that will lead Janey to her demise. Fantastical, sensual, and fearlessly radical, this hallucinatory collage is both a comic and tragic portrait of erotic awakening.

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  1. Print length
    176 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Grove Press
  4. Publication date
    November 21, 2017
  5. Dimensions
    5.4 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0802127622
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0802127624
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Blood and Guts in High School saved my life . . . this novel was the central most articulate and precise piece of literature I read during the decade in which I most wanted to kill myself . . . The girl in this story had more agency and voice than any girl I’d ever read or would read in my entire life.” —Lydia Yuknavitch

“Kathy Acker’s writing is virtuoso, maddening, crazy, so sexy, so painful, and beaten out of a wild heart that nothing can tame. Acker is a landmark writer.” —Jeanette Winterson

“No writer I know is more audacious than Kathy Acker, whose anarchic wit drives a thoroughgoing attack on conventions and complacencies of all sorts. Not unlike Gertrude Stein in her day, Acker gives us a different way to look at the uses to which language is put.” —Lynne Tillman

About the Author

Kathy Acker (1948 – 1997) was an influential postmodernist writer and performance artist, whose many books include Great Expectations; Don Quixote; Literal Madness; Empire of the Senseless; In Memoriam to Identity; My Mother: Demonology; Pussy, King of the Pirates; Portrait of an Eye; and Rip-Off Red, Girl Detective.

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Kathy Acker

Kathy Acker

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Kathy Acker (1947-1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, poet, and essayist known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality and rebellion. Her best-known novel is Blood and Guts in High School, her earliest work is collected in Portrait of an Eye, and her last novel is Pussy, King of the Pirates. Chris Kraus's recent After Kathy Acker is the first biography about the writer, and Jason McBride's new biography is forthcoming in 2022. McKenzie Wark's Philosophy for Spiders: On the Low Theory of Kathy Acker is coming out soon. Kathy Acker: The Last Interview is the best collection of interviews with the author; it gives you her thoughts on her work in her own words.