Amy Scholder

This provocative collection of short fiction, essays, and poetry freely delves into forbidden zones of sex and transgressive behavior. The writers and artists featured in High Risk share one strong conviction: that art must be bound only by the limits of the imagination. Here is the so called dark side of life beckoning in all its manifestations - sadomasochism, prostitution, incest, drug use, bondage, transsexuality. Filled with tenderness and brutality, with wit and sensuality, these are works by writers on the cutting edge of contemporary American literature. This is writing that dares to give voice to the shadow regions of the heart, to the most subversive desires of the body, and to a politics that unabashedly defies convention.… (más)

For all the contributors to Icon, authors Hanne Blank, Mary Gaitskill, Danielle Henderson, Rick Moody, Jill Nelson, Zoe Pilger, and Kate Zambreno, musician Johanna Fateman, and Mx. Justin Vivian Bond (beyond-category), the women they discuss act not so much as muses, but rather as guiding spirits, sources of power, and fonts of encouragement. In some cases, the authors go to the edge of turning them into heroines or patron saints, although none of their subjects – Kathy Acker, Karen Dalton, Andrea Dworkin, MFK Fisher, Aretha Franklin, Mary Gaitskill, Karen Graham, bell hooks, and Linda Lovelace – can be considered complete angels. As Danielle Henderson writes, “I encourage people in my life to find someone who is doing exactly what they want to do, and to see a path for themselves in their footsteps. I found that in bell hooks. Maybe someone will find it in me.” As Amy Scholder suggests in her introduction when she writes, “Public figures easily become symbols, ideas, icons….What I’ve come to realize is that in looking for them, I look for myself as well,” the best essays in the collection are the most personal, such as Henderson’s on hooks. Kate Zambreno wrestles with both the persona and the work of author Kathy Acker. Justin Vivian Bond beautifully and hilariously merges with his icon, Estée Lauder model Karen Graham, while Hanne Blank pulls a stunning 360-degree turn away from just this kind of intense identification in the second half of her outstanding meditation on culinary writer MFK Fisher. The essayists do not shy away from the flaws in their subjects. Founding member of the band Le Tigre Johanna Fateman, writing about anti-porn activist Andrea Dworkin, shows us that an icon may not even be a ‘positive’ person or perfect role model. In fact, part of the writer’s attraction is their imperfections. What is important to these authors is what the women create for them, or in them, as Jill Nelson says about diva Aretha Franklin and her iconic rendition of “Respect”, “Aretha sings into existence a universe in which the pitfalls are many but the possibilities are endless. Her voice creates a world in which I can be vulnerable, sexy, voracious, smart, demanding, powerful, and no less a woman, no less attractive for it.” It is striking how many of the authors in Icon were imprinted by their subjects in their teens or other formative moments in their lives, while working out who they were, and who they were not. Perhaps that is the true role of an icon, to act as a kind of beacon. She points to the future and says, be this: Be yourself.… (más)