Dermaphoria Fever

101°F and rising, and I’m here on the one night I’m actually obligated to listen to a lot of Flogging Molly and get drunk, because it occurrs to me that I can’t remember what state I’m in, what my middle name is, or when the last time I had oral sex was. Everything is fuzzy right now and I can’t walk right and that makes now the perfect time to write this review, because this is what reading Dermaphoria was like.

(Sadly I’m sober… this is all natural. It’s a tragedy, I know.)

Dermaphoria’s about God and memory loss and love and betrayal and curiosity and fixation and identity and insects and paranoia and a whole fucking lot of drugs. Craig Clevenger, the guy to blame for all this, is a friend of Sam Sugar’s so it really hurts me to have to say this, but I did promise to be brutally honest.

I hated this book.

It was too fucking short.

I started reading Dermaphoria on an 8 hour car trip and it didn’t even make it to the hotel room. It’s a fast read - it feels more like a short story sometimes in the pacing, and that’s not a bad thing - and Clevenger’s writing is… okay, look, all the reviews said if you’re a Chuck Palahniuk fan you’ll be hooked. I am, so that on top of Sam’s recommendation put Clevenger on my list to check out.

I’m not so sure I’m still a Palahniuk fan. Of the two, I think Craig’s the better writer. That’s the other reason Dermaphoria feels like a short story - it’s a very well crafted novel, with no unintentional loose ends, a tight and consistent use of metaphor to build the themes, and fun, almost over the top, pulpy writing. I said almost. Clevenger stays cool and never crosses the line into downright silly purple prose, but every other page has something for your quotes file.

Look, I’ll prove it to you. Hang on - let me flip to a page at random.

“Either follow me, or talk to me at work.”
“You mean you can’t talk.”

No, I can’t. My girlfriend’s naked, blindfolded, gagged and tied with duct tape on my living room floor.

Doesn’t that just beg to be sigfiled?

Or another:

God’s own clock quicksand slows to an ice-whisper quiet. I follow the smell of morning glories, pear blossoms, wet summer grass, sweet lemon and electricity, everything in God’s chain braided into a single warm breeze and the chain leads me to you. Your pale skin shines in the dark, and your hands leave dim tracers when you move, shrouding you in the cloudy embrace of your own ghost a hundred times over.

See, back in the good old days, people had to sacrifice their health and their youth to life-draining faeries to write like that. All right, so the man can write: how’s the sex plot?

The sex is hot. It’s not the focus of the story, but when it is the story it isn’t glossed over but tense and awkward and intense, like real sex between different people. The duct tape scene is my personal favorite… The interactions around the sex are very real and if you’ve ever had a fixation, an addiction or a passion consume you the conversations might play out like ones you’ve actually had.

The plot? It’s surreal, twisty-turny, and has enough action to keep me awake through the love story parts (which aren’t corny so much as raw). Dermaphoria reads like a puzzle, and yes, there’s a twist ending, but I wouldn’t call it a surprise. It builds very naturally.

Problem is, I enjoyed Craig’s writing so much I wanted to reread. Eh heh. Ever try rereading a suspense novel? Same problem (although it was cool to see how there really were no loose ends, everything was worked in from the beginning and I caught double meanings I’d missed on the first read).

There is only one solution to this problem: Must. Have. More. Clevenger.

…In unrelated news, happy (green panties!) St. Patrick’s Day. I won’t starve you of updates like that again - I’ll audioblog from the hospital for you people, dammit! Can you feel the love? CAN YOU?