Some Like It Red
THE SLUTS
VOID BOOKS, 296 PAGES, $50
ALEX KASAVIN AT Void Books is two for two. First, he published Selfish, Little, Peter Sotos' unapologetic exploration of pedophilia, rape, incest and murder. I wouldn't have thought there'd be an audience for such pure Sotos beyond the initial run of 1000 copies, but Kasavin is preparing to release a paperback edition. Maybe some of those who bought Selfish, Little are picking up an extra copy; the first edition is a beautifully produced hardcover that you wouldn't want to jam in your bag and thumb through on the subway. The printing and binding bring to mind Black Sparrow Press.
This second Void title is another tricky one. Dennis Cooper started The Sluts in 1994, and finished it in fits and starts over the course of eight years. Originally conceived as the fourth book in the George Miles cycle-which would eventually be completed with Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, Period, and which would also bring Cooper to the forefront of contemporary gay writers-Sluts was finally completed in 2002 after several incarnations. As he states in an interview on the Void Books website, he was pressured to offer up a "less troublesome" and "more accessible" novel after the Miles series. The Sluts is hardly that book.
This swift but not overly lean novel revolves around a hustler named Brad-who may or may not be underage, and who may or may not be the best bottom on the California street-hustler circuit-and his pimp, Brian, who may or may not be offering Brad's life to the highest bidder. Told in five chapters of varying form and function, Sluts ends up being "an expected page-turner," as Kasavin described it in a recent conversation.
The opening and closing chapters consist of graphic descriptions of sessions with Brad, as posted on a review website of gay hustlers. It's immediately clear that Sluts will not have a simple, concrete narrative; there are, in fact, dozens of narrators, all of them equally unreliable. The second chapter presents hustler advertisements and negotiations with a john who may or may not be Brian, who may or may not be looking for a twink to fuck, hobble, dismember and/or kill. The third returns to the online community in the form of bulletin-board postings, pushing the story forward; the fourth is Brad's side of his correspondence with Brian.
Or maybe it isn't.
The Sluts brings to life a world that may be unfamiliar to a lot of people: one of hardcore gay sex that walks to the edge of brutal sadomasochism, often jumping in. It is a world with characters like the "ugly, fat pedophile and scat queen who got his heart broken" and the "cute twink and hungry assed bottom into heavy use and abuse." This is violence as fantasy, and for some, violence as sexual reality:
I'd paid for the whole evening, so I took my time. I ripped his clothes off and spent about two hours working him over. I'd brought an arsenal of dildos, and his ass gobbled up every last one of them. I left the biggest one inside him and whipped his back and ass and legs very hard, and used a stun gun on his groin until tears and snot were running down his face. I couldn't believe a kid that slight could take that kind of pain. After some heavy tit torture and CBT, and a heavy whipping of his chest, stomach, and thighs, I couldn't hold it in any longer and practically drowned his face with the biggest load I've ever shot in my life.
That's just page 27. Somewhere in the last chapter, the boy who may be Brad endures amputation and castration and? well, a lot of things happen to the death-wishing hustler, but believe what you want.
If you don't want to read about bottoms who like to get fucked bloody, or tops who can't get off without inflicting pain, this isn't the right book for you. Like Selfish, Little, The Sluts holds nothing back, and it doesn't waste time with explanations or apologies. No wonder both Cooper's agent and publisher chose not to offer this as the Miles cycle follow-up.
In an interview with Aaron Nielsen, Cooper describes his imprint-mate, Peter Sotos, as producing work "that has a coincidental relationship" to his own, and dismisses charges that Sotos' work "is the misogynist or misanthropic wank job that some people seem to think." He also calls Selfish, Little "by far his best." Good thing, then, that Sluts would end up on Void.
There's credit to be given to publishers who don't pursue popular projects, grasping for prestige and throwing money at media darlings-or worse, throwing money into publicity campaigns in an effort to create media darlings. With Void Books, Alex Kasavin is putting out projects that interest him, and his attention to detail and willingness to publish uncomfortable material should be rewarded.
The Sluts is available at void-books.com