Empire of the Senseless. Кэти Акер

      

WORKS BY KATHY ACKER PUBLISHED BY GROVE PRESS

      Blood and Guts in High School

      Don Quixote

      Empire of the Senseless

      Great Expectations

      In Memoriam to Identity

      Literal Madness

      My Mother: Demonology

      Portrait of an Eye

      Rip-off Red, Girl Detective

      Pussy, King of the Pirates

      Essential Acker

      EMPIRE of the SENSELESS_____________

       Kathy Acker

       Introduction by Alexandra Kleeman

      Copyright © 1988 by Kathy Acker

      Illustrations by Kathy Acker

      Introduction copyright © 2018 by Alexandra Kleeman

      Cover design by Becca Fox Design

      Cover photograph © Michel Delsol

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

      THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

       Published simultaneously in Canada

       Printed in the United States of America

      First Grove Atlantic edition: October 1988

      This Grove Atlantic edition: May 2018

      Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 88-19154

      ISBN 978-0-8021-2835-5

      eISBN 978-0-8021-4657-1

      Grove Press

      an imprint of Grove Atlantic

      154 West 14th Street

      New York, NY 10011

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

       groveatlantic.com

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       This book is dedicated to my tattooist.

      Table of Contents

       Cover

Works by Kathy Acker Published by Grove Press

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

Introduction by Alexandra Kleeman

Elegy for the World of the Fathers

I Rape by the Father (Abhor through Thivai)

II Raise Us From the Dead (Thivai)

       III In Honour of the Arabs (Abhor)

       IV Romanticism (Thivai)

       V Let Let the Algerians Take Over Paris (Abhor)

       Alone

       I Child Sex (Thivai)

       II The Beginning of Criminality /The Beginning of Morning (Abhor)

       III On Becoming Algerian (Thivai)

       Pirate Night

       I I Realize Something (Thivai)

       II Black Heat (Abhor)

       Back Cover

Introduction

“I make nothing new, create nothing: I’m a sort of mad journalist,”¹ Kathy Acker wrote in 1989, on Empire of the Senseless, her fifth book from a major publisher and first venture into the realm of science fiction. At first glance, journalism seems an odd analogy for this work, an obscene and mind-bending saga set in the shadow of Reagan’s presidency and told from the alternating perspectives of Thivai, a pirate, and his intermittent lover, a half-human half-robot woman named Abhor. But even as the novel extends into a speculative near-future—where Paris has been overrun by Algerian rebels and the CIA conducts clandestine operations to turn this chaos to their strategic advantage—it remains insolently rooted in the world in which we belong, anchored by Acker’s stubborn commitment to rendering visible the sexist, racist, capitalistic, father-fucking societal ego of her time—and of our own. Kathy Acker is a muckraker in the original sense, one who dredges up the dirt and puts it on display to the delight and horror of the reading public.

      “Knowing much information and not feeling anything doesn’t get you anywhere,” a terrorist tells Abhor early on. “The answer to your question is that democracy doesn’t get you anywhere.” As heterodox as Acker may be in form and structure, this novel is concerned with elemental political questions: How should