Anything That Moves

by Jamie Stewart

A memoir of sexual misbehavior, abuse and no redemption. The stories are mostly funny but also depressing. They are in no way erotic.

For the love of God if we are related DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS
If we have seen each other naked and you are not in this book, you are welcome.

THIS IS FOR PEOPLE 18 YEARS AND UP.
IT CONTAINS GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT
AND DESCRIPTIONS OF ABUSE.
-----------------------------

This early audiobook version of the memoir was released as three albums on the Bandcamp page though only one record was created on Goodreads. The above description is from the Bandcamp page.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Music, Queer, LGBT, Gay, Sexuality

Audiobook

First published November 6, 2020

Reviews

[Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Xiu Xiu perform in Washington, D.C. shortly after this book was released. I had finished it several days prior and brought it with me in my bag and I ended up getting it signed by Jamie Stewart. Which is kinda weird, given the contents of the novel. It was like looking him in the eye and telling him I knew all about the fucked up stuff he did. The hellos and nice to meet yous felt sorta like “I know about the house party poop incident” and “I’m really sorry about what happened to your asshole”. At least for me. It’s hard to read something so deeply personal and vulnerable about someone and look them in the eyes without that kinda just sitting there like a big slimy lump in the back of your head. Not that I feel any sort of way about Jamie Stewart, I was just kinda embarrassed to get it signed, like I was calling him out for the sickening sexcapades detailed in the novel. Anyways. I had him sign on the acknowledgments page that says something along the lines of “if you a member of my family, please, for the love of god, do not read this.” Kinda funny.

Grotesque and rancid. Really. Like, do not read if you’re squeamish. Really reminded me of my favorite book as a child, My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulson, which is an autobiography told via the various dogs Paulson had in his life. This was like that, but with sexual partners. Like, sex is the main idea, but Stewart does get into where he’s at and what’s going on in his life surrounding these encounters and relationships.

This was really hard to put down and not exactly for the right reasons. This isn’t a book I could recommend to anyone or read again, probably. But Stewart actually writes pretty beautifully, I remember there being some really pretty passages and neat prose here and there. Which is no surprise, I know he is a big reader. Like, he quotes Absalom, Absalom! in Dear God, I Hate Myself. Real bookworm shit.

Speaking of, Jamie Stewart has put me on to a lot of books that I really enjoy. Hot Karl by XITSJ references My War Gone By by Anthony Lloyd, which I loved. Secret Motel quotes Ask the Dust by John Fante. Read both of these because of those songs. In interviews and offhand online posts he has also led me to Guerrillas by V. S. Naipaul, Shikasta by Doris Lessing, the Russian Prison Tattoo Encyclopedia, I’m probably missing a few. But was cool to read his writing after he’s introduced me to so much neat stuff.

Jamie Stewart is among my favorite lyricists. Maybe my very favorite? So reading his prose was a treat. Regardless of how I felt about the book, I loved it just because I got to get more into the headspace of a huge influence of mine. So yea it’s a bizarre read but it’s still an important entry into my own personal literary canon because of the importance of the author to me.

[Cleo]

I just feel like there’s nothing wrong with doing it somewhat normal

[james !! · Rating 5 out of 5]

jamie stewart has been my favourite musician for years now so i was instantly intrigued and excited when this book got announced! with his music being so emotionally honest and upfront i expected this book to be the same but still found myself shocked at how openly unfiltered this book is! it’s a no-holds barred deep dive into his up & down relationship with sex, queerness and the many feelings that come with it. loneliness, depravity, depression with all the nasty bits left in, it was so gripping and impossible to put down! it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at some of his past experiences and he’s well aware of this. brutally funny throughout and always shocking. loved this so much !!

[MS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explains a lot.

[Lars Meijer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rommelig, oprecht en emotioneel. Net als Xiu Xiu, eigenlijk.

[Jonathan Katabira · Rating 4 out of 5]

A debacherous beautiful mess of a book

[Dandy Glover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow. Just like Xiu Xiu's music, this really delves into forbidden and deviant realms but in the most beautiful way. I've read autobiographical sex books before such as Women and Weird Fucks before, but I think Jamie manages to even outdo Bukowski which is genuinely saying something. It would be a little disingenuous to describe the sex he has as gross because it's more of an exploration. He's less callous than Bukowski and even when he's describing something utterly taboo, there's a strange sense of endearment and attachment. His partners speak to his journey and character at the time of writing. There's something liberating in the freedom of just going from person to person, knowing many people that intimately. It's quite unabashed in the way it starts from a very early age; many people wouldn't feel comfortable writing about childhood experiences with experimentation but it's never like, exploitative, he just is disarmingly truthful. Some of the reviews of this seem a little horny (no shame there though) and personally I didn't get that from the text, it's just a sequence of fortunate and unfortunate events. It's a truly special work about how to know other people intimately is to know oneself. I've seen people say the last chapter is a little random - after detailing all his sexual exploits to date, he talks about his father's suicide. Genuinely I think people might be missing the point there a little bit - it's deliberately jarring and it's not as if the book is without sadness. His encounter with the sex worker in Vietnam - who graces the cover of A Promise (aka a promise Jamie won't kill himself) - is just as tragic and somehow injected with dark humour. Inspirational writing, especially reading this as a fellow bisexual disaster person. 4.5 stars.

[r. fay · Rating 5 out of 5]

genuinely disgusting in the warmest and hottest way possible:) renaud camus wishes, baby! i love having a window to jamie stewart's holes 💕 keep em coming!!

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

very depressing, very erotic, very funny and very gross. loved it

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok Jonna här kommer en review: snuskig bok, fick mig att skratta mycket, men behövde också fundera på vad jag höll på med. Rekommenderar

[Sachith · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 100th book since i really started reading books again and using goodreads to stay on track like 4 years ago! As someone who is a fan of xiu xiu, this gives a lot of insight into the type of life that led to such crazy, dissonant and beautiful music. JS’ writing is quite good, although there were many times where they tried to do some artistic flourish and it really fell flat for me. some of it felt quite obscure and not very affecting. but i think there are also a lot of lines and alot of moments that are the exact opposite. final chapter felt like a nice ending, specifically the final line making it clear that the book is something more than just a lurid sex diary. its about a freak’s life, and what strange,messy sexual encounters can tell us about human intimacy, connection, violence and loss. truth be told, i got a kinda voyeuristic kick out of the book. lotta moments where i thought to myself, ‘damn its crazy people act like this in the real world’ which is liberating.

[el · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5!! Wow. Unexpectedly moving. Think I felt every emotion possible while reading this and had some very intense bodily responses. Honestly a bit lost for words right now so might update this at some point lmao. Amazing

[KT]

i loved this !!!!! probably unsurprisingly - i love xiu xiu and also things that are sort of baldly absurd, like many of the encounters depicted in this book. a lot of it was written in a fairly straightforward way, but with fantastic, specific word choices that made the stories pop. rly visceral, very frank... "we highed a piscean five" is one of the sentences that i am gonna keep tucked in my brain

[Chiara Kristler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Xiu Xiu is numero uno.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a long time to settle on a rating for this collection of vignettes of the author's sexual history. Although some might find the stories 'transgressive' I found them, in the end, tiresome, as most tales purely recounting sexual exploits are. I am not surprised to find that the author is a fan of Dennis Cooper. Poor Dennis Cooper has his name attached to work with an abandon and inappropriateness that makes it clear that those making the comparison have never read Cooper's work. If you go and read 'Wrong' a collection of stories by Dennis Cooper, and in particular 'Safe', you will understand how far Jamie Stewart is from even approaching, never mind filling his shoes.

But there are things I liked about this collection. Some things brought on a wry smile when he says, in the story Albert VU, that he is unclear "...(if) it is socially unclear if it's acceptable to hit on people while they're working out (in a gym)..." because at one time, for gay men, cruising was central to gym life. But times have changed and this is most definitely not a 'gay' book (please see my footnote *1 below) and I am pleased. Thankfully although the author refers to himself as 'they' on his website he does not use the term in these stories to refer to himself.

This is an exploration of Mr. Stewart's erotic life and history and although I hadn't heard of him when I started reading Anything That Moves most other reviewers had and I can't help thinking that not knowing, or caring, who Mr. Stewart was explains my general disengagement because ultimately this is a series of well written after dinner, post coital, down at the pub, stories or anecdotes. There is a difference between drawing on your life and experience to create a work of art, as Dennis Cooper does, and learning how to dress up your life in a literary way:

"The boy and girl ended up not coming to the show, which I was not disappointed about. When I was trying to play, someone who lived there and didn't want a house show happening as they were trying to sleep or do their homework or live normally played the William S. Burroughs Thanksgiving poem real loud over and over to interrupt and protest. A decent move; it wasn't something I could hold against them. If I had had a quicker mind, I would have accompanied rotten 'ol Bill in a beatnik style - a paean to the older mouths of jagged skulls and the lightning jets of youths' inhumane glue."

If that grates on you like it does on me then you will understand why I didn't like this collection but there was something there, so I give it three stars. Maybe he will learn to write both honestly andwell when he finds his own voice and something to say.




*1 I would refer you to my review of 'Waves: An Anthology of New Gay Fiction' edited by Ethan Mordden published in 1994.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Sex—in all its various, glorious and grotesque forms—is the lens Stewart uses to show us the microcosms of loneliness, brokenness, longing, estrangement and loss that bubble up at the periphery when consuming/consumed by another person(s).

Guardedly reflective, callously accepting, there is little comfort on the surface of this collection of tales from the days of innocence and the days of being wild, but much to be found in the (cum covered, shit smeared, blood-drenched) commonalities of dealing with meat machines and their operators. There are blackly funny moments here, just as there are deeply haunting ones, all delivered so bluntly I found myself constantly checking my own moral compass to see where the fuck I was.

RIYL: Shortbus; Jesus’ Son; Controlled Burn; Livia Llewellen

[Lyssa Harakis-Parish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm writing this review on the train very embarrassed because of how loudly I laughed at some lines. what a ride

[Ådne Solheim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ekstremt pervers og samtidig veldig morsom og underholdende.
Elske allerede Jamie Stewart fra musikken hans i bandet Xiu Xiu men detta va personlig på et nytt nivå. Boka e en samling av Stewart sine mest essensielle (?) seksuelle opplevelsa gjennom livet og det e ikke nokka lærdom eller moral på overflaten, men mellom linjene kan man tolke mye om menneska sine absurde dynamikka og komforten mange finn i intimitet, selv helt uten følelsa for hverandre.

Det innehold veldig detaljert smut og mye mye mye ekle historia men hvis man kan se humoren i kleine sexopplevelsa så anbefale æ den sterkt. Ikke les i offentligheten tho

[mai · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about sex. But not a book about love. And its so much more honest because of it.

Xiu Xiu lead Jamie Stewart takes us through a series of sexual misadventures featuring strange imagery and abstractions, along with an unforgettable sensitivity and self-reflection. Sometimes you’ll forget any of this is claiming to be real and then Stewart with mention the “band he plays in” and you’ll be thrust back into the memoir nature of the book

[Sem Zweekhorst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Net zoals de muziek van Xiu Xiu: goor, grappig, intiem, bizar, grotesque en onwaarschijnlijk.

[Kiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfect book. PERFECT. Perfect. Holy shit

[baby reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got a fever, turned asexual and went to sleep

[salva]

copy signed by jamie!!!!!!

[Marge Hetherwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad and true and false and euphoric. Xiu Xiu forever

[Bruno · Rating 2 out of 5]

Occasionally funny, mostly sad, scary, disgusting and disturbing.

I seem to have a lot more issues with this than other readers do.

First may have been my issue, but I had started this book under the impression that it was a broader memoir about JS' life, though that quickly became apparent it wasn't the case. The idea of a book basically compiling your most notable sexual experiences whether good or bad (mostly bad in this case) is already a bit strange and had me questioning what the author wants the reader to think of this.

I enjoy Xiu Xiu's music and JS is a very interesting figure, I like hearing interviews with them. So I'm not entirely sure why I'm reading this very specifically detailed book of their sex life. It really is just so bizarre and I cannot really get my head around it.

Reading the actual content of the book, the stories are certainly colorful and are well-written, though I don't feel like many of them have a point to them. A lot of them make Jamie look like a total asshole, which is occasionally admitted to in the book itself as well. The only reason I can think of for the existence of these stories is for this to be some kind of outlet for admission and regret. Sure these stories are painful, but I don't understand what I, the reader, can do with them. It sure changes my perception of the author the further I read into it, but I don't really know what the point of it is.

But okay, sure. We have this compilation of sex stories that go on and on. They are occasionally entertaining enough that I keep blasting through.

Then comes the very last chapter. A baffling creative choice from JS in my opinion, where there is a pretty radical tone shift and it discusses the events of the day and following days of his father's suicide. A very obviously not sexual event.

It is in isolation, probably the best chapter in the whole book. It's emotionally effective, especially the image of the ashes being used to paint a rhinocerous. It's very well written and powerful to the point that I almost wished that this was explored more deeply through the whole book.

And then it settled to me... why in the world is this the way the book ends?? There are hints to his father's death sprinkled in the stories, but for the very last chapter to be so details and so emotionally heavy in such a different way to the rest of the book, is a very strange and honestly confusing choice. I do not know why this is the case and it is something that I cannot stop thinking about.

Overall, I do not even know who this book is for. I don't really understand it's purpose or the audience that is supposed to read it. I give it points for being mildly entertaining, but broadly moody. It seems like other people love it so maybe I just did not get it.

[jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking hell that final chapter is absolutely gutting. i’ve never read or experienced something that can switch so quickly from absurdly funny to horrifically perverse so casually and jamie stewart has all of my respect for being so open about everything in this book. i was already a giant fan of xiu xiu but reading this makes me feel like i understand them that little bit more, even if the thought makes my stomach turn a little

[Chanel Chapters · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
A lady working at a bookshop recommended this to me.

I didn’t have a gag reflex until I read this book.
I’m no prude but the filthy sex in this had me blushing like a virgin.
I’ve read some weird shit on reddit but the dirty depraved sex in this makes reddit look G-rated.
At first it was morbidly entertaining but by the end I wanted to bleach my eyeballs.

[Summer Migliori Soto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it, then immediately read it again. This was so so good. It made me laugh, cry, and (almost) barf all at the same time.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but I'll boost it for anything tackling sex with honesty. This is a good and messy, original book. For some it'll easily be dismissed as desperate depravity and for sure Stewart and his life are drawn to mucky turn-ons. But for me, despite, for the most part, not living or loving this way it feels relatable. The rough times, the magnetism of people on similarly downward spirals, the destructive attractions, the desire for filth or oblivion or rejection or faltering joy. It's all here. Where it's stongest for me is the longer or more explored relationships and usually no one comes out shining, unscarred or guiltless. I like the poetic exagerations, moments when the expression or feelings can only be communicated by thousands of something. And, there's other moments of repeatedly topping isanity (the biggest in a bathroom) that feel made-up, or ludicrous, comical, cartoonish, screaming for a limit, a moral line, a rejection of any reader's judgment. Through all of this, with moments that I have to tell other people about, laughing, doubting, full of sad, hurt failings, right when I've hit my limit, Stewart manages to end it all with a sensitive, deeply moving hit of the beauty of death and life. It's an ending I wasn't prepared for, but it elevates the recent scatalogical handshake to somewhere else, all of it the aches of a desperately beating heart, feeling something a little sublime.

[Huck Lanier · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW/////Extreme bias, personal history, and situationally sexual spoilers

Majority of my emotions that are cultivated through the art produced by this man prove to be felt in a state that can be described as transcendentally on-edge. This book is no exception, in fact, I would say this has been the most riveting piece of work JS has given unto the world of normal, board, depressed, queer folk. The Stories of sex, scandal, domination, misfortune, lust, loss, desire, and heartbreak are eloquently DRENCHED with such boldly striking description that it literally was so hard to imagine putting the book down (as to not disturb the conjured imagination state that JS helps the reader be thrown into). I am troubled by this human, not only because in a way, they cross a lot of my lines of moral limitation, but more intimately, I find that each moment I am able to witness his mind through his shared art or words i come to know the world in a completely different (and frankly more depressingly misanthropic) way. Some stories, like ones exploring JS’s history of bdsm, were good to get a little heads up on from other reviews because (UN)HOLY CARNAL SHIT, but others are definitely worth the price to be surprised.

All dedicated XiuXiu users should check out JS’s profound literary ability.