Empire of the Senseless

An unreadable exercise in unanchored Freudian stream-of-consciousness, by surly, talented punk writer Acker (Literal Madness, 1987; Blood and Guts in High School; Don Quixote, etc.). It's hard to tell what this novel is about, exactly, because it's short on plot and sullenly obscure about setting, but the action appears to center on a "revolutionary" uprising of third-world immigrants to Paris some time in the near - but distinctly post-civilized - future. The story (such as it is) is told by two amoral blood-curdlers whose limitless ids are set loose by this uprising (or so one guesses): Abhor, a mutant "robot" girl whose wealthy, worldly father loved to rape her as a child and whose mother, discovering them locked in an embrace, committed suicide; and Thivai, a part-time pirate, part-time pimp who barks orders to Abhor and takes pleasure in humiliating her as, together, they sail the seas and gruesomely slaughter everyone in sight - that is, when they aren't performing unspeakable acts of infant-nightmare sexuality on each other. The point? Some stalwart readers might say loss of meaning in the modern world; but a private exorcism seems more like it. For polymorphous perverse readers only. (Kirkus Reviews)