Kink

by Kathe Koja

In Kink, her mesmerizing new novel, Koja explores the many dazzling facets of obsession - intellectual, emotional, and sexual - created and refracted by the ever-changing dynamics of a three-way relationship between a man and two women. Set in a gritty downtown urban milieu of late-night clubs and a decadent art scene where all past ties seem severed, Kink is at once spellbindingly erotic and determined - in brilliant studies of character, motivation, manipulation, and spiritual unease - to portray both the possibilities for personal transformation and the dead-end games of moral bankruptcy.Kathe Koja’s books include The Mercury Waltz, Under the Poppy, The Cipher and Skin; her young adult novels include Buddha Boy, Talk and Kissing the Bee. Her work has been honored by the ALA, the ASPCA and with the Bram Stoker Award. Her books have been published in seven languages and optioned for film. She’s a Detroit native and lives in the area with her husband, artist Rick Lieder. She also runs Loudermilk Productions, creating site-specific immersive events including performances of Wuthering Heights, Alice in Wonderland, Faustus and her own adaptation of Under the Poppy.

Genres: Horror, Erotica, Fiction, Romance, Novels, Dark, Sexuality

278 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Kathe Koja is a writer, director and independent producer of live and virtual events. Her work combines and plays with genres, from horror to YA to historical to weird, in books like THE CIPHER, VELOCITIES, BUDDHA BOY, UNDER THE POPPY, and CATHERINE THE GHOST.

Her ongoing project is the world of DARK FACTORY https://darkfactory.club/ continuing in DARK PARK, with DARK MATTER coming out in December 2025.

She's a Detroit native, animal rights supporter, supporter of democracy, and huge fan of Emily Bronte.

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

So in reading this, I kept thinking about Umberto Eco.

Yeah yeah. I just disparaged his bloodless aesthetic. But it was that part about formal stopgaps in On Literature. To quote my review, ahem aheeeemmememehghsgdh: he offered "a cool perspective on how our brains automatically flip past phrases like "he said" when reading, and how the writer can use this to their advantage (or, at least, accept it as inevitable -- not every sentence can or should be beautiful)."

With Kathe Koja, every fucking sentence is beautiful.

Unsurprisingly, it takes forever to read her books. Every paragraph is a little poem: not always precisely to my taste, but every word rife. I was going to say with every word carefully selected, but I don't want to believe that's how Koja writes: cause she reads like she's channeling cosmic background radiation or some shit into her sentences. They flow, stir, and almost grasp: she has the level of skill that projects the illusion of effortlessness. Or maybe she's just a unicorn who knows.

Unicorn, actually: apt metaphor. Beautiful, majestic, whole, with a big fucking spear on top of her brain. Kink, too, is a unicorn: searingly painful, but dazzlingly complete. You don't need to know much going in, so I'll steer away from plot: but suffice to say Koja takes her concepts and draws them to their emotional (if not logical) conclusion. She leads the reader down the paths they suspect, then twists things back on them. Of course a threesome makes sense/Of course a threesome doesn't make sense. Can humans possibly be monogamous, can we possibly mutually define a healthy relationship, are we even capable of genuine interaction? How do we process and define meaning and why oh why are we so screwed up? No answers here; just raw and inarticulate thoughts. Which is meant, of course, as a compliment.

Koja is a blood writer, man, and Eco would fucking hate her.

Five dripping stars.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathe Koja, Kink (Henry Holt, 1996)

Kathe Koja's fifth novel, and her last (to date) book for adults, came and went in the blink of an eye. Published by a relatively obscure publisher (Henry Holt normally does textbooks and obscure "literary" fiction) rather than her native Dell, given next to no publicity, and allowed to languish, Kink fell into obscurity within a few months of its publication date. I first ran across word Koja had published a fifth novel two months after its release; when I tried to order a copy, Borders was unable to get it. It had already gone out of print. It has never, to my knowledge, been released in paperback.

To call this an abomination, a crime against nature, would perhaps be understating the case. Koja is one of a handful of writers who regularly compete for the title of America's finest living person of letters. Kink, coming after the two perfect novels Skin and Strange Angels, could only be a letdown, right? If it went out of print THAT fast?

Of course not, fool.

Kink is, as any fan of Koja's is probably happy to hear, a work of brilliance just as blinding and extreme as Strange Angels (or Straydog, the book that came afterwards, with six long years between the two). It is not, like her previous novels, horror. Unlike the others, it doesn't even pretend to be. Kink is human drama, pure and simple. The mysterious, ethereal characters who have peppered her work from the beginning of here career are here exposed as pathetic, degenerates for the sake of degeneracy, living in their own little worlds carved out of the fabric of reality, existing only to hover around Koja's main characters like moths drawn to a bug zapper.

In this case, the main characters are three: Jess and Sophie, the young couple in love, meet Lena, the alluring loner. Through a string of events that seem random to Jess, who narrates, Lena ends up moving in, and well, the inevitable occurs.

Three-way relationships, be they [adult relations] or platonic, are the most fragile of delicacies. The ability to manipulate the balance of power within one to one's own ends, whatever they may be, are endless. Ultimately, that's what Kink is about; the rest of the world (including the novel's readership) is clearly capable of seeing this from the get-go, while Jess is too thick-headed to get it. (The comments of many of the book's reviewers make me think that, while they get that Jess is too thickheaded to see what's going on, don't buy how easy it is to manipulate others in such a situation. Trust me. The realism here goes well above and beyond that to be found in Skin or Strange Angels.) Jess' inability to see what's going on around him is relatively understandable, as he's blinded by both his love for Sophie and his passion for Lena; he does make some hall-of-fame-worthy stupid moves at various times, which to be fair have to be rationalized away. Eventually, the book does move out of the world of the [physical relations] dynamic and back into the world of the pathetic losers I talked about at the start, a world Jess is now very familiar with, and the book sets up a mystery about one of Lena's old flames (with a sucker punch at the end that caps the book off perfectly) that continues the interest far beyond anything reasonable.

Kink is a novel about obsession. I get the feeling that the more of an obsessive personality you are as a reader, the more you'll get out of it. I can say with almost certainty that if you've been in a three-way relationship that went horribly, fatal-car-accident-scale wrong and stayed that way for a period of time, you're going to end up revering this book. Koja fans who have been hunting it down since its release will also not be disappointed. The rest of the world, well, recent research has led me to believe they just won't get it.

Kink is not as good as Strange Angels, but in the same way Skin is not as good as Strange Angels; the three of them (along with Straydog, but it being part of the "new phase" of Koja's work I probably shouldn't count it) form a triumvirate that could stand as a how-to guide for writers of fiction who want to deal in well-drawn characters, dark plots, and existential decay. Strange Angels, as I have often said, is one of the three or four best novels in the English language; "not as good" means Skin and Kink fall somewhere in the top, say, twenty-five. Whatever possessed Henry Holt to publish this I have no idea, but I just went back over my last five years of reading, and whatever it is, I hope it stays at Holt. It is by far the finest novel they ever produced that came across my desk. *****

[Alex (The Bookubus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unflinching character study and relationship study following a couple who meet a woman they both become enamored with and their pair turns into a threesome.

The story is told from the male perspective, Jess, who is dating Sophie; they are both art student drop-outs who now work shitty jobs to pay the rent and have fun together in their free time. During one night out they meet Lena, an alluring character who seems to know everyone in the art scene. They form a quick friendship which eventually turns into something more.

The plot isn't necessarily what's important here, it's the characters and their relationships that are the main focus. The story follows the journey of this relationship through its blossoming and into its decay. Koja's prose is strong, beautiful, poetic, brutal. Despite the title, this isn't BDSM erotica or anything like that although there is some sexual content. Love, lust, obsession, insecurities, betrayal. Ultimately, can you really know anyone?

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book haunted me. I read it four or five times over the three weeks I had it. It's a fast read but so compelling. If you've ever been duped by someone that you thought really cared about you but who ultimately turned out to be a completely different person, you'll understand the heartbreak and utter despair this book portrays. If you're looking here for sex or kinkiness, you won't find it. Very little sex is actually described in the book, and it's certainly not kinky sex. "Kink" has a different definition for these characters (one they'll fully explain in the book). Read it and experience someone else's weeping.

[Cody | CodysBookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

”The dry and wizened passion of the mirror: Eros and Narcissus, me times me is me, is no one, is nothing but a mirror after all and if kink at its heart was vision, then the mirror was a symbol of waste: glass wed sullen to silver to show only what is seen before and between that sight and vision, caul and masking shine lives the question, the equation balanced tender between desire and greed: who is it for now, all that passion, to whom is it given at last? The self or the other? the mirror or the gazing eye?”

I’ve yet to award a Kathe Koja novel anything less than 5 stars (her story collection Velocities did earn 4 stars, however) and that streak isn’t ending now. Kink is maybe my favorite novel of hers—at least, of the ones I’ve read—because it takes themes explored in her earlier works, themes such as alienation and obsession and transcendence through art and strange relationships, and fine-tunes them. This novel will probably work best for those with an obsessive and/or emotional streak, because the first-person narrator, Jess, is quite emotionally intuitive and self-destructive. I suspect he would grate on those who don’t understand what it is to be the one left for another lover or to be the one to push away what is good for them.

As always I was blown away by Koja’s prose: sharp and hypnotic and incisive, she explores the reality and nuance of complicated romantic relationships and all the hard feelings those can bring. And while this novel is certainly erotic, it’s not quite what you’d expect from a story called Kink: it’s much more. Koja is an otherworldly talent, able to dig into human psychology and (in)stability in a way most other writers don’t, or can’t.

While I’m not sure I’d recommend this as a starting place with Kathe Koja—I’d go with Bad Brains, myself—this is a highly readable and artistically delectable tale about compulsion and self-destruction, and it’s a shame it’s sort of fallen under the radar, even for a Koja novel. My highest recommendation.

[Jerry Balzano · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a marvelous book. I actually finished this haunting tale ten days ago, but I waited because I knew I wanted to write a review of it. The passage of time, though, has only made more of the details of the book fade on me, and I feel even less able to review it now than I was when I finished it. The upshot, at least at this point, is that Kink underlines for me the idea that any prospective reviewer of a book really should read that book twice before proceeding. After all, there are always going to be some things — maybe many things — in an earlier part of a well-told story that only fully make sense in light of things that occur later in the story. But of course, it's impossible for a reader to be aware of these on first reading, by their very nature. Ergo, two readings required. But now, problem: who has time and space to read every worthy book twice? Hope to address this problem, if not solve it, and produce an actual review rather than a verbose excuse for no-review.

Close with note-to-self and exhortation to others: Worth a reread!

Nov 2 (2½ months later): Starting that reread ....

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesus Christ! That was really intense ending!
A very valuable lesson was learned here. People are not always who they seem, are they? So if you got something good, don't go meddling in other people's business.... you might get BURNED.

I can kind of relate to the obsession ( like Sophie had for Lena) of another human that you just kind of want to -be- them. In my circumstance it would probably be a celebrity girl crush, Shirley Manson or Maria Brinks. You know that feeling, when you idolize that person's surface and want their same appeal and talents... then shortly thereafter you see a really ugly tabloid surface about said person's inappropriate behavior that makes you remember we are all just silly little imperfect humans.... have to make due with the body we were born into.
Lamely put, I enjoyed this. I stayed up till 1:30 am burning through this because I fell straight down the down spiral with the main character.
I have one more Kathe Koja book to read (Bad Brains) and then I will be done with her adult novels. I have no intentions on reading her young adults.... & quite frankly I am done with her psychological mind fucks.... LOL
Koja is one brilliant BRILLIANT writer. She captures raw human emotion so perfectly. She will spill out these horrid details with such beautiful language that it makes it easy to swallow.... only for you to regurgitate it later, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. She is quite EFFECTIVE in this way.
I don't know any other writer who is capable of doing this. She can get inside your guts and stay there.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike Koja's early work, which is horror, this book deals with a three-way relationship from the man's point of view. As in all of Koja's fiction, power struggles are the name of the game, and poetic language abounds.

[Heidi Bakk-Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have liked this book a lot more if I'd read it when it first came out, because I was younger and more tolerant of the insanities inherent in young love, sex, obsession and other such nonsense. I couldn't stand the protagonist/narrator, most of the time, so ultimately it was somewhat unsatisfying. You could see he was going to get dumped from a long way off, because of course. Honestly, I was glad because he was basically insufferable, but aren't we all when we're young? And add in the insufferableness of being NYC artists in the early Nineties--well, it was somewhat familiar if you've ever been part of a big city scene like that. So in the middle, I almost wanted to quit. But then after the dumpage, things got more interesting again. Didn't like the ending, because for god's sake people, move the fuck on. Relationships get spoiled when you try to be So Much.

At any rate, I picked this up because I read Bad Brains and Skin many years ago, and liked her writing. Her writing is what keeps you in, keeping on. But the characters? Kind of just made me roll my eyes all over the place. So don't read it if you had enough of Very Special Artists and all their drama when you were young.

[s · Rating 2 out of 5]

its never a waste of time to wander the labyrinths of koja’s sentences but of her early gutter-porn work this feels most dated; a relic from the pre-poly past

[r. fay · Rating 4 out of 5]

'art turned to kink turned to heat turned to dust, only dust without it, nothing left...'

poly-fascists, put this on your reading group's list ASAP

[Robert Hudder · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dissolution of a threesome. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a break up of a "happy" relationship. The kind of genuine happiness where you are just content with being with each other regardless of anything else.

There comes a third into the main relationship. That is not the interesting part in the book. The interesting part is when it all falls apart and the main character, Jess, is looking for answers. In many ways, the third doesn't matter. It is a convenient plot device to describe the invisible person that can intrude in the relationship, when you start going out and enjoying yourself, confiding in others and the lies you tell yourself. The idea that the other person already knows and how could they not. The conversations not had.

This is a really beautiful book when it starts falling apart. Different ways of dealing or not dealing with the emotions; the conversations that go on and on and the endless dissection without information to the other side where it is something that we never want to discuss again. But somewhere in all that, the message that all you need to do is communicate and stop wanting so much, it is really an odd book.

Or maybe I am reading too much into it. Or not. I will definitely be reading more of her stuff. I read her because of her speculative fiction but choose this one first. I am really interested.

[Darby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it better then Suicide Blonde (which I read around the same time). But it was a pretty predictable story - at least to me. This is the story of Jess and Sophie....and eventually Lena. Jess narrates the story - he is the male in the 3-way relationship. Right from the start of Lena coming into their relationship I saw what was happening. And just kept wanting to get to that point to prove myself right. Eventually I did get to that point and I was right.

I liked the words used in this book. I liked the characters somewhat. I did like Jess and Sophie but I wished the whole book was about their relationship - just them (or with a 3rd that was nice). The book is set in an avant garde art community. And Jess and Sophie meet Lena and their life of course changes and that is about all I am going to say as I don't want to give the story away.

The book is called Kink because it is there thing with people that connect and have a deep bond...where you see the world through each other, you use each other to change the world, make the world...that is what the word "Kink" means to Jess and Sophie.

[Niya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kink is a book I read every two years or so, and I am always surprised by the ending. It's not so much that I forget how it ends, as the fact that I am so completely enamored with the characters - their frailties, their narcissism, the shocking black/white/gray of their lives - that on some level, I refuse to acknowledge that the story ends. Perhaps my subconscious doesn't agree with the notion of a somewhat happily every after.
Regardless, the adjective laden, stream of consciousness work reveals as much as it hides about the nature of power, desire and kink - but not in the awful sense of kink as explored by "50 Shades of Gray. This is kink in the twisted sense and it requires a much deeper appreciation of humanity than some whip happy vocabulary deficient author could ever hope to create.

[Adrienne Urbanski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the themes and plot of this novel (I chose it since Goodreads recommended it to me) which focuses on a heterosexual couple whose relationship is torn apart when they foolishly try to include another woman in it. However, before the plot reaches its peak the book is rather slow and meandering. Koja's stylistic choice to often omit periods and not always use quotation marks creates some confusion when reading (I kept missing things and having to reread pages). The lack of standard paragraph organization also makes it hard to follow scene changes and dialogue.

[Jenn Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Between grief and nothing" a common phrase throughout this book -- in which the authors answer is invariably always -- grief. This book is hauntingly exquisite, and deeply wrought with passion and emotion. Not a page turns in which the reader does not feel something, whether deepest anguish, or frantic joy. Readers who enjoy the works of Poppy Z Brite, Abraham Rodriquez Jr, and Francesca Lia Block, will fall in love with Kathe Koja's Kink.

[Allison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I marked it as read because i did something I almost never do: stopped reading the book. It was not terribly intriguing to start with, but the direction it was going didn't interest me and I am planning on just giving it back to Bookman (my favorite used book store.) Maybe I'll get a dollar for it to return it, who knows?

[Shelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is presented in a complicated narrative, but the feelings and relationship woes are interesting. Its a grim perspective on a often overlooked dimension of the human population -- those who engage in alternative love lives.

[Я. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty intense story of a breakup and obsession.

[James Zukowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep, deep dive into human psychology.

I don't know of any other book that is quite like this one. Everything that happens in the book is seen through an extremely introspective lens; the psychology of the characters is constantly examined. This is a psychological book to its core. The book also focuses on relationships and the nature of passion and obsession. It's hard to describe, but if you like to try to understand the reasons behind people's actions, you'll probably find Kink very interesting.

As always with Koja's books, the prose is painstaking beautiful and lyrical. The book contains many profound insights and breathtaking lines that perfectly articulate previously nebulous feelings or ideas. There is also lots of humor, many erotic scenes, and a sense of camaraderie among many of the characters.

The narrator, Jess, comes off as an absolute asshole, but his innermost thoughts and feelings are so well articulated that the reader does feel empathy for him at times. Also, I think Koja created such a dickish, bumbling character (although never cartoonish) to better illustrate the fallacy that he believes but eventually realizes is wrong: that he is better than everyone and deserves everything he wants because of it. He can be an infuriating character, but he's the perfect character to tell this particular story.

And everyone has known a person like Lena. I know I have, unfortunately. So it was great to see a complete takedown of the type of bullshit a person like her generates and dwells in--deceit and storytelling and manipulation. Magnetic to everyone, yes, but ultimately empty and wholly destructive, a leech who feeds on others until gorged. This novel is a big Fuck You to those types of people.

I hate boring books, and this book is anything but boring. Every part of the book serves the story and is an interesting plot point or observation. This is the third book of Koja's I've read (the first two being Skin and The Cipher), and I would enthusiastically recommend all three, especially Skin.

Enjoy!

[David Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kathe Koja's Kink tells the story of a couple who become a threesome and then lonesome singles after the whole experiment goes horribly wrong. It quickly immerses readers in a grimy world of filthy apartments and alcohol and sex-fueled young love. The characters' lives feel like a never ending party composed of night clubs, restaurants, coffee shops, underground art houses. And, of course, sex. Lots and lots of sex. The quasi-stream of consciousness writing adds even more immediacy and intimacy to the fast-paced and highly social lifestyles already on display.

It's the writing, as well, that allows for an emotional depth to the characters and their relationships. Jess and Sophie, the original couple, seem not only made for each other, but give the impression that they can perpetually maintain an existence in opposition to the rest of the world, even after Lena, who completes their trio, enters their lives. But soon, all of the petty jealousies and feelings of inadequacy, the desires for validation and outright hatreds seep into their unique world and create a continually revolving cycle of pain and pleasure that is both intoxicating and hard to take. As much as I wanted to yell at some of these characters for their irrational behavior, I had some vague awareness that I might act the same in similar circumstances.

The last third or so of the book loses traction. I know drama is supposed to be life with the boring bits cut out, but hearing nothing but the protagonist's tortured inner monologue becomes trying. He has, undoubtedly, gone through serious emotional turmoil, but he begins to sound too much like an angsty teen going through his first break up by the end with his obsession over his partners' previous partners and his unrelenting desire to know why things ended up the way they did.

Moral of the story: Don't get involved in a threesome.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I sat with this for about a day before deciding to write my review. There was a lot to unpack after finishing it and I knew it would take some thought.

This book wasn't a story so much as it was an experience. It was told in a very interesting and uncommon first person narrative that can be hard to grapple with because of the flowing thoughts and unique structure. People become accustomed to a structure where "this is a paragraph" and "this is a sentence" and "this is the dialogue" but all those rules went out the window. You've really gotta adjust your mindset to be able to stay with and appreciate what the author did here.

And the end result was phenomenal. While reading, I kept thinking this would be a solid 4 ⭐ for me but by the end (and after sitting with it), I saw the magical genius of the book (experience) as a whole. (Not to mention that I damn near shed tears at the end.)

I think it takes a certain level of....not maturity but rather an openness to an author bucking the traditional writing format to enjoy and love a book like this. And love it I did. And I'm excited to explore more of Koja's work.

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the author's most conventional book, at least of those I have read. You could see this as a much more traditional lit-fic, in that it is all of human romantic relationships and how they go askew. Or it feels almost conventional now. I do wonder to what extent this is a victim of culture, down to the title, seeming to put a sort of daring sexual charge on the characters that does not seem to perpetuate into the now. But the author uses the 'kink' term for more than venial making it into a statement on art and life. This speaks to her skills as a writer. You could focus on the Beat poetry that is her prose, but what makes it so good is that she always understands that it has to serve the story, usually in more than one way.

The writing is beautiful. The end gets wobbly, but closes out well. I am cool on it because, while the eternal platitudes that it speaks to are boundless, the localization is something that I do not feel.

[Katyak79 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Koja was probably my favorite author when I was younger, and had I read this back then I probably would have enjoyed this more. Back then, this tale about the demise of a poly relationship would have seemed shocking and relevant, now it just seems predictable. Koja's use of language is still gorgeous but the stream of consciousness flow just doesn't feel as profound to me as it did years ago. Also, Jess is a selfish asshole and deserved what happened.

[Brian Moreau · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fifth book of hers I’ve read and it’s the weakest. The other books touch on something deep and dark but this is just about jealousy and reading about other peoples relationship troubles can be pretty trying. Not terrible but pales to her other works.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The real life circumstances of receiving such a book, followed by the urgent need to pass it along to an appropriate reader is as interesting as this tale of swindled love and lost love.

[claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

:-) enduring

[Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bloody intense. Go on. Give it a read.

[ax · Rating 2 out of 5]

never thought i would be a little cringed out by a koja book but here we are 3 pretty sure every in-text use of the titular word could just be replaced with “poly” and it would make much more sense

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story perfectly captures when couples think they can be poly 😂🫣