In Memoriam to Identity (ATBO)

Kathy Acker's characteristically outrageous, lyrical, and hyperinventive novel concerns three characters -- Rimbaud, Airplane, and Capitol -- who share an impulse toward self-immolation through doomed, obsessive romance. Rimbaud, the delinquent symbolist prodigy, is deserted aby his lover Verlaine time and time again. Airplane takes a job dancing at Fun City, the seventh der of the sex industry, in order to support her good-for-nothing boyfriend. And Capitol feels alive only when she's having sex with her brother, Quentin. In Memorium to Identity is at once a revelatory addition to, and an irreverent critique of, the literature of decadence and self-destruction.