"The motormouth blonde on a pedestal is such an adored American icon that Chrysler ought to make it into a hood ornament. So what does it mean when a nice, serious little publishing house takes on a soi-disant vat-dyed trollop whose shtick is not only suspiciously dodgy but barely popular? In the case of Henry Holt¹s offering of Lisa Carver¹s Dancing Queen, the gesture is reminiscent of the distracted suitors who showered Lorelei Lee with tiaras and perfume and tubs of champagne in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In other words, they seem to have lost their minds.
"Granted, it can be hard to resist a woman who could show up, along with Vaclav Havel and Noam Chomsky, in The Utne Reader¹s "100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life.¹ As performer Lisa Suckdog, she "peed, shat, humped, fought, and caterwauled¹ her way across obscure punk-club stages and into the arms of Manson pen pal Boyd Rice. Carver has already brought out 19 issues of her own zine, Rollerderby, in which she and her friends endlessly quiz themselves about one another; the bound version is published by Feral Press.
"The Utne blew right by a couple of glaring details on its way to another mad-cap rendezvous with the Crazy Youth Thing. No need to get technical about Rice, the father of Carver¹s baby, being a member of WAR (White Aryan Resistance)-affiliated American Front. (He¹s not her husband; it¹s okay. And didn¹t they just split up?) But how to explain Rice¹s well-publicized epistolary friendship with Charles Manson and his even more well-publicized collection of Anton LaVey and Hitler doodads?"
***I, Lisa, gotta interrupt this review to say why would one explain some letters exchanged ten years ago between one of the author¹s ex-boyfriends and totally boring, annoying schizophrenic Charles Manson? Charles Manson was not mentioned once in my book, and Boyd was only one little tiny footnote. And he was never a member of WAR--I know that for sure because when another newspaper said that, Boyd hired a lawyer and it was confirmed by the head of WAR, who has all the documentation of membership, that Boyd was never a member of nor involved in WAR. Isn¹t it illegal to print an untruth like that, defamation of character? Anyway, I¹m going to cut the next paragraphs related to Boyd, because I don¹t know why a book review should devote five out of seven paragraphs to a man who has nothing to do with the book. I think Sally might have a crush. Believe me, Sally, the sex is great but beyond that it¹s just not worth it--I think Boyd¹s addicted to snuff, and let me tell you, the smell of that stuff lingers". But to resume:
"Question: Can someone spend so much time playing around with racist organizations without there being a major part of their m.o. that¹s mated to the cause? Carver¹s point, if she could define it, is probably that you can explore the dark side of human nature without becoming the thing that fascinates you, and that pissing people off is good for the U.S.A. The other way to look at it is: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it¹s a Nazi.
"Carver can only distance herself from this mess if she can write her way out, and in this arena she¹s stranded without so much as a metaphorical peashooter. She¹s uninhibited in her sexual fantasies and has heartfelt things to say about stuff the rest of us would rather not think about: "What modern man is a man of the sea? Only Fabio!¹ But her prose is that of a free-wheeling, dunce-high school junior (she¹s 27) who¹d given to frequent attacks of hebephrenia mixed with suffocating narcissism. And that¹s after being cleaned up for her mainstream debut. [more about Boyd]
"Lisa on art: "Henry Miller was a big stinky old self-important blowhard. No wonder his wife had to go to an insane asylum.¹ Lisa on pride: "If you care about your race, you want to propagate it. Of course, Hitler didn¹t have children, but I guess he was too busy.¹ Lisa on identity: "Let other countries think all the time. They do it better anyway. I¹d rather have a peanut butter sundae and do a little dance.¹ As Lorelei Lee used to say Brains Are Really Everything."
