Product Description

Acclaimed winner of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a lifetime's contribution to gay and lesbian literature, Samuel R. Delany wrote Hogg three decades ago. Since then it has been one of America's most famous 'unpublishable' novels. The subject matter of Hogg is our culture of sexual violence and degeneration. Delany explores his disturbing protagonist Hogg on his own turf--rape, pederasty, sexual excess--exposing an area of violence and sexual abuse from the inside. As such, it is a brave book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135158 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 219 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781573661195
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Hugo-and Nebula Award-winner Delany?whose early books were fascinating but whose recent efforts have grown increasingly obtuse?has been trying to get this pornographic novel published since 1973. The main narrator here is an 11-year-old boy who joins up with a raping, murdering pederast named Hogg. Coprophiliac Hogg violates women for pay. He enlists the help of other pedophiliac murdering rapists?Nigg, Dago and Denny?and the group sets off to perform acts of hideous violence. After the attacks, a biker friend of Hogg's sells the boy into sexual slavery to dockyard slum resident Big Sambo, who keeps his 12-year-old daughter for prostitution and his own perversions. The traumatized little girl is gang-raped by Hogg's crew as well. Meanwhile, teenaged Denny goes on an insane mutilating and mass-murder spree, eludes the police and finally returns to Hogg and the hopelessly confused narrator, who has been "rescued" after Hogg murders Big Sambo. Gang-rape attacks and criminal sex orgies are detailed at excruciating length, with photographic realism. This potent emetic is all the more disturbing for want of modulators of honest outrage. In other works, Delany has examined the role of the criminal within society; with Hogg, he apparently was content merely to inhabit the criminal mind without exploring it.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Hogg is a truly significant book. It is distasteful, raw, and upsetting; it also treats some of the sexual taboos that Americans do not want addressed in either art or politics. Hogg is an artistic triumph, as well as a political one." -John O'Brien, Dalkey Archive Press
-- Review

Review

Customer Reviews

WARNING: Not for the easily offended!
Well known amongst Delany fans as the one book that publishers wouldn't touch, the mystery was finally ended when "Hogg" was finally published in 1995. And,man, was it a shock! Devoted Delany readers were curious as to what could make this work so much more controversial than "Dhalgren", "Equinox" or the "Neveryona" series, complete with their descriptions of graphic sex, violence and madness. While it is true that some of Delany's works did contain such material, nothing compares to the nonstop, ugly and frightening scenes in "Hogg". This is easily the most repulsive, violent and disturbing book I've ever read. I've reread most all of Delany's books with great delight, but this one will surely stay on the bookshelf, untouched. While I am glad this work was finally allowed to see the light of day, I would caution anyone about to read it, that "Hogg" is not likely to titillate or excite the reader so much as frighten and horrify. Nonetheless, as a devoted Delany reader, I will pick up the next release without hesitation

DEFINITELY NOT FOR THE READERS OF HIS FANTASY STORIES!
This book goes far beyond anything I have ever read by Delany. It deals with the issue of pedophilia in a very graphic and disturbing way. Knowing that not everyone is aware of of the inclinations of the author, it might be fair to warn readers that unless they have a fairly strong stomache, they should pass this book by. It isn't that he deals with a new concept here, he has used this imagery before in books like Equinox, and the Neveryon series, but that he concentrates the whole of this book on it. I buy anything that I can find by him, but would say this is only for that singular researcher trying to complete some project related to Delany's life. TRY SOMETHING ELSE!

Mailer states it has merit . . .
yet he seems to be giving accolades to most everything these days so we'll discard that.

I view it as an endurance test that is heavily laced with black humor. Yes, it is a sign of the times and a reflection of the cutlture that produced it, yet Delany knew this would be said of the work when he was writing it. Next. We have four paid-for-hire rapists that committ any and all acts within the slim volume. By the end we have a serial killing spree that blows Ellis' AMERICAN PSYCHO clean out of the water. In between we witness a character urinating upon another's leg. When the latter inquires what the formering is doing, he replies, "Pissin' on ya' knee." Simple enough. This along with the title character going throughout the course of most of the novel with only one shoe--remember he's involved with vile killings, heavy ethical philosophizing, and sodomistic acts.

To end, I must quote the librarian whom I returned the text: "It's like a car wreck, you can't help but look," as she flips through the pages while eating a candy bar.