So Beautiful and Elastic
Gary J. Shipley
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
4.50
· 2 ratings · 218 pages · Published: 08 Aug 2023
—Claire Donato, author of Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts "Recalling Barnes' Book of Repulsive Women and Hadean in its academic waste, this miserabilist's trance of "fed-on thinas" dons a destructive getup. Cogitating on the "ignominy of actually having to exist." toxicity is king and identity gets tricked-up, looted from philosophy, film, art, plus porn. The metamuck of the erudite sex worker. The punk muck of the abused stray. The gothic muck of the terrible secret from the terrible past. Shipley's anti-heroine thinks, thinks, thinks her way into and outta existence. So Beautiful and Elastic is a visceral and psychological portrait of disguise. If Wuornos were on a spree with Cioran; if their stops were mapped by Magritte; if the map was an appointment for Die Familie Schneider ."
—Kim Gek Lin Short, author of China Cowboy "This brutal book is one of the best-worst nightmares l've ever had—as if Kathy Acker had written a movie novelization of a grimy true crime documentary and then studded it with exactly the kind of art-historical and countercultural references I love. Or as if Katherine Faw's Ultraluminous had an evil twin."
—Philippa Snow, author of Which As You Know Means Violence