Often disgusting, often desolate. I appreciate just how defiant of convention this book is. Defiance is perhaps its deepest, most pervasive quality—the fast curtness and defiance of the narration, contrasted with Janey’s hopeless straits, her captivity.
Just what is this book out to prove? What do we gain from having read it? A disfiguring, faithless vision of society, men and women. There is some reality in it, something chimes with recognition despite the crazed intensity and bleakness of the plot. We gain the edge of daring insight, is it, the edge of an insight that does not look away.
The pictorial sections are refreshing and creative. I am grateful for them. ( )

The bits I understood were undeniably powerful. The bits I didn’t were wonderfully bewildering. ( )

I 1st heard about Acker thru my friend Charlie Brohawn in the 1970s. He was always a good source of info & he was excited about Acker because he'd heard that she made plagiarism a literary philosophy. When I finally got around to reading this bk many yrs later, I hated it. To make matters worse, it was published by Grove Press - one of my favorites. My recommendation? Don't waste yr time w/ this. Read the people that she rips off instead - esp Jean Genet. She's just a parasite. Then again, that's pretty harsh. Maybe someday I'll read something else by her & revise my opinion. ( )

This novel is crazy, subversive, and made me feel very squeemish, physically and mentally; I didn't particularly like it at all, but the illustrations were very interesting, such as Acker's 'dream maps'.

Nope. This was the worst.