Liberty's Excess: FictionsUniversity of Alabama Press, 2000 - 177 pages In interconnected and mutually enfolding texts protagonists face off with some deformation of being: psychological, sexual, political, philosophical. Plots play out across the body, as if formed, deformed, reformed by culture. Drugs, violence, and sex inscribe the literal flesh of "figures" standing in for what formerly passed for character. In these fictions a woman is more likely to appear with a needle in her arm than a baby. Sometimes a woman cannot be distinguished from a man at all. Cutting from subject to object, severing the eye/I from skin, these fictions bring America back to its body. In Liberty's Excess, capitalism and individualism lose their cover stories, releasing desire all over culture's deadening hum. Yuknavitch is both master and mistress of this dis-formed beauty, creating a landscape neither Waste Land nor Kansas nor Pomo Glitter. |
Contents
Bravo America 11 | |
Waiting to See 20 | |
An American Couple 33 | |
Cusp 55 | |
The Garden of Earthly Delights 71 | |
Blood Opus 89 | |
from The Boy Stories 97 | |
Three Studies 147 | |
Burning the Commodity 158 | |
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Common terms and phrases
alchemy arms asked beautiful belly blood body Bosch bottle brain breath burning chiasmus Chuck Palahniuk closed cock crazy cunt dark dead death door dream drink edge eyes face feel filled fingers fire flesh fucking girl glass goddamn hair hand Harvey Keitel head heart hell hour human human drama inside Jack Daniels junkie kind knew laugh legs light lips living look Mary Poppins Mary Shelley McDonald's mean mind mother mouth move movie muscle Nacogdoches naked nearly never night Peter Jennings piss Planetarium Pulp Fiction pussy Reservoir Dogs Saint saliva Sara scene script shit sits skin skull sleep smell Someone speaking spine stare story sucked sweat talking tell thing thought told turn vision voice wait walls watch window woman woman on top women words YUKNAVITCH EXCESS