Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Acker, Kathy)

Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Acker, Kathy)
by Kathy Acker

Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Acker, Kathy)
List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $8.19
You Save: $5.81 (42%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $7.50 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Kathy Acker
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-01-11
ISBN: 080213193X
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Grove Press

Book Reviews of Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Acker, Kathy)

Book Review: Finished it on an airplane...really cool! (Actually "in")
Summary: 5 Stars

Excellent book. While my perfect rating (not that it matters) may drop over time, this was a jarringly satisfying read, one where the slipstream sexual complexity of all the smattered nonsense makes the cliches within (esp. at the end) all the more simple, profound, and resonant. It's something of an immature work perhaps, but I sort of think of it as the author really burying herself within the main character and speaking and thinking and expressing as she would, not that I think the novel should be understood merely as the record or diary of the protagonist. The book's language speaks in fits and starts, in diatribes and metaphors and irritating aphorisms. And tangential stories. And movie script. Poetry. Lessons. Pictograms. And jokes. It's stark. It's naked. It's pissed off. It's juvenile. And it's really refreshing. It's hardly perfect and I'm anxious to get into some of the author's other work in hopes of a more "fully realized" (whatever that means) novel. But to say that the lack of linearity or the somewhat prevalent vulgarity are liabilities of this book is to miss the point ENTIRELY. And the experience. I'd like to say that I read a lot but I don't. I'm a big music and film nerd and I generally take to the experimental or violent within each. So this book was right up my "alley". The only thing I could think to compare it to is Naked Lunch which is great. Anyway, it did touch a nerve in me and spoke to some kind of inner abused adolescent girl even if that makes me a fake bourgeois tourist. So what. The world is effed up and it was in 1977 and it is now. There's so much fake snobbery and indifference and condescending solutions. I think that's what the book decries and is ABOUT more than anything else. That and the fact that we desperately, foolishly, tirelessly make for ourselves our own embittering prisons. If you're a big prude don't read this stuff. Or rent horror movies. I'm sick of seeing people whine online about how offensive some piece of literature or film is. Yeah, thanks for the informed and creative warning, buddy! I didn't find this particular book to be all that offensive or vulgar anyway. It's no American Psycho, which really did churn my stomach and though I liked it, I certainly think Acker reveals a much greater and more perceptive moral sensibility in this book than does Ellis in his. What's the big deal with an old penis here and there? Anyway, don't read it if you're a whiny prude because we don't need to hear your complaining. But yes, very excellent. A real page-turner!!!!!!

Summary of Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Acker, Kathy)

Jamey lived in the locked room. Twice a day the Persian slave trader came in and taught her to be a whore. Otherwise there was nothing. Once day she found a pencil stub and scrap of paper in a forgotten corner of the room. She began to write down her life, starting with "Parents stink" (Her father, who is also her boyfriend, has fallen in love with another woman and is about to leave her). With "Blood and Guts in High School, " Kathy Acker, whose work has been labeled everthing from post-punk porn to post-punk feminism, has created a brilliantly subversive narrative built from conversation, description, conjecture, and moments snatched from history and literature.

United States Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in United States Books
Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor ImageMirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor
by Michael J. Rosen
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2000-02-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Gifts of the Body ImageThe Gifts of the Body
by Rebecca Brown
Harper Perennial; Published: 1995-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.91
Price in other shops: $12.00
Love and Lies ImageLove and Lies
by Kimberla Lawson Roby
William Morrow; Published: 2007-01-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.96
Price in other shops: $23.95
Blues Dancing: A Novel ImageBlues Dancing: A Novel
by Diane Mckinney-Whetstone
HarperTorch; Published: 2005-03-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.94
Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong ImageRed, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong
by Alan Colmes
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2004-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $14.95
Hunger Point: A Novel ImageHunger Point: A Novel
by Jillian Medoff
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops: $24.00
The Price of Blood ImageThe Price of Blood
by Chuck Logan
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.99
Blue Hour: Poems ImageBlue Hour: Poems
by Carolyn Forche
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops: $13.99
Blue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir ImageBlue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir
by Laurie Albanese
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $12.99
The Kindness of Strangers: A Novel ImageThe Kindness of Strangers: A Novel
by Katrina Kittle
William Morrow; Published: 2006-01-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.40
Price in other shops: $24.95
Similar Books and other products
Postmodernism For Beginners ImagePostmodernism For Beginners
by Jim Powell
For Beginners; Published: 2007-08-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.48
Price in other shops: $14.95
House of Leaves ImageHouse of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski
Pantheon; Published: 2000-03-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.75
Price in other shops: $19.95
Mumbo Jumbo ImageMumbo Jumbo
by Ishmael Reed
Scribner; Published: 1996-06-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops: $16.00
Naked Lunch: The Restored Text ImageNaked Lunch: The Restored Text
by William S. Burroughs
Grove Press; Published: 2004-01-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops: $14.95
Dictee ImageDictee
by Theresa Hak Jyung Cha
University of California Press; Published: 2009-09-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.22
Price in other shops: $21.95
The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library) ImageThe Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library)
by Thomas Pynchon
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-11-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.16
Price in other shops: $12.99
Nox ImageNox
by Anne Carson
New Directions; Published: 2010-04-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.01
Price in other shops: $35.00
The Dead Father ImageThe Dead Father
by Donald Barthelme, Donald Antrim
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2004-09-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.40
Price in other shops: $14.00
Wittgenstein's Mistress ImageWittgenstein's Mistress
by David Markson
Dalkey Archive Pr; Published: 2006-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.55
Price in other shops: $12.95
Empire of the Senseless: A Novel (Acker, Kathy) ImageEmpire of the Senseless: A Novel (Acker, Kathy)
by Kathy Acker
Grove Press; Published: 1994-01-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops: $12.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories