Literal Madness: Three Novels: Kathy Goes to Haiti; My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini; Florida

Kathy Goes to Haiti, the first of three novels in Literal Madness, “Speaks to us out of a delightful mock-na’veté that reminds one at times of the Dick and Jane readers rewritten as manuals for politics and sex . . . . At once hilarious and terrifying, [it] has all the logic of a Caribbean tour and a nightmare combined” (Los Angeles Times).

My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini – wherein, among other things, the late Italian filmmaker solves his own murder, with the help of, among others, Romeo, Juliet, and the Bronté sisters – is a “scathing commentary on false values in art” (The Hartford Courant)

In the haunting Florida, Acker achieves “a nearly telegraphic reduction of the Bogart-Bacall movie Key Largo to fatalistic, tough-guy essentials.” (Booklist)