SHEEPER

by Irving Rosenthal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 1967

Sheeper is a parody of alienation, a ""black book"" of the Sixties, celebrating any number of underground cults. ""Everything is itch and scratch, skin, surface, and advertising copy,"" declares the narrator, a ""Jewish schmuck,"" who memorializes a world of drugs and homosexuality, a bourgeois past and a bohemian present, where the controlling metaphor is insect life, and a misty-eyed, maniacal prose teeters perpetually between profundity and slapstick. Genet, Burroughs, Roth, and Dahlberg--these are the basic ingredients in Rosenthal's Waring blender. But the experiences are authentic enough, from the archetypal snarling mama (""Vats wrong mit good plain American boiled chicken?"") to ""Famous Queer Histories"" and the truly striking, and obviously autobiographical, scene of shooting up at Alexander Trocchi's pad. Essentially, Rosenthal is a stylist, so it's not surprising to hear the narrator, amidst the ritual four-letter decor, refer to his Mexican lover's body as being as ""perfect as a sentence."" But the style is too consciously an assemblage of shifting speedways, irascible detours, and gimmicky surfaces. And the avant garde sermons (""Everything is sensation, there is no tenderness here, there are mirrors"") more often that not frustrate the raw, kaleidoscopic intimacy and the painfully humorous characterizations of the best passages. Still, Rosenthal's a real talent, and his first novel won't go unheralded.

Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION