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First Sentence
Never having known a mother, her mother had died when Janey was a year old, Janey depended on her father for everything and regarded her father as boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Never having known a mother, her mother had died when Janey was a year old, Janey depended on her father for everything and regarded her father as boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
You will know her,
By "jahluv" (Hamilton Bermuda) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Paperback)
I see that many reviewers feel repulsed and perturbed by this novel's somewhat shocking content and unconventional narrative style. While I can understand that some of the content may offend potential readers, and that the de-emphasizing of the plot (as opposed to lack of plot..there is, in fact, some narrative progression here) may baffle them, I can still state quite certainly that this book is a moving and thoroughly enjoyable read. I found myself identifying with the novel's protagonist, and suspect that there may be a little bit of Janey in everyone. The final chapters of the book are the most moving, culminating in a genuinely captivating sequence of illustrations that are every bit as important as the preceding text. So in final analysis: Yes, this book switches format many times - from dramatic dialogue, to conventional text (which itself changes subject many times), to poetry, to illustration. Yes there are lots of references to genetalia, and yes there are distinctly feminist overtones throughout. However, none of this should stop anyone from picking the book up and giving it an openminded read. It is not as difficult as some reviewers have made it out to be, and the shocking elements are not, as one reviewer claimed, there for controversy's sake. Take a trip into the mind of little Janey. You'll be glad you did.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Tries too hard,
By
This review is from: Blood and Guts in High School (Paperback)
I read this novella for a postmodern fiction class and was disappointed with what I settled on as its purpose. This book, however successful in addressing the issue of the taboo (the pedophilia, incest, abuse), which, as I have skimmed articles related to the book, was one of Acker's intentions, was simply shock for the sake of shock. It seemed as if all the pictures were simply to shock, all the embarrassingly sleazy plotlines, and the non-traditional form, existed simply to be sleazy and non traditional. Who knows if this is a truth. All I know is I felt nothing but relief after finishing the novel, which I felt was wholly unreadable, as Acker may feel comfortable admitting.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Map of My Dreams-- by Janey,
By frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel (Paperback)
Janey is a little girl wandering through a fantasy landscape of men who reject her-- her father, Jean Genet, the Persian Slave Trader, Tommy. This is a book communicating a world of pain-- the dialogues in the beginning between Janey and her father as he prepares to leave her for someone else carry the weight of the agony of someone being betrayed by someone so close and all the little lies and tricks we use to pull closer and push away. It's also a book about illness. Janey constantly has pain and infections and disease that cripple her, but she always pushes the physical pain to one side to focus on the men who she knows from the beginning are going to leave her. It is not the easiest book in the world to read-- the emotion, rather than the plot, is the thread that ties the book together. There's a section in the book which is a series of drawings by Janey that provide a map to her dreams. I used this map to give the reading experience a kind of structure and I found that thinking about the book as a dream landscape made the lack of narrative much less jarring.
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