Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary

by Lydia Lunch

Book Overview

--Included in Flavorwire's "An Essential Punk Literature Reading List"

"Paradoxia is compelling, exhilarating, and infinitely readable." --Paper

Paradoxia contains frank and often shocking confessions. Lydia Lunch relays in graphic detail a predator's diary, revealing the true psychic repercussions of sexual misadventure. From New York to London to New Orleans, Paradoxia is an uncensored, novelized account of one woman's assault on...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933354356
• ISBN13: 9781933354354
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Ready for a Kick in the Head?

If you are not familiar with Lydia Lunch, then you may be in for a rude awakening. Lydia's specialty is brutality - brutal honesty, brutal emotions, and a brutal no-nonsense delivery. She revels in kicking down pre-fabricated houses of illusion and letting the cold harsh light of day in to expose all festering wounds, withering sins and those nasty little trolls that like to hide in the shadows. Her imagery is an assault to the more refined senses. Jane Austen she's not.I've heard this book described as fiction, then as non-fiction, then as a fictionalized autobiography. I don't think it matters, really, because it's all true somewhere, in some way, to somebody. Tales of people abusing other people, abusing themselves, struggling to crawl out of the gutter only to stumble right back in. Messed-up heads, bruised hearts, ravished souls, all going around in circles reliving the same nightmare over and over again. Some survive, some don't, some break free while others pray for salvation. And there's Lydia declaring that if you want saving then you gotta do it yourself. Wake-up and smell the stench, folks.Some accuse her of possessing no compassion, no humanity, no sense of beauty. But I think it's there, just painted in various shades of gray instead of the black or white to which many are accustomed. It's there, just raw and aching and unadorned. Sometimes you just have to be cruel to be kind.

Modern Adventure Story

An adventure story is not like cartoons on Saturday morning. An adventure is truly dangerous and forces the participants to face their worst fears in exchange for pain, enlightenment, joy, freedom, and a new set of treacherous obstacles. Lydia Lunch brings us along her twisted sexual landscape in Paradoxia where everything is allowed to the point where it almost kills her and others die or episodes of extreme ecstasy and pleasure transpire. What she achieves through the series of violence, sex, and psychosis is what we all should be trying to do instead of working some job. She illustrates the consequences of living an autonomous life, thereby refusing the status quo and security of the "straight life" in exchange for living life to its extreme boundaries of death, pain, and suffering. And where has it all gotten her? Well, I believe she's what you call an artist.Paradoxia is also partially a documentation (and I assume everything she is saying is basically true) of New York in the late 70's and L.A. into the early 80's when artists still had a chance to be just that instead of working 40+ hours/wk just to pay rent. She was living an adventure not a routine, and paying for it every step of the way. In return she received her personal freedom, which simply meant continuous struggle with either other people or her own mind. Life ain't easy.Paradoxia stands as a constant reminder to continually recreate your life, to live it as an adventure, in order to retain control of it from your psychotic lover, your totalitarian government, or your own personal demons.

she read my mind

she writes like she performs her spoken word...very fast moving, doesn't even worry about the typical english language...straight to the point and the point is that life is chaos or at least hers was...constantly moving, morphing, and creating...it entertains and it makes you think...its reality at its core.

Brilliant exorcism of memories/ slice of realism

This one blew my mind. Brilliant is the closet you can get to describing it. There isnt a superlative in any language that would do this novel justice. Raw, chew your nails down stuff. Grittier than Hubert Selby Jr, more muscular than Henry Miller, more real and honest than Dorothy Allison: this is a beautiful beautiful piece of writing. Taut prose, highly addictive page turning qualities. Perhaps the summits of Lydia Lunch's work to date. Anyone who worships Georges Bataille's BLUE OF NOON will be adding this one to their Top 10 favourites Of all time in no time. BUY BUY BUY! Nick

Predator On The Prowl....

Ms. Lunch does it again! This time she has taken us the reader on a journey through the seedy sides of sexual adventures and the tolls they take on the psyche of "our" heroin!! Chronicling several years of "experiences", Lydia seems to have fictionalized her early years for all to learn from. Proven in a most prolific manner, Lydia shows that sex always has a price, but are we willing to pay it, and just how easy it is to get caught up in the rush. A definate must read for anyone who ever felt victimized by men. Only Lydia Lunch can show that you can turn the tables and still have a good time!!!!!