Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels
A collection of three early, self-published novels by the author of Empire of the Senseless.

Beginning with The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula in 1973, Kathy Acker set out on a brilliant journey toward the boundaries of modern fiction that has made her one of the most celebrated novelists of her generation.

From the start, Kathy Acker created a brash and sexy female voice as shocking as the worlds she invokes. In Childlike Life she steps into the biography of a Mississippi murderess who falls in love with a famous lawyer. In I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac she takes a man capable of deceiving both sexes as her lover in a dreamy odyssey through the labyrinth of her desires. In The Adult Life Toulouse Lautrec is a woman starved for love and sex.

All of Acker’s obsessions “the frenzy of sexual desire, the search for identity, the invention of a new literary language” are present here with savage purity and raw energy.

Includes:

The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black Tarantula

I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining

The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse Lautrec

Praise for Kathy Acker and Portrait of an Eye

“A countercultural hero who hybridized elements of punk, literary postmodernism, feminism, and critical theory in her public identity and in her literary works.” —New Republic

“For Kathy, the breakthrough was her first serial novel, The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula . . . she lifts lines from old biographies of murderesses. She adopts their picaresque style and switches out I for she. And suddenly, she’s off, and she can say anything.” —Chris Kraus, Paris Review
1110914445
Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels
A collection of three early, self-published novels by the author of Empire of the Senseless.

Beginning with The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula in 1973, Kathy Acker set out on a brilliant journey toward the boundaries of modern fiction that has made her one of the most celebrated novelists of her generation.

From the start, Kathy Acker created a brash and sexy female voice as shocking as the worlds she invokes. In Childlike Life she steps into the biography of a Mississippi murderess who falls in love with a famous lawyer. In I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac she takes a man capable of deceiving both sexes as her lover in a dreamy odyssey through the labyrinth of her desires. In The Adult Life Toulouse Lautrec is a woman starved for love and sex.

All of Acker’s obsessions “the frenzy of sexual desire, the search for identity, the invention of a new literary language” are present here with savage purity and raw energy.

Includes:

The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black Tarantula

I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining

The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse Lautrec

Praise for Kathy Acker and Portrait of an Eye

“A countercultural hero who hybridized elements of punk, literary postmodernism, feminism, and critical theory in her public identity and in her literary works.” —New Republic

“For Kathy, the breakthrough was her first serial novel, The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula . . . she lifts lines from old biographies of murderesses. She adopts their picaresque style and switches out I for she. And suddenly, she’s off, and she can say anything.” —Chris Kraus, Paris Review
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Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels

Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels

Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels

Portrait of an Eye: Three Novels

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Overview

A collection of three early, self-published novels by the author of Empire of the Senseless.

Beginning with The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula in 1973, Kathy Acker set out on a brilliant journey toward the boundaries of modern fiction that has made her one of the most celebrated novelists of her generation.

From the start, Kathy Acker created a brash and sexy female voice as shocking as the worlds she invokes. In Childlike Life she steps into the biography of a Mississippi murderess who falls in love with a famous lawyer. In I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac she takes a man capable of deceiving both sexes as her lover in a dreamy odyssey through the labyrinth of her desires. In The Adult Life Toulouse Lautrec is a woman starved for love and sex.

All of Acker’s obsessions “the frenzy of sexual desire, the search for identity, the invention of a new literary language” are present here with savage purity and raw energy.

Includes:

The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black Tarantula

I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining

The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse Lautrec

Praise for Kathy Acker and Portrait of an Eye

“A countercultural hero who hybridized elements of punk, literary postmodernism, feminism, and critical theory in her public identity and in her literary works.” —New Republic

“For Kathy, the breakthrough was her first serial novel, The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula . . . she lifts lines from old biographies of murderesses. She adopts their picaresque style and switches out I for she. And suddenly, she’s off, and she can say anything.” —Chris Kraus, Paris Review

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780802146656
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date: 03/30/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 287
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Kathy Acker (1948–1997) was an influential postmodernist writer and performance artist, whose many books include Blood and Guts in High School; 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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