November 30: The Transgressor

Experimental feminist novelist Kathy Acker (Karen Lehman) died at age 50 on this date in 1997. Acker combined autobiography, plagiarism, cut-up techniques (developed by William S. Burroughs), pornography, violence, and other styles, themes, and genres in her writing, and achieved a reputation as a feminist, a punk, and a transgressive artist. She married twice, lived as a bisexual, and was heavily tattooed before tattooing became commonplace. Critics linked her artistically to Jean Genet, Gertrude Stein, Cindy Sherman, and other avant-garde figures, and her posthumous reputation revealed her significant influence upon younger writers and artists. Acker’s books include Politics, a collection of poems and essays (1972); I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac: Imagining (1974); Great Expectations (1982); Blood and Guts in High School (1984), which was banned in Germany for its violence and incestuous sexuality; Don Quixote (1986); and My Father, Hannibal Lecter, among many others. In 1996 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, had herself photographed after her double mastectomy, and ended her life deeply involved with alternative health treatments. “I’m very staid compared to my students, actually. I come from a generation where you’ve got the PC dykes and confused heterosexuals. No one ever told me that you could walk around with a strap-on, having orgasms.” —Kathy Acker