AmosL
11-24-2006, 06:25 PM
Woolley, Thomas. “Toilet”. Suspect Thoughts Press, 2005
Is It a Shocker?
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Undoubtedly you are wondering what kind of book could carry the name “Toilet”. I have to confess that I wondered the same thing when I first saw it at the venerable Barnes and Noble store in West Little Rock.
I didn’t buy it the day I saw it and when I went back a couple of days later to pick it up, it was gone. Imagine my surprise when I opened my mailbox this afternoon and found that Greg Wharton of Suspect Thoughts Press sent me a review copy. So I sat myself down, lit a smoke4and put on some coffee and I was ready to hit the “Toilet”.
I had no idea about what to expect but I was very pleasantly surprised when I realized I was actually enjoying a very literate book with one of the strangest titles I had ever come across.
Let me say this from the get go, this book has brilliance. The writing is fluid (excuse the pun) and it says a lot about the way we live. Let’s face it—behind my “pristine” appearance lies a really sensual person (who would love to be a slut) and this book appealed to those aspects of my personality and my being. This is not so much a piece of literature but rather ranting and stories which are laced with acid and degeneracy—and they are fun. Woolley’s voice is crystal clear and he is sexy and honest as well as aggressive in his writing. He aims to shock and that he does. When the book first appeared in 1998 it was a shocker and the newly revised edition still shocks, perhaps even more than before when we take a good hard look at what is happening in this country under Bush. As Woolley deals with gay Portland, “the white trash capital of the world”, we see similarities in our own neighborhoods. As we learn about the Portlanders, we also learn about ourselves, our hidden desires, our fantasies, our dream lives. Let me punctuate that with a “Woolleyism”, “the really interesting show is not onscreen but in the darkest part of the theater.”
Woolley acknowledges that his writing is like vomiting on a page and what comes out “saturates the page” and is rarely cut. I guess it is fair to say that “Toilet” is a book of spewing and some of them are not exactly the average reader’s usual fare. I, however, found a great deal there and I am well pleased that I read the book. Basically “Toilet” is a group of unpolished first person tales of Portland that deal with the disquiet ness of gay life. The stories don’t shock—they break through shock. Instead f shocking us, they give s hope—hope to change the present in order to make the future better. I felt if I had been punched up, knocked down, given smelling salts and roused to the point of action.
Let’s face reality. There is not much n the world that shocks us anymore. We have seen assassinations, terrorist attacks and George W. Bush in the White House. Janet Jackson has flashed us on national TV and we see wholesale murder in the movies and ads for penile erectile dysfunction on prime time TV ads, We can discuss diarrhea on the tube, we have been warned about yeast infection and see Bob Dole take Viagra. Perhaps the only real shocker left for us to endure is to being standing next to someone at a fashionable opening and have cut the cheese and admit that he did so in a loud voice. Should we be shocked by a short story named “Piss Bottle”? Woolley’s writing is brutally honest and honesty offends only those who do not partake of it. What a pleasure it is to have raw emotion, to have an author write what he really thinks. Truth only hurts those who lie and if one is offended by truthfulness, then he hasn’t much of a place in the world today.
This is “Toilet”—brutal honesty and straight outspoken language. Woolley writes down what most of us would like to experience. He is brave enough to write how he feels. These stories will arouse your appetite for sexuality; they will make you horny and make you reconsider who you really are. Isn’t one of the qualities of good literature is that it makes you think? Shakespeare used that technique and so does Thomas Woolley. I have to say that this is a book that made me sit up and reconsider and reevaluate myself. How long any change may last, I have no idea.
Is It a Shocker?
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride
Undoubtedly you are wondering what kind of book could carry the name “Toilet”. I have to confess that I wondered the same thing when I first saw it at the venerable Barnes and Noble store in West Little Rock.
I didn’t buy it the day I saw it and when I went back a couple of days later to pick it up, it was gone. Imagine my surprise when I opened my mailbox this afternoon and found that Greg Wharton of Suspect Thoughts Press sent me a review copy. So I sat myself down, lit a smoke4and put on some coffee and I was ready to hit the “Toilet”.
I had no idea about what to expect but I was very pleasantly surprised when I realized I was actually enjoying a very literate book with one of the strangest titles I had ever come across.
Let me say this from the get go, this book has brilliance. The writing is fluid (excuse the pun) and it says a lot about the way we live. Let’s face it—behind my “pristine” appearance lies a really sensual person (who would love to be a slut) and this book appealed to those aspects of my personality and my being. This is not so much a piece of literature but rather ranting and stories which are laced with acid and degeneracy—and they are fun. Woolley’s voice is crystal clear and he is sexy and honest as well as aggressive in his writing. He aims to shock and that he does. When the book first appeared in 1998 it was a shocker and the newly revised edition still shocks, perhaps even more than before when we take a good hard look at what is happening in this country under Bush. As Woolley deals with gay Portland, “the white trash capital of the world”, we see similarities in our own neighborhoods. As we learn about the Portlanders, we also learn about ourselves, our hidden desires, our fantasies, our dream lives. Let me punctuate that with a “Woolleyism”, “the really interesting show is not onscreen but in the darkest part of the theater.”
Woolley acknowledges that his writing is like vomiting on a page and what comes out “saturates the page” and is rarely cut. I guess it is fair to say that “Toilet” is a book of spewing and some of them are not exactly the average reader’s usual fare. I, however, found a great deal there and I am well pleased that I read the book. Basically “Toilet” is a group of unpolished first person tales of Portland that deal with the disquiet ness of gay life. The stories don’t shock—they break through shock. Instead f shocking us, they give s hope—hope to change the present in order to make the future better. I felt if I had been punched up, knocked down, given smelling salts and roused to the point of action.
Let’s face reality. There is not much n the world that shocks us anymore. We have seen assassinations, terrorist attacks and George W. Bush in the White House. Janet Jackson has flashed us on national TV and we see wholesale murder in the movies and ads for penile erectile dysfunction on prime time TV ads, We can discuss diarrhea on the tube, we have been warned about yeast infection and see Bob Dole take Viagra. Perhaps the only real shocker left for us to endure is to being standing next to someone at a fashionable opening and have cut the cheese and admit that he did so in a loud voice. Should we be shocked by a short story named “Piss Bottle”? Woolley’s writing is brutally honest and honesty offends only those who do not partake of it. What a pleasure it is to have raw emotion, to have an author write what he really thinks. Truth only hurts those who lie and if one is offended by truthfulness, then he hasn’t much of a place in the world today.
This is “Toilet”—brutal honesty and straight outspoken language. Woolley writes down what most of us would like to experience. He is brave enough to write how he feels. These stories will arouse your appetite for sexuality; they will make you horny and make you reconsider who you really are. Isn’t one of the qualities of good literature is that it makes you think? Shakespeare used that technique and so does Thomas Woolley. I have to say that this is a book that made me sit up and reconsider and reevaluate myself. How long any change may last, I have no idea.