After Kathy Acker: A Biography

After Kathy Acker: A Biography 

Chris Kraus

Book Review: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Kathy Acker lived a colourful life. She was a writer, a dreamer, and modern day women. She travelled. Kathy married and divorced twice. She had a great range of friends and lovers. She was a notorious fiction writer both in her books, and life. Kathy died at the age of 50 after a battle with cancer.


This book is a Biography of her life. There were some ups and downs. Kathy wasn't a sheep, and she was happy to colour outside the lines. She lived her life how she wanted and held her head high.

This is an interesting read, and the author Chris Kraus tries to keep to the facts (which I'm guessing was difficult as not even Kathy herself told the whole truth). 


I enjoyed this book. I just would have liked to have seen some pictures.


4 stars out of 5. *ARC via Netgalley*

Hardcover £20 or £9.99 Kindle.

Expected publication: August 31st, 2017 by Allen Lane

Picture: http://theliteraryunderground.org/wiki/index.php?title=Kathy_Acker

Blood and Guts in High School 

Kathy Acker

Janey lived in the locked room. Twice a day the Persian slave trader came in and taught her to be a whore. Otherwise there was nothing. One day she found a pencil stub and scrap of paper in a forgotten corner of the room. She began to write down her life, starting with "Parents stink" (her father, who is also her boyfriend, has fallen in love with another woman and is about to leave her).

With Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker, whose work has been labeled everything from post-punk porn to post-punk feminism, has created a brilliantly subversive narrative built from conversation, description, conjecture, and moments snatched from history and literature.

~ groveatlantic.com