Description

Larry McCaffery interviews Kathy Acker in her Greenwich Village apartment. The interview begins with a discussion of why Acker had recently moved back to the United States from England. Acker discusses her use of “I” in text and what it means in relation to her own identity. Acker discusses her use of appropriation in her fiction. Acker explains her view of the “shock” aspects of her work and whether she qualifies as “avant-garde.” Acker talks about her interest in myth rather than story. The interview goes in-depth on Acker’s most recent novels, In Memoriam to Identity and Empire of the Senseless. The final 68 minutes of the interview are a follow-up phone call in which McCaffery and Acker go over a typed transcript of the interview. McCaffery asks several questions regarding clarifications. There is considerable discussion of the threat of a lawsuit regarding Harold Robbins. There is a discussion of commerciality in Acker’s novel Blood and Guts in High School which was not in the original interview but is in the published version of the interview. Separate edited versions of the interview appear in Mississippi Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 / 2, pp. 83-97 and on pages 14 to 35 of Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors, ed. Larry McCaffery, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.