Hello, I'm Erica Jong

by Kathy Acker, Michael McClard (Illustrator)

Artist's book with prose / poem by Kathy Acker and original artwork by Michael McClard.

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Born of German-Jewish stock, Kathy Acker was brought up by her mother and stepfather (her natural father left her mother before Kathy was born) in a prosperous district of NY. At 18, she left home and worked as a stripper. Her involvement in the sex industry helped to make her a hit on the NY art scene, and she was photographed by the newly fashionable Robert Mapplethorpe. Preferring to be known simply as 'Acker' (the name she took from her first husband Robert, and which she continued to use even after a short-lived second marriage to composer Peter Gordon), she moved to London in the mid-eighties and stayed in Britain for five years.

Acker's writing is as difficult to classify into any particular genre as she herself was. She writes fluidly, operating in the borderlands and junkyards of human experience. Her work is experimental, playful, and provocative, engagingly alienating, narratively non sequitur.

Reviews

[Jack Rousseau · Rating 4 out of 5]

The following may contain coarse language and mature themes. Readers discretion is advised.

Hello, I'm Erica Jong. All of you liked my novel Fear of Flying because in it you met real people. people who loved and suffered and lived. My novel contained real people that's why you liked it. My new novel How to Die Successfully contains those same characters. And it contains two new characters. You and me. All of us are real. Goodbye. 

Hello, I'm Erica Jong. I'm a real novelist. I write books talk to you about the agony of American life, how we all suffer, the growing pain that more and more of us are going to feel. Life in this country is going to more horrible, unbearable, making us maniacs cause mania and death will be the only doors out of prison except for those few rich people and even they are agonized prisoners in their masks, the paths, the ways they ahve to act to remain who they are. You think booze sex coke rich good etc. are doors out? Temporary oblivion at best. WE need total oblivion. What was I saying? Oh, yes, my name is Erica Jong 

I would rather be a baby than have sex. I would rather go GOOGOO. I would write googoo. I would write 

FUCK YOU UP YOUR CUNTS THAT'S WHO I AM THE FUCK WITH YOUR MONEY I'M NOT CATERING TO YOU ANYMORE I'M GETTING OUT I'M GETTING OUT I'M RIPPING UP MY CLOTHES I'M RIPPING UP MY SKIN I HURT PAIN ON HURT ME PAIN AT THIS IS GOOD DO YOU UNDERSTAND? PAIN AT THIS POINT IS GOOD. ME ERICA JONG WHEE WOO WOO 

I am Erica Jong I am Erica Jong fuck me you creep who's going to Australia you're leaving me all alone you're leaving me without sex I've gotten hooked on sex and now I'm 

My name is Erica Jong. If there is God, God is disjunction and madness. 

Yours truly, 
Erica Jong

[Derek Frasure · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird little experimental chapbook.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is by far one of the best birthday presents i've ever gotten--a beautiful chapbook with art on each page and totally hilarious text.