Kathy Acker - a study of a complex character

After Kathy Acker: A Biography

by Chris Kraus

Hardcover

Expected publication: August 31st 2017 by Allen Lane

I read Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School, not long after it was released in Australia and to put it mildly the book had a profound impact on me. Here was this young woman, emerging from the safe suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, who was several worlds away from what she was reading. What was in the pages was violent, sexual, explicit drawings and covered areas that were quite simply taboo in my world at that time. It was nothing I had ever come across before and was my first real foray outside of mainstream fiction. What was illuminating to me was a woman wrote this brutal and brazen book. The very few female authors I knew at that time wrote nice fiction. Even though I regret not keeping a copy of the book, it is a novel that I recall rather vividly. 

It was a nice surprise to be allowed an opportunity to read a biography on Kathy Acker’s life, as I can be honest and say I knew little about her.  

Kraus commences the book with a group of Acker’s former friends trying to determine how to disperse her ashes. It is poignant as you realise that in life Acker was a formidable character and in death she continues to influence lives of those she knew. 

The first time we meet the living Acker is as a 24 year old, living in New York who has hooked up with Neufeld. To fuel their writing habits they perform at a live sex show to earn money. The reason for commencing Acker’s story here is that Kraus can identify Acker as actually being there at that time. For as Kraus unpicks Acker’s life it becomes apparent that Acker was loose with the truth about her associations with people and where she was living.  Kraus does try to uncover Acker’s teenage years and was able to ascertain that while at high school Acker was cavorting with the likes Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Carolee Schneeeman and attending Jean Genet’s plays and films. Knowing this helps you understand why Acker is estranged from her family and why they may not have approved of her lifestyle choices.

Klaus and her research team do a marvellous job in tracking, plotting and pulling together Acker’s life over the next couple of decades. It must have been incredibly difficult to piece it all together. What I liked about Kraus’s research is that achieves several things. It placed you well and truly into the world Acker lived in. With the creatives, the poverty and the struggle to have your artistic voice heard. You are given a real strong sense of the major players and what it was like to be an artist. Then you have the collection of Acker’s work and how it is woven in to give further context. The linking of Acker’s writings to where she was located, what she was trying to achieve, who she was associating with is quite extraordinary. When coupled with the critical analysis of Acker’s work you are certainly given a holistic view. 

I really enjoyed this book. Kraus and her team of researchers have done a really incredible job in bringing all the strands of Acker’s life and work together. Klaus has written an engaging narrative that really makes the reading compelling and honest. Towards the end when examining brand Acker I found really interesting. Posing the question as to whether the character Acker had created was a hindrance or made her iconic?

For those who are students of Acker’s work and those who were in her creative circle they will find this an invaluable book that provides both a historical and critical analysis of Acker’s life and work.  

For people like me, who have encountered Acker’s work and have no other context, this book provides an in depth look at a complex woman and what drove her to be an author. 

A well-researched and great character study of Kathy Acker.