Mac Crane is the author of I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself and A Sharp Endless Need. Their newest book is Perverts: Stories, out July 7th from The Dial Press. Below, they recommend short stories for perverts.
When I think about stories I’d recommend for perverts, I think that they can, at their core, be about anything. That is, they don’t have to be sexual or transgressive, although they often are. To me, they have to be audacious and fearless; they have to be self-assured and big-hearted. They are unconcerned with what you think. They are fearless in their pursuit of emotional truths, an energy which is, admittedly, highly erotic.
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The New Narrative movement embodies a sort of perversity that I am fond of. In the introduction to the anthology Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977-1997 edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian, the editors write of the movement: “It would be a writing prompted not by fiat nor consensus, nor by the totalizing suggestions of the MFA ‘program era,’ but by community; it would be unafraid of experiment, unafraid of kitsch, unafraid of sex and gossip and political debate.” That is the energy that I am bringing to this recommendation list.
“Agatha Letters” by Camille Roy
As a prominent member of the New Narrative Movement, Roy is a must-read. “Agatha Letters,” the first story in her latest, Honey Mine, opens with the question: “Is it all point of view? Pleasure, I mean—the surprise in the dark. I suppose it’s different for everyone.” And then it shifts to third-person POV: “To Camille it felt empty and fresh, because she was.” The story, which is experimental in nature, is erotic and insightful, tragic and unafraid. And I fuck with the POV shifts as they relate to distortion, truth, and how we craft stories about ourselves.
“On the Boardwalk” by Robert Glück
Glück is another foundational member of the New Narrative movement and one of my favorite authors of all time. Early in the story, Bob, the narrator, asks, “What is the desire to penetrate? It takes shape as an empty shell.” The story then proceeds to layer question on top of question on top of question—about the nature of desire, the objects of our desire, trust, betrayal, and more.
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“Boyfriend #666 / The Satanist” & “This Day and Many More” by Brontez Purnell
Okay, I know this is cheating to include two stories, but they were published together in the Barcelona Review (as well as in his novel 100 Boyfriends), and I think that gives me the right to buy myself a two-for-one. Not many people write the fact of the body like Purnell, and with such range at that: in his stories, you’ll find desperation and rage, humor and wit, longing and ache, ugliness and beauty, body fluids and boner killers—and as always, sluts, sluts, and more sluts.
“Moon Over Denny-Blaine” by Max Delsohn
Though Delsohn’s story is about queers reclaiming their space and the collective power in that reclamation, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s all the better for it. It’s funny and weird and smart and includes a memorable exchange in which one character says, “You can’t moon me. This is a nude beach!” and another says, “Yes, I can. Mooning is a construct.”
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