Muffy: Or A Transmigration Of Selves (Book Review)

Transgressive literature often tries to say something but the execution makes them say something else by accident. In the case of Muffy: or A Transmigration of Selves this is especially true since unlike other transgressive novels I’ve read like American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis or Michel Houellebecq’s The Map And The Territory where Patrick Bateman is a character intended for us to detest and The Map And The Territory feeling more like a fictionalised essay about the contemporary art market and capitalism’s confusing relationship with human labour, Muffy is a bit like American Psycho in that it also contains sexualised torture scenes but this time Patrick Bateman’s been swapped out for this left-leaning extremist woman whose commentary would be grating towards American readers who would find the beating of the Ronald Reagan dead horse juvenile via the author’s implying the man tripled the national debt buying a sculpture made from the corpses of an African American family… to an Australian man like me whose irreverence towards authority is considered a national trait shared by many other of my countrymen and women, this satire is a bit lost in translation much like I imagine my own work’s references to the OFLC would be lost on readers if I didn’t put footnotes in my novels out of mercy. Muffy is a novel that in all honesty, I can only explain via reference to obscure lesbian internet comedian reviewer Diamanda Hagan and her internet show on Blip.tv where she dresses up as a supervillain with minions and reviews Z-grade transgressive cinema as well as the occasional special episode about more mainstream stuff. If Diamanda Hagan reviewed books instead of messed up cinematic delights, this is the kind of book she would review on her show. It’s so eerily up her alley that the book explicitly mentions that the character Sarah who makes sculptures out of human corpses has a collection of depraved cinema at her disposal. Diamanda Hagan is the sort of person who’d find a book where a woman is masturbated with the severed arm of a still alive human baby compelling if not worthy of consideration for examining its core themes, so if you’re part of Hagan’s fandom and you’ve ever wanted a book that combines The Raspberry Reich’s political diatribes with Schizophreniac The Whore Mangler’s Z-grade cinema exploitation and sleaze, there is no other book I would sooner recommend to this very niche demographic. I’m only expending five hundred words on this thing because it’s less plot driven as much as a number of transgressive vignettes, but as far as independent self published projects it’s proof that books are getting just as weird as independent cinema has gotten in the opening parts of this decade, and that books are still rather relevant as a counter cultural artform that can be distributed cheaply now that eBooks are a thing. I bought this for about three bucks on my Kindle so it’s worth a look.