Cult Fiction

Rating:
Summary: A reference work that's fun to read
Review: "Cult Fiction: A Reader's Guide," by Andrew Calcutt and Richard Shephard, is basically a mini-encyclopedia devoted to "cult" fiction writers. The book's introductory essay notes that "cult fiction is literature from the margins and extremes [. . .] offering a different angle on social reality." But they also caution that "defining 'cult' is a risky business," and that ultimately "'cult' is what people think it is."

Each entry briefly discusses the life and work of a "cult" author. Amusingly, every author is assigned a nickname. Examples: Kathy Acker, "the pirate punk princess"; Poppy Z. Brite, "Post-punk Poe"; Charles Bukowski, " the dirty old man of American letters"; Samuel R. Delany, "The man who made sci-fi hip"; Donald Goines, "Daddy Cool"; Yukio Mishima, "masochistic militarist"; Mary Shelley, "The woman who created a monster"; Kurt Vonnegut, "Where (Groucho) Marxist tendencies meet Kafka"; Jeanette Winterson, "The lioness of lesbianism." The group of authors is eclectic, international, and multicultural.

The book is illustrated throughout with author photos and reproductions of book covers. The main text is also interspersed with a series of interesting lists. Examples: "N is for Noir: 10 original pulp classics from the hard-boiled school"; "O is for oracle: 5 novelists whose predictions have come true." Although I'm sure readers will bemoan the absence of favorite cult authors from this gathering, "Cult Fiction" is still a richly entertaining and informative reference work.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I have already reviewed this once, but it never showed up. Don't know why. Anyways, this is a great book. It takes a look at many important "cult" writers and the books they have written. It is a great book to help you find other books that you might be interested in. I have found some gems, that I never would have read if it hadn't been for "Cult Fiction!"

Rating:
Summary: cult classic
Review: This is a fairly good introduction to the cult writers that have insipered many different forms of genres in our century.The authors calcutt and shephard give good to excellent biogragphies and footnotes of the subject matter and their work.Featuring such writers as Burroughs,Crowley,Algren,Wright, and money more that are lesser known, but intriguing to discover. A good starter kit for those interested in existentialist thought and social alienation as well as other subjects of cult writing.