Blood and Guts in High School
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| Author | Kathy Acker |
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| Genre | Experimental fiction |
| Publisher | Grove Press |
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Publication date
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1984 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 165 pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | (Paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 21433552 |
Blood and Guts in High School is a novel by Kathy Acker. It was written in the late 1970s and copyrighted in 1978. It traveled a complex and circuitous route to publication in 1984. It remains Acker's most popular and best-selling book. The novel is also considered a metafictional text, which is aware of its status as a fictional piece. The novel is interested in exploring politics, history, theories, and writing.
Blood and Guts in High School is the story of Janey Smith, a ten-year-old American girl living in Mérida, Mexico, who departs to the U.S.A. to live on her own. She has an incestuous sexual relationship with her father, whom she treats as “boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father." They live together in Mexico until another woman begins to interest Janey’s father. Janey realizes he hates her because she limits him and he wants to have his own life. Her father agrees to let her go and puts her into a school in New York City.
For a period of time her father sends her money, but later she begins to work at a bakery and is appalled by the customers. She has many sexual partners. She ends up pregnant twice and has two abortions. She seems to be addicted to sex and does not care whom she sleeps with. In New York City she joins a gang, the Scorpions. One day the gang crashes a car while running from the police and Janey is the only one who survives. Afterwards she begins to live in the New York slums. Two thieves break into her apartment, kidnap her, and sell her into prostitution.
She becomes the property of a Persian slave trader who keeps her locked up, trying to turn her out as a prostitute. We see Janey’s dreams and visions, and read her journal entries and poems. Shortly before the kidnapper is to release her to become a prostitute for him, she discovers she has cancer.
The slave trader lets her go and she illegally goes to Tangiers. There she meets Jean Genet, the talented, iconic French writer, and they develop a relationship. Janey and Genet travel through North Africa and stop in Alexandria. Genet treats Janey badly, but the worse he treats her the more she loves him. He decides to leave her. Janey gets arrested for stealing Genet’s property. Shortly afterwards he joins her in prison. A rebellion breaks out and they are both thrown out of Alexandria. They travel together for some time. Then Genet gives Janey some money and leaves. Soon after they part company, Janey dies.
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