The Visceral Tear

Transgressive underground literature is alive and well in the UK. A woman living in Manchester has written a long and difficult experimental ode to her lifelong masturbatory habits, which is by turns shocking, funny, sad, distressing, erotic, contradictory, infuriating, vulnerable, aggressive... Every single chapter entirely based purely around sexual fantasies and memories and descriptions of orgasm. Something to upset everyone in here, this is up there with Genet, Burroughs or Sade for explicit and taboo content and the stream of consciousness prose is often impressive. Heterosexual younger men should read this book, they may learn some things. And older men come to think of it, and any woman hung up in guilt about their sexuality, or caught in the sugar and spice trap! Highest possible recommendation for anyone interested in human sexuality in all its beautiful and troubling forms. (Simon M)