Narcissism and Death (HC)

"A metapornographical prose with a quite fantastic species of English," writes novelist David Dalton about these "ten tales slithering, writhing, taunting, tempting, and pouting in the autoerotic embrace." Their Italian-born author whom Dalton calls "a hardened metaphysical enchantress, a nihilistic and precocious snake who disdains grammar and logic and thrives on biting her own sequined tail"-belongs in the tradition of Bataille, Genet, Burroughs, and such visual artists as Francis Bacon and Sue Coe. This is writing with an instinctive feel for the erotic base of language, embodying at times "the simplicity of a natural event and at times the simplicity of a supernatural one...the precisely fantastic. It is as if we were to judge each sentence in the light of reason and find them verifiable in our own dreams" (Alan Davies).