Physical Culture: A Novel - Softcover
Originally published in 1989 by Poseidon Press in the US and Pandora Press in the UK, Physical Culture was translated into Dutch and Spanish, but failed to achieve a wide audience. “Hillary Johnson in the 1980s was a writer so far ahead of her time practically no one understood what she was doing,” Madison Smartt Bell wrote in the Huffington Post in 2011. “Physical Culture describes levels of self-mutilation that put it over the top at a time when ‘transgressive’ fiction was supposedly in vogue.” About Dymaxicon Cult Classics Dymaxicon Cult Classics are new editions of books beloved by a handful of hard-core fans—books that deserve more time to grow on readers than conventional publishing schedules tend to allow. We’re bringing these dead soldiers back into print, but our new editions are more than “reprints.” In many cases, we’re re-editing and sometimes restoring the author’s original vision (think director’s cut).
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From Publishers Weekly:
Johnson's disturbing first novel relies on language with a depth and intensity more commonly found in poetry than fiction. Though only in his mid-40s, John, an accountant at a mattress factory, approaches the eve of his retirement. At a picnic thrown in his honor, he glimpses Liann, the young alcoholic daughter of the woman he rides to work with each morning. She invites herself to his small, bleak, suburban house, where both are surprised to find Stephan, a young man from Physical Culture, a health club and bar in the city, who shares a part of John's secret life: John is in fact a masochist, with so many scars, cuts and bruises covering his torso that very few people have ever seen him with shirt off. Much of the action revolves around his abuse and subsequent efforts to conceal it. As in poetry, plot in this short, often overwritten book takes second place to language and imagery. The prose is spare and haunting, but the author strains for effect on nearly every page, leaving the reader acutely aware of the strings being pulled.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherDymaxicon
- Publication date2011
- ISBN 10 0982866968
- ISBN 13 9780982866962
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages164
- Rating
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