(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Since I put such an emphasis here on cutting-edge literature, I've learned the hard way just what a minuscule line lays between a fascinating experimental project and one that just never quite works, with of course that line often changing position merely between one individual reader and the next; take for example the slim story collection The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse by a New York poet and playwright who goes by the nom-de-plume "Lonely Christopher," the latest in Dennis Cooper's edgy "Little House on the Bowery" series for Akashic Books. And indeed, that's the main excitement of an iconoclastic series like this in the first place, is the uneven nature of the books that are picked, with some that stick with you in a cultishly obsessive way and some that simply fall flat; and although I acknowledge that Intercourse will likely be the former with a lot of readers out there, it was unfortunately the latter with me, a book that felt just a tad too pretentious and forced for my tastes, deliberately obtuse prose-poems that make little narrative sense and that are obviously designed primarily for back-of-pub live performances in the middle of the night, exactly Christopher's background as a writer. Although it will intensely appeal to some, it just didn't do it for me, and gets only a limited recommendation today, specifically to readers who are already fans of slam poetry, "Sister Spit" style monologues, and the like.

Out of 10: 7.7 ( )