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Musician,
actress and spoken-word performer Lydia Lunch's memoir, Paradoxia:
A Predator's Memoir, is a brutal trip through one woman's
sexual history. As a young girl, Lunch was molested by her
father, setting her on a course of unnatural, vicious, and
relentlessly vile sexual experiences and violent, co-dependent
relationships. But Lunch's direct and visceral prose and her
skill in shaping exciting narratives make Paradoxia
a compelling page-turner.
Lunch
begins the memoir by saying that "[n]o names have been changed
to protect the innocent. They're all guilty." However, almost
everyone gets names like "The Spanish Nazi," or "Sick" if
they warrant a name at all. Last names are never mentioned.
Lunch, in her way, doesn't kiss and tell. This frees the author
to tell the craziest, most astonishingly depraved stories
about the degenerates with whom she spent time.
Lunch
describes her many unbelievable sex acts and hedonistic days
and nights in blunt, graphic terms. This is not pornography,
however. Lunch doesn't intend to titillate, and she may aim
to disgust the reader. Blood and urine flood this memoir,
and people have sex on dirty streets, in dilapidated apartments,
and in filthy club bathrooms. Many of Lunch's "relationships"
terminate with one partner in the hospital. In some ways,
the outrageous nature of the stories may remind readers of
James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. But unlike Frey,
Lunch never sentimentalizes her experiences. And, despite
how shocking this book is, the stories seem all too real.
Some vignettes are sad, like her first trick—an old man
who spends his days sitting in a park, who ends up not having
sex with her, but telling her about escaping a German concentration
camp as a child. And some are weirdly lyrical, like the time
a man almost choked her to death by amorously pouring honey
down her throat.
Lydia
is both predator and prey in this memoir, and she dishes it
as well as she takes it. Despite her history of abuse, she
never paints herself as a victim, and she makes no apologies
or excuses for her behavior. The way she treats many of her
partners in this book borders on the unbelievable, but Lunch's
sharp writing and fantastic story-telling keep the reader
with her the whole way.
Those
who have followed her career may recognize a few sections
from the memoir. A fantasy of picking up and torturing a hitchhiker
recalls Fingered, the short film she made with avant-garde
filmmaker Richard Kern. The "J.G." mentioned in several chapters
is her long-term collaborator, musician J.G. Thirlwell. But
fans looking for stories about her days as part of the punk
rock and no-wave scene as the leader of the bands Teenage
Jesus, the Jerks, and 8-Eyed Spy will be disappointed. Lunch
doesn't mention that part of her life, nor does she discuss
her success as a spoken word artist. This book is strictly
what it says—a sexual confession.
Lunch's
sentences are short, choppy fragments, giving the prose an
almost violent feel that serves these cruel vignettes well.
A section begins "Early Sunday morning, a knock on the back
door. Johnny. Tracked me down through vague connections I
had maintained in New York. Stupid ear-to-ear grin. Invites
himself in. Crusty and hung over." Later, she recalls when
he introduces her to heroin. "Knocked me flat on my ass. Passed
out to wake up and puke. He stood over me laughing. Said it
was the usual first response. That I'd get used to it. Learn
to love the vomit. I told him to fuck off." This is not a
book for those who are sticklers for correct grammar; she
also frequently changes tense. Nor is it, obviously, a book
for the squeamish. But for those who enjoy confessional memoirs
and are comfortable with reprehensible behavior and unconventional
lifestyles, Paradoxia rewards the reader with a glimpse
into a highly unique, uncompromising woman.
(December,
2007)
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