Snuff Flique [Paperback]

Hemmingson loves sticking his insistent little fingers into the minds of disturbed individuals, often coming back with slimy heaps of gore and filth.

"Snuff Flique" is a fine example of this proclivity.

The first five stories feature a rapist clown, a hit man, an evil man on the run who tries to straighten out his life, the tale of a man who revisits a past misdeed, and a story about a whacked-out, violent group of young people who worship a god they call "the Jellyfish."

While all are entertaining, the clown story ("Leashed") and the hit man story ("Two of a Kind") are too brief, the story about the man on the run ("Shadowplayers") frankly feels too much like a '70s action film (though the main character's attempt at normalizing his life is the only suggestion of humanity in the entire book), and "The Silence of Dirt and Grass," about a man who flashes back to when he was a kid and he and his friends murdered a bully, seems a little cliche and is oddly set off by a Gumby doll (surely a first).

"The Secret Code of the Jellyfish Clan" is when this book really kicks off. Six young psychopaths, fresh from seeing "A Clockwork Orange" and dropping acid, go on a rampage, raping and killing people at random. The leader, who speaks directly to their "god" the Jellyfish, eventually turns on his own people. "The Secret Code of the Jellyfish Clan" is a trippy, anarchistic story about a religion of violence.

The masterpiece here, though, is "Snuff Flick," the final story, which brings all the characters from the previous five stories together and shows how they intersect in the others' lives, affecting each other in fascinating ways. The boy from the story "Leashes" grows up to be a deranged Federal Agent; he uses his position to indulge his sick fantasies. After saving a woman from two criminals who were going to use her in a snuff film, he rapes her. But she's so lost in the misery of her life that she enjoys it -- and not only begins to see the agent, but delves into a self-hate so deep it drives her to defilement and violence. The surviving character from the "Jellyfish" story now makes snuff films -- and after he gets together with the deranged Federal Agent, he ropes a porn actress and her boyfriend (the man who flees in "Shadowplayers") into doing a video.

"Snuff Flick" is what I expect from Hemmingson -- an off-kilter tone, deadpan violence and perversion, simple, precise prose that doesn't waste a word, and an examination of disturbed people.

A brilliant story like "Snuff Flick" -- which doesn't just frighten you with its violence but also the emotional scars of its characters -- is why I put Hemmingson there on the short list of authors like Dennis Cooper and Matthew Stokoe who can still shock me.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  4.0 out of 5 stars