Shock Treatment

by Karen Finley

Book Overview

If you haven't read this book yet--buy it, take it home, and read it now This is the work that made me get off my ass and actually do something, and it will inspire you, too.--Kathleen Hanna, singer,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872862526
• ISBN13: 9780872862524
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Very satisfied

I was very satisfied with the condition of the book and how fast I got it.

Be shocked

I saw Karen perform at the University of Kentucky in 1991. This book is a collection of her blistering spoken word pieces. Her monologues, ranging on topics from censorship to the pain of alienation to emotional/sexual abuse are at turns enraging, tragic, and unexpectedly humorous. Anyone who complains about her graphic use of language is missing the point. She wants to shock you, to make you angry, to make you think.

one of the best and most inspiring books I have ever read

I am a huge fan of Karen Finley and I found this compilation of works to be very well put together. I have read many of them separately, but am so much happier to have them all together. I loved it.

What was the point?

ok, this isnt so much a review as a question to mrs. finley. i was to do a paper for my english class on whether i thought the book Shock Treatment had any redeaming social value. now, my view on the whole thing was that this was a series of attacks on the U.S. government along with the many horrible things it has done to America, mainly by giving christian white males all of the power. it was disturbing, but at least someone finally got the guts to tell it like it is. so, i was wondering mrs. finley if this was at all what you trying to say to your reader, especially after the NEA controversy. :) and thanks for the shock treatment, America needed that!

Finally... Tipper Gore's Worst Nightmare

Karen Finley, the infamous performance artist and all-around potty mouth, shatters taboos aplenty in this powerful collection of monologues. With her inimitable ability to make obscenity, rage, and even indifference somehow empowering, she weaves a tapestry of social horrors, including but by no means limited to female oppression, incest, homophobia, physical abuse, and sexual depravity. Finley's "take no prisoners" confrontations with social ills leave little to the imagination--but leave the reader with a great deal to think about. One section of the book is entitled "Quotes from a Hysterical Female," and I think that pretty fairly represents the frustrated and maddened mentality from which Finley's sometimes laughingly absurd and sometimes despairingly tragic observations eminate. Of course, it's not a book for everyone--it's probably won't be wrapped up in Norman Rockwell paper for Aunt Martha's birthday present, and it probably won't fight for any tree space in most Currier and Ives Christmas scenes, but it is a collection of truths from the tip-toe precipice of insanity... for those who aren't afraid of what they might find. So, Tipper, you can't say you weren't warned..