Great Expectations
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Summary
'New York City is very peaceful and quiet, and the pale grey mists are slowly rising, to show me the world'
Pip switches identities, sexes and centuries in this punk, fairytale reimagining of Charles Dickens's original Great Expectations. Both familiar and unfamiliar, our orphaned narrator is transplanted to New York City in the 1980s; becoming, by turns, a sailor, a pirate, a rebel and an outlaw, through adventures incorporating desire, creativity, porn, sadism and art. This ribald explosion of literature, sex and violence shows the literary anarchist Kathy Acker at her most brilliant and brave.
'Acker's most accomplished experimental work' The Village Voice
'A postmodern Colette with echoes of Cleland's Fanny Hill' William S. Burroughs
Pip switches identities, sexes and centuries in this punk, fairytale reimagining of Charles Dickens's original Great Expectations. Both familiar and unfamiliar, our orphaned narrator is transplanted to New York City in the 1980s; becoming, by turns, a sailor, a pirate, a rebel and an outlaw, through adventures incorporating desire, creativity, porn, sadism and art. This ribald explosion of literature, sex and violence shows the literary anarchist Kathy Acker at her most brilliant and brave.
'Acker's most accomplished experimental work' The Village Voice
'A postmodern Colette with echoes of Cleland's Fanny Hill' William S. Burroughs
Reviews
Acker's most accomplished experimental work... As she says in Great Expectations, 'A narrative is an emotional moving.' It should be, but she's one of the few people writing today who manage to blend that kind of warmth, gutsiness, and skill.
Sally O’Driscoll, The Village Voice
